In the early twentieth century, for instance, the spread of electricity gave rise to a wave of new commodity development based on domestic labor (such as vacuum cleaners, washing machines, and refrigerators) or entertainment (such as radios, film projectors, or phonographs—and the films and records that provided them with content). This process generated not just novel forms of production, but also novel forms of consumption. While new kinds of paid work were created, domestic labor was increasingly transformed into what I termed “consumption work,” sucking ever more activities out of the private sphere of direct interpersonal interaction and bringing them into a public marketplace. The more workers become dependent on these new commodities to survive from one day to the next, the greater their need for a source of income to pay for them, tightening capitalism’s grasp on their lives still further. Yet such innovations are, on the whole, adopted willingly and enthusiastically. There is an almost irresistible appeal in their novelty, modernity, and convenience, their increasing cheapness, the promise they hold out of saving time and labor, and the lure of possessing something that was previously a luxury only the rich could afford. And those who do resist, positioning themselves thereby as old-fashioned, technologically inept, conservative, or even Luddite, quickly find that so many features of social and economic life are designed on the assumption that everyone now has these new commodities that survival without them becomes ever more difficult. Ursula Huws iCapitalism and the Cybertariat (will be published in full on Monday, January 26th)
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 06:30:19 +0000