Confronting the time bind: Work, family, and capitalism

Monthly Review

Volumn 49, Issue 9, 1998, Pages 1-13

  Meiksins, Peter ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0039852397     PISSN: 00270520     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.14452/MR-049-09-1998-02_1     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. Marx's comments on wages, time, and work schedules are scattered throughout his works of political economy, most notably Capital. See also Paul Lafargue, The Right To Be Lazy (Chicago: Charles Kerr, 1883; reprint 1974); E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism," Customs in Common (New York: The New Press, 1991) pp. 352-403.
2. Marx's comments on wages, time, and work schedules are scattered throughout his works of political economy, most notably Capital. See also Paul Lafargue, The Right To Be Lazy (Chicago: Charles Kerr, 1883; reprint 1974); E. P. Thompson, "Time, Work Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism," Customs in Common (New York: The New Press, 1991) pp. 352-403.
3. Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Time Bind (New York: Metropolitan Books, 1997) p. 44.
4. Karl Marx, "Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts', in Allen Wood, ed., Marx: Selections (New York: Macmillan, 1988) p. 46.
5. Good examples of automobile workers' attitudes towards overtime can be found in Richard Feldman and Michael Betzold, eds., The End of the Line (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1990).
6. Hochschild, p. 97.
7. See Lotte Bailyn, Breaking the Mold (New York: Free Press, 1993).
8. Hochschild, pp. 246-7.
9. See Gideon Kunda, Engineering Culture (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1992).
10. Sharon Hays, The Cultural Contradictions of Motherhood (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996).
11. In a revealing example, Hochschild documents the case of Deb and Mario, both of whom work very long hours. She shows that Mario worked long hours, in part, to escape the pressure to help out at home. Deb, by the same token, worked long hours in order to force Mario to do his share. Hochschild, pp. 175-93.
12. See Hochschild, pp. 219-38.
13. Hays argues that the ideology of intensive mothering is a challenge to capitalism, a contradiction of its tendency to commodify all social relationships and to value economic activity above all else. However, one might just as easily argue that it perpetuates the artificial division between work and home which has characterized capitalism since its inception; it also is a useful way to justify capitalist society's failure to provide the socialized child care and other domestic services that are needed to allow parents to work long hours - after all, if it's crucial that mothers (or at least a parent) care for their kids, providing adequate child care at affordable prices would actually be a bad thing!
14. Christine Nippert-Eng, Home and Work (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
15. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "The German Ideology," in Marx: Selections, Allen Wood, ed., (New York: Macmillan, 1988) p. 97.