The Other Side of the Paycheck: Monopoly Capital and the Structure of Consumption

Abstract

The housewife is central to understanding women's position in capitalist societies. Marxists expected that the expropriation of production from the household would radically diminish its social importance. In the face of the household's continuing importance, Marxists have tried to understand it by applying concepts developed in the study of production." Yet obviously, the household is not like a factory, nor are housewives organized in the same way as wage laborers. As Eli Zaretsky has written, the housewife and the proletarian are the characteristic adults of advanced capitalist societies." Moreover, households and corporations are its characteristic economic organizations. Just as the socialization of production has not abolished the housewife, so accumulation has not abolished the economic functions of the household. Harry Braverman has demonstrated how the accumulation process creates new occupational structures, and he has documented the expansion of capital's activity to new sectors. We will argue that these developments also change the social relations of consumption, an economic function which continues to be structured through the household and performed by women as housewives.<p class="mrlink"><p class="mrpurchaselink"><a href="http://monthlyreview.org/index/volume-28-number-3" title="Vol. 28, No. 3: July-August 1976" target="_self">Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the <em>Monthly Review</em> website.</a></p>

Consumerism reconsidered: Buying and power

“…Galbraith argued in Economics and the Public Purse (accessibly summarized by himself for the less knowledgeable in MS magazine, 1974) that women's labour in the management and administration of consumption was as integral to the continuing existence of capitalism as the labour involved in production, but that in neo-classical economics its value was concealed. Here is a point that can yield a considerable amount for feminists (see e.g., Weinbaum and Bridges, 1979) but it is not one to be pursued right now. What is useful for the argument that I am developing in this paper, is the emphasis on the significance of the consumer, and hence by implication, on her potential power.…”

Research On Sex-Roles in the Mass Media: Toward a Critical Approach

“…The expansion and penetration of capital into the domestic sphere since the turn of the century has meant significant changes in women's domestic labor (see Hartmann, 1974;Women's Work Study Group, 1973;Ehrenreich and English, 1976). The productive activities that used to engage women's time have gradually been substituted by maintenance, managerial, and especially consumption work (Weinbaum and Bridges, 1976). The &dquo;Consumer Society&dquo;, which was created after the war to bolster the economy by substituting consumer sales for war contracts, accelerated this process.…”

“…Szymanski argues that as housework is being socialized and its productivity raised, and the process of accumulation is drawing increasing numbers of women into the labor force, the material basis for women's oppression is rapidly shifting from the family to wage labor. The structure of consumption is also changing so that families are consuming an ever-increasing number of goods and services prepared outside the home (Weinbaum and Bridges, 1976). At the ideological level, women have developed a sense of their own oppression and increasingly resist performing the traditional roles.…”

Women and the Struggle Against Brisbane's Freeways

“…However, a number of writers working within the same theoretical perspective have shown how residential life is the traditional territory assigned to women under capitalism. Put simply, the residential area is to women, for the reproduction of labour power, what the workplace is to men, for the production of commodities (see Cockburn, 1977;Frankenberg, 1976;Mayo, 1977;Mellor, 1977;Weinbaum and Bridges, 1979). Similarly, these major works fail to consider the role of women in urban struggle for the same reason-the generality of argument on urban social movements obliterates such specific considerations.…”

“…Similarly, these major works fail to consider the role of women in urban struggle for the same reason-the generality of argument on urban social movements obliterates such specific considerations. Yet there are a number of writers again working within the same field who have highlighted, both conceptually and empirically, how women are intrinsic to the evolution of urban conflict and Cockburn (1977), Gallagher (1977) and Weinbaum and Bridges (1979) have particularly attempted to tease out such circumstances (see also Barton, 1977;Corrigan and Ginsberg, 1975;SchifiFeres, 1976). Writing about her work in London, Cockburn (1977: 177) states that a striking feature of the instances of working class housing action in Lambeth ... is the key role that women played in them.…”