From: Hans G. Ehrbar (ehrbar@LISTS.ECON.UTAH.EDU)
Date: Thu Mar 02 2006 - 14:20:53 EST
Rakesh, in the example with the dish washer, I considered the family itself as a mini-society, in order to get an example for a society for which the labor-time constraint was less important than other considerations, without having to use specialized anthropological or historical knowledge. Of course, I agree that as part of modern capitalism this is private labor. Regarding your second point: this is well taken, thank you for the reminder. Capitalism itself is labor-wasting since it does not count labor itself but only paid labor. If wages are low, then it may not be profitable for firms to install certain labor-saving machines, even if the overall labor requirement would be lower with these machines. This is another example making my point: not the labor-time constraint itself is relevant, only the social relations -- which certainly cannot ignore the labor-time constraint, but they may give it less than first priority. Hans.
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