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Ryan and Jamie talking about people talking about Marx, and occasionally Marx himself.
In this podcast, Ryan and Jamie analyse and go into talks about Marx from great scholars.
We got a lot to get through, so on your Marx, get set, let’s go! For more Marx, go to the website: https://www.articulationsofdesire.com/
00:00:00:00 - 00:00:26:20
Unknown
Welcome to episode five of Desiring Capital. This is where we, Ryan and Jamie, talk about people talking about marks, and occasionally marks himself. And today we are talking about labor. We've got a lot to get through. So on your marks. Get set. Go! Check it out. Don't move. If you got the nerve that shout for you. Just desserts.
00:00:26:20 - 00:00:47:12
Unknown
It's not just the work. Some of y'all head's up in the cloud. I'ma bring your back to earth. Is black back with burn bullshit. Well, we back finally, after a little hiatus. That's right. We're back. We're back. Or maybe we were mostly sidetracked. Yeah, we. Yeah, we also have jobs. This is actually a very. Not really even a part of our job.
00:00:47:13 - 00:01:05:16
Unknown
No, no. Kind of. Really. Although maybe it's one of the most fun parts of it. It is in the end, but, Yeah, we. Jamie and I had to take some time to do some, thesis supervision, for instance, teaching, a little writing and all the other fun stuff. Yup. And administration. Our favorite. Yes. And but we're back now.
00:01:05:16 - 00:01:25:14
Unknown
And that means that we continue our series with another thinker that has been to Rotterdam for Design Capital. Ursula Hughes. Yeah. Ursula Hughes. We were lucky enough to be able to get, Ursula over here, from London is pretty incredible. Just to hear some of her stories. Like it was wild. I don't want to. Yeah, she had an interesting life.
00:01:25:15 - 00:01:54:07
Unknown
I mean, my God, lived in the situation. His house. Yeah. Living in this situation. His house. I mean, I'll say all I'll say is this. I mean, she calls Guy Debord guy. He's first name basis for all you need to know. And, she was on the barricades. I mean, she's a prolific author. Her two latest books include Labor and Contemporary Capitalism and What Next from 2019, as well as Reinventing the Welfare State, Digital Platforms and Public Policies in 2020.
00:01:54:14 - 00:02:21:19
Unknown
She's also very active, amongst leftist publications like the Socialist Register, where she's on the editorial board. You should check that out, by the way. I mean, it's got amazing articles. People like David Harvick, Cheever, Adolph Reed Jr, also on the editorial board. And she's the editor of work, organization, Labor and Globalization. So I mean prolific and the stories and then she has her blog on WordPress, which she regularly updates as well.
00:02:21:19 - 00:02:43:24
Unknown
So there's a lot of her writing out there that you can access for sure. Yeah. And working at a pace. But it's cool because you also get her view on contemporary stuff. Yeah. It's great. Look at me. Cool. So what are we going to talk about today, Ryan? Well, considering we're talking about labor, what we're going to be talking about is lots of consumption, but always, as usual, even more production.
00:02:44:01 - 00:03:07:12
Unknown
This is Marx, after all. I mean, it's really important to kind of understand Marx's contribution in this regard, to the kind of simultaneity of consumption, production, distribution and exchange. Right. They're not just part of this linear process that a more classical economics view would have, but rather they're constantly ongoing. And what that means, or what that kind of entails, right, is that consumption.
00:03:07:13 - 00:03:38:14
Unknown
And this is kind of half quoting Marx furnishes the object of production. Right. And you think of like a €10,000 champagne bottle. Right. You know, the reason that gets produced is because there's a matching consumptive like place for it. Some guy wanted that shampoo. Shampoo? Isn't that what you said? I said champagne, $1,000 shampoo. Well, you know, you do have you do have very fine thoroughbred horses, so maybe that's what you're using it for.
00:03:38:16 - 00:03:58:23
Unknown
That's a dollar shampoo, my man. Hey, but I bet it exists, actually. I bet I was thinking it wasn't that crazy to me. It was like. Yeah, that sounds like, you know, some golden, stuff in there or whatever. But but this speaks to our point, right? Then when that person's out of their $10,000 shampoo, there's now a need for that shampoo.
00:03:59:00 - 00:04:18:03
Unknown
Right. So in that sense, like consumption creates the need for more production. Exactly. And so one of the interesting things as well is that within that process, there are certain things that Marx obviously has his eyes on that he, you know, sees well around him in his like, you know, work life as well, being around factories and stuff.
00:04:18:05 - 00:05:02:03
Unknown
And that's that. He focuses mostly on a specific kind of labor, labor that is so-called productive within capitalism, basically tied to the production of value, specifically surplus value. But, there's all kinds of labor that is not directly involved in it or, I mean, only indirectly. And Hughes had a sort of a light bulb moment as she said it, which was that certain kinds of labor that, for Marx were mostly unproductive are actually necessary still within that system and should rather be understood as reproductive labor, which then takes into account all these other kinds that we will go through all these other kinds of labor, what she calls the typology of labor, where
00:05:02:09 - 00:05:29:19
Unknown
you have all these different forms paid, unpaid, so-called productive or consumptive or reproductive and so on and so on. Yeah. The reproductive dimension of labor becomes sort of all consuming when you start to think about it, not just within the confines of, like, the workers wages that they used to buy food or buy clothes, but that how all of the labor that goes on in this periphery, which would include something like domestic housework, as well as we'll come to discuss.
00:05:29:24 - 00:06:03:08
Unknown
But how this all goes into actually reproducing the circumstances and the capacity of the worker to produce, within the capitalist mode of production. Maybe we maybe we might be working on it. All right, well, I mean, let's go into what we just kind of mentioned already. But, you know, one of the central aspects of Marx's thought has to do with the centrality of the worker, specifically how the worker is exploited.
00:06:03:10 - 00:06:27:24
Unknown
This is obviously one of the or maybe the foundational element of kind of Marxist theory, right. Namely, that workers contribute in some way to this surplus value that the capitalist reaps by employing them as wage labor. Right. And the actual value of their labor under the wage system can never actually be recouped by them. Right. This is the kind of basis for exploitation, Ally Marx.
00:06:27:24 - 00:06:47:06
Unknown
But it's also just our kind of conception of why work itself is exploitative and why maybe it's, so widespread in the first place. Right? Because there's the production of value. And then some guys, like, I think I can make this amount of value that if you would just work for me for this amount of money, then we got it.
00:06:47:08 - 00:07:07:22
Unknown
But that already means, of course, that there's some kind of value that the worker technically produces through their work that does not go to the worker, but to some other person. Yeah, yeah. And since we're getting into this here, I mean, it's worth remembering that the worker in this sense is kind of an abstraction. You know, it kind of in the same way that we would think abstract labor in Marx.
00:07:07:22 - 00:07:34:08
Unknown
Right? Where labor is worth a certain amount, given the specific societal need, a social need for something. Right. It's it, it kind of that worker, as it's situated in Marx is something that we would later come to understand, needs to be broadened and needs to be understand understood more diversely. And it's not simply, you know, the men on the factory floor that contribute to the productive or reproductive systems of a capitalist society.
00:07:34:08 - 00:08:01:08
Unknown
Exactly. But it did start from that worker analysis, basically. We see that kind of emerge. And, you know, Ursula Hughes was was part of that movement that, you know, in some sense took Marx seriously. But not as the totality or whole truth of the matter. Right. You needed to supplement or I mean, amend. Yeah. I mean, to a certain extent, in Marx, understanding the term worker is analogous to understanding like men in Plato.
00:08:01:08 - 00:08:25:03
Unknown
Right? Right. You know, I mean, there is certainly a bias and a kind of privilege conferred on the white sort of male worker. But in the Marxist. So. Right. We had said this already, it, you know, can ignore, for instance, domestic work like and what do we think about that? It's like simple as like cleaning, cleaning your house or making food.
00:08:25:23 - 00:08:44:10
Unknown
So, you know, one of these things that I was thinking about to when, you know, when she was over was, I have difficulty maintaining a clean house because it's just a lot of work. You don't wake up, you have a long day at work, or you. You know, you a.
00:08:44:12 - 00:09:05:23
Unknown
Long day at the office, you know, from a long day at the philosophy office, right? Okay. So even there, the philosophy mind. But, I mean, this kind of speaks to my point even more because as somebody who is not even exploited to that level where I still have control over most of my hours and most of my days and so on, I do have this, you know, struggle with like, oh my God, I have to do it again.
00:09:06:00 - 00:09:29:23
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, part of that's just existential. I feel like, no, it's true. But then another day. But then in your it's being made increasingly more difficult to maintain that or do that to a level that, you know, is certainly the standard or what you want to achieve. Yeah. And this is all like the, the, the like the new emphasis on like hygiene, like sleep hygiene, work hygiene and like it gets even more intensified there.
00:09:29:23 - 00:09:55:06
Unknown
Yeah yeah yeah. I mean when you have to really when they say like, you know, separate your work life balance, right. What they mean is like, the life balance is doing my chores and like, reproducing the conditions. Right, that allow me to then go and work for them. Exactly. And then one of the ways in which we see that from multiple angles is, you know, think of the fact that reproductive labor is also making food.
00:09:55:08 - 00:10:15:10
Unknown
And then we have the arrival of, meal delivery services, actually, the Netherlands with, Tash Bissau or or, take away like, your Uber Eats. Yeah, yeah. But I think it's called something like take away or something. Yeah. Or eat, eat, just eat takeaway or something. Kind of just eat something. Just eat takeaway, something like that or something.
00:10:15:10 - 00:10:45:03
Unknown
But anyways, the point is that actually is a Dutch company who is now, operating in the US and for instance, all over Europe. It's got really big. And what they don't have networks of spices. Oh, it's thankfully not the golden age anymore of the Netherlands. Different kind of spices, different flavors. But, so we can use that to kind of understand what she's trying to get at, which is that are, different forms of labor involved there.
00:10:45:16 - 00:11:11:06
Unknown
So she developed this quadrant or axes, to understand how you can subdivide the typology of work. And one of them is, for instance, the fact that, you know, you have cyclists, delivery guys who pick up the meal only do the cycling to somebodies place, hand it off and get like a very terrible wage, basically, or mate, sometimes not even an hourly wage, but just a tip thing, kind of.
00:11:11:08 - 00:11:30:22
Unknown
Yeah, I mean, this is something we've known about in a long time in like the US, right, with like our tip based service industry, kind of thing. But yeah, it's become prominent here where I think, you know, sometimes I look out like my window or whatever, and you just see orange for House. Bizarre, right? I don't know, you just see orange bikes everywhere, right?
00:11:30:24 - 00:11:52:14
Unknown
Like, people are ordering food all the time. And it's so interesting how there's this transaction, there's like a new form of transaction between two people working on it and working on it. Working on it. It.
00:11:52:16 - 00:12:26:23
Unknown
So Ursula, who's developed, over her, you know, quite long span of work life, some kind of way of understanding how to differentiate between work and types of work or, you know, and eventually she comes up with what she calls the typology of labor. And those are just like different types of labor. So think of, you know, you have private sector work, obviously, you know, any profession, most professions nowadays would be private sector, you know, public sector, obviously government workers.
00:12:27:00 - 00:12:53:07
Unknown
You also have volunteers or say, servants, people employed directly by other people to better by other people, to do specific task in the household or making food, for instance. And then there's a bunch of labor that's not paid. Well, volunteer work is one of them. But that's still within that kind of, professional sphere. But also think of all the labor work stuff that you have to do around the house.
00:12:53:07 - 00:13:18:15
Unknown
So, you know, taking care of your house or family members or, you know, cooking food. Honestly. And so to make some sense of that typology of all these different ways in which work appears, imagine basically two axes, on one you have, the categories paid or unpaid, and on the other one you have the categories productive or consumptive.
00:13:18:17 - 00:13:59:05
Unknown
Now, consumptive, according to Ursula, lacks a little bit of that, say, meaning and attention that you might have for labor that is indirectly involved, as we just said, with, say, capitalist or profession based, employment. So rather than calling consumptive, she calls it reproductive. But now you have basically, you know, four quadrants, four options along these two lines in which you can subdivide those different categories and maybe think about how they interrelate and how they work within economic systems.
00:13:59:07 - 00:14:21:10
Unknown
Yeah. And one thing it starts to make us start to reconsider at least, is like, where do you like these burgeoning industries? Right. Like Taos Basalt or something like, where do they sit on this kind of productive and reproductive kind of scale? Right. It's certainly not productive labor in the kind of traditional Marxist sense. It's like a service, right.
00:14:22:06 - 00:14:43:12
Unknown
But it's it's it's it's reproductive to an extent. I guess you're paying for it. Yeah. I'm trying to think about it because it's it's it's a shift, right? I mean, obviously Marx, didn't as such. Well, maybe had similar services that he could think about, but it was I mean, it wasn't outsourced in his time. No, I mean that this speaks to why something like art can arise, though.
00:14:43:13 - 00:15:08:13
Unknown
Because because this, this huge privatization, which is something that we really will get into, as well. But this kind of privatization creates a way in which you can occupy these various spaces between consumers and the goods that they're trying to access and provide these services that before, you know, in a way, you say, like Taos Bazaar and all these things are the efficiencies of capitalism, right?
00:15:08:13 - 00:15:36:07
Unknown
And they are in a specific way for a certain class of people, but they're also a really terrifying prospect for the future, I think. And most often it's great for those who take or use those services. Yeah, I mean, it's difficult for those who are working those services. Yeah. Sorry, I, I, I was I'm getting hungry. Sorry. Any one of those orange bikes to show up that.
00:15:36:09 - 00:16:03:16
Unknown
Well, I could be in the mood for some going on right now. Some. What is that one? Vietnamese spring rolls. I'll have two. Number 17. Yeah. It's all good. So okay. To continue on that quadrant or I think she called it a diagram as well. Is one of the more useful ways as we were alluding to is to understand shifts and changes within these economic systems.
00:16:03:16 - 00:16:53:00
Unknown
So for instance, it can help us make visible how labor itself is embedded or structured in those systems. So to give you an example, right, economies have different varieties of these types of labor or even different quantities. Right. Some economies are more built on services among production of goods. But for instance, for Hughes, it was a way to look at the economy and say, you know, some European countries where, you know, before or around the 1980s, still a lot of employment was public sector employment, which is a different type of labor, different type of, you know, labor conditions, and a different way of perceiving production and value in that.
00:16:53:01 - 00:17:13:05
Unknown
Yeah. It was completely paradigmatic different. Right, right. And that's, that's a slide that we're still undergoing today. Exactly. And it's it's wild. I mean, you can see it in everything from public transport. I mean, you hear about it with the NHS, right? It's this vicious cycle. You know, every time that they cut the budget to the NHS and then the NHS isn't working.
00:17:13:05 - 00:17:32:08
Unknown
So why do we pay for it? So we cut the budget of the NHS. Indeed it's a vicious cycle of well race to the bottom basically of cutting and then saying it doesn't function and then cutting more and so on and so on. Yeah. And this is what enables, you know, us to have these private companies that provide things like that.
00:17:32:10 - 00:18:01:17
Unknown
Yeah. Right. But not have like, a functioning social system in some, in some aspects. I mean, I'm American saying that the Netherlands, but none of us, there's degrees, I guess. Degrees of social safety. Yeah. Right. Cool. So as Ursula Hughes was already kind of doing in that little bit, you heard she was analyzing or kind of explaining how certain shifts in the economy will occur and did occur already in the 20th century.
00:18:02:04 - 00:18:32:17
Unknown
But also, as you mentioned elsewhere in her talk, that we have current shifts, shifts that we are experiencing ourselves. And so one of them, or what she specifically wanted said was that this crisis of social reproduction. So what we've been kind of talking about, you know, delivery service, you know, having trouble doing things that we would normally think are part of, you know, living a normal human life, basically paying.
00:18:32:19 - 00:19:00:07
Unknown
Right. But then there's a crisis of social reproduction, since the financial crisis. So since, say, 15, 20 years, financial crisis. 0708 there's been an intensification or acceleration of the pressure on everyday people to partake in all of those domains and to kind of further privatize them, to make them part of, capitalist economic system.
00:19:00:12 - 00:19:19:02
Unknown
Yeah. I mean, it's a crisis of social reproduction in a pretty literal sense, right, in the sense that we can't reproduce the actual social dimensions of that, that we were, that we had encoded in, you know, 50 years earlier with the use of, with the presence of public services and social services. We literally don't produce that society anymore.
00:19:19:04 - 00:19:45:24
Unknown
And more and more people are kind of reliant on, you know, this more entrepreneurial and individualized vision. Right? So it is instead of this person being conceived of or a person being conceived of as part of this social body, they're actually kind of in an almost inverse in inverted way. They are actually the source of their own social, social, you know, standing and, their entrepreneurial spirit will dictate how far they go or something like that.
00:19:46:12 - 00:20:08:24
Unknown
And you can see that in how independent or contract work, has, you know, emerged and become so dominant or so prevalent within, economies. I think in the Dutch economy, once you have this, you know, this gig work where, like we said, you know, the delivery person for taxes or goes from delivery to delivery, almost like it's a gig thing.
00:20:08:24 - 00:20:30:16
Unknown
But, you know, it's not quite the same as, say, a music artist who does a gig at the stage somewhere very different kind of work, but still it's structured as if it's that kind of work. In today's economy. Yeah. I mean, and it leads to, I think, a kind of overall difficulty or trap, in terms of Marxist theory or as we might classically say, a kind of inversion of the Marxist.
00:20:30:16 - 00:20:57:03
Unknown
So fond of which is like we one of the central tenants is, of a Marxist line of thinking is that we need to kind of overthrow these exploitative aspects of society, right? These things that exploit us, therefore, like recognizing sociality unencumbered by capital, right, unencumbered by all these things. And this form of gig capitalism, it almost makes that promise.
00:20:57:03 - 00:21:19:11
Unknown
But in reverse. Right. You won't be. You won't have to separate your life and your work because you can choose your hours. But then it's like with Uber drivers, you know, it's like you could make 100 grand a year if you drove 97 hours a week. And it puts you in this weird thing where you, even though you're not liberated from labor, you're supposed to feel like you're liberated from labor.
00:21:19:13 - 00:21:36:02
Unknown
And if you. You know what I mean? It's like, what are you talking about? You can make your own hours, but I can never make enough money. And so that's the question, right? How does this inversion work? Like, why are we so often convinced we're getting free from labor when we're just further and further inculcating this exploitation into our lives?
00:21:36:02 - 00:22:00:21
Unknown
Right. So I guess the question becomes, becomes something like, how do we conceive of the laborer and their possible liberation today? Yeah. I mean, I think this is one of the most important questions. But as with everything, we need to go back back to the accumulation actually before accumulation. Back to the accumulation that is primitive accumulation. Well, what is primitive accumulation?
00:22:00:21 - 00:22:51:16
Unknown
Ryan, it's a great question, Jamie. Karl. The accumulation of capital presupposes surplus value. Surplus value presupposes capitalist production. Capitalist production presupposes the availability of considerable masses of capital and labor power in the hands of commodity producers. The whole movement, therefore, seems to turn around in a never ending circle, which we can only get out of by assuming a primitive accumulation, an accumulation which is not the result of the capitalist mode of production, but it's point of departure.
00:22:51:18 - 00:23:06:15
Unknown
Capital. Volume one, page 873. Chapter 26 The Secret of Primitive Accumulation or grow go by.
00:23:06:17 - 00:23:44:20
Unknown
So, as we can hear from Karl, all of these things that we associate that are so central to understanding Marxism, like surplus value, capitalist production, all of these things in some way rely on what we call primitive accumulation. Right. And primitive accumulation. It's a bit ambiguous to sort out, but it basically has to do with how we're the resources that currently exist under capital, accrued and distributed, such that they, they ended up forming the social relations that came to be like, who had land, let's say, or was able to steal it.
00:23:44:22 - 00:24:09:20
Unknown
Right. And so there are what you can call proto capitalist networks or basically systems in place before capitalism, which didn't come out of nowhere. I mean, there's we can, you know, debate where exactly we would like. Yeah, we don't even begin, but we don't even really know when it's. No. Yeah. It just starts. It's we just have it all of a sudden and it's like, yeah, yeah, but I'm kind of see how it started somewhere there maybe.
00:24:09:21 - 00:24:33:05
Unknown
Yeah. But I'm sure you can get in a heated debate about it, with someone like a library or like a secondhand bookstore, of course, something. So for instance, one, a point at which, you know, many people saying that capitalism in its contemporary form supposedly started is actually in the Netherlands, with some early version of the stock market around the VOC.
00:24:33:07 - 00:24:56:23
Unknown
Yeah. The, the Dutch East India Company for, for my non Dutch people. And so what they did was that basically you could buy a percentage or some kind of stock of a ship that would go overseas, engage most often in something like slave trade and goods. And then you would get some part of the profit, some share of the profit.
00:24:57:00 - 00:25:19:20
Unknown
Yeah. And the VOC is really just a good example of primitive accumulation when we're thinking about it conceptually as well, because it was the VRC, the advent of capitalism, it kind of doesn't matter to a certain extent, because what's interesting and important is that it was clearly traversing a line where these networks were incorporated into a system that was a more dominant kind of feudal system.
00:25:19:22 - 00:25:51:14
Unknown
And then those networks would change and alter, but also remain the same, and then start feeding into a network of what we would now call capitalist accumulation. Exactly. Because, in another way, you could say that capitalism truly, came or emerged onto the scene, in the 19th century, right after the French Revolution, where the bourgeoisie kind of, you know, stakes its claim, basically, and then we have, capitalism as we know it today and basically.
00:25:51:16 - 00:26:14:14
Unknown
Yeah. And one of the things that's critical, if we want to understand the shape of capitalism today, is how resources were divided up, sort of in the lead up to and as early at the onset of early capitalism. Right. Because, you know, if someone was a baron under feudalism, unless they got directly attacked and killed or something, it was likely that they had strategic landholdings and things under capital.
00:26:14:14 - 00:26:41:16
Unknown
Right. So there was a pre distribution that even though it was it a distribution determined by capital, set the very groundwork for capital to emerge. Exactly. And continuously we see how it transforms itself and gains these news for new forms. As we just talked about with what Ursula was talking about as well, which always kind of are unforeseen, but at the same time, once they kind of occur, you got.
00:26:41:17 - 00:27:01:06
Unknown
Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah. It's interesting because it's the contingency. Right. That's unforeseen. Exactly. But it's not how they got there. It's always the same is somebody had money. Somebody got money, somebody stole something. You know, this is property is theft. This is classic Marxist stuff. Primitive accumulation is precisely where you would identify. Right. The property is theft. It always.
00:27:01:08 - 00:27:18:15
Unknown
It's interesting. This always makes me think of, I've actually never seen this movie, but I read about it in a book by Frederick Law, which for me is just as good. Right? But it's a Truffaut movie, and I know the name Truffaut, so I know I should have seen it, which makes this even worse, but it's called the 400 blows, which I think was semi-autobiographical.
00:27:19:08 - 00:27:35:07
Unknown
Lord, don't mention this in Willing Slaves of Capital. And what Laura Dern points out in this is that, this kid is trying to get something kind of off the ground, you know, business wise, trying to make some money, trying to hustle. And he realizes he needs startup money and he starts thinking, well, how could I get startup money?
00:27:35:07 - 00:28:02:17
Unknown
And he thinks of robbing the family, one of his friends, getting all their furniture, selling it, getting cash. And Laura Dern points this out because he says, you know, the the child is realizing this in practice, but the viewer is realizing with him like, oh, it's always theft. And like, even if you want like if you need startup cash, like if you want to start to do something within the capitalist economy, you need something that adds value that you couldn't have simply just produced.
00:28:02:17 - 00:28:24:22
Unknown
Right? Like Daddy giving you a million or so to start your own. That never happens, Jamie. That never happens. It's a myth. It's a mental right, right. It's all self-made. Yeah, yeah. Yale is a meritocracy, Jamie. I don't care what you say. I don't care how many wings of buildings are named after, like the people that go there.
00:28:24:22 - 00:28:55:16
Unknown
But, there's no such thing as legacy. There's no such thing as a legacy, just meritocracy. Now, one of the ways in which, you know, the process of commodification is also unforeseen, is in the biological sense, where, you know, already during Marx's time, we saw the emergence of, say, you know, the early kind of, you know, playing around, toying around with, hereditary traits.
00:28:55:18 - 00:29:21:16
Unknown
And obviously later we get the kind of discovery of the gene in a way. And now we see how capitalism has discovered, the gene or DNA. Think, for instance, of the recently pretty popular DNA kits where you can try and figure out your heritage, or percentages. I would have to say I'm certain. Heritages. Heritages.
00:29:21:21 - 00:29:44:07
Unknown
Plural. Yeah. There's that. I mean, there's there's ways in which so many things unthought of before can be commodified. Right. And but there's also and I think this speaks back to our town's bizarre example, right, where we're creating even new things that you can monetize. It's like, I can't I don't know if there was a real equivalent for towns outside of like, the monarchy.
00:29:44:07 - 00:30:04:06
Unknown
You know, something before this is a new industry, right? This is a relatively new industry that, you know, at least for smartphones, is kind of. Right. Exactly. Yeah. They also come in pairs and that way, like, they're never alone. So yeah. Have you done a DNA kit already? Right. 23. And who?
00:30:04:08 - 00:30:19:01
Unknown
That'd be their real name. 23. And who? No, I will never do that. I don't want to know.
00:30:19:03 - 00:30:46:23
Unknown
We've had a massive reduction in employment in public services. Which of which has created all kinds of, it's added to the burden of unpaid labor just at the moment when households are under pressure from all sorts of other things, like declining real wages. So more pressure for both adults to work as many hours as they possibly can, a loss of the services that enable them to do that.
00:30:46:23 - 00:31:32:01
Unknown
An aging population, which is adding to the dependency. So a real crisis of social reproduction, austerity being one of, contributions to it. Meanwhile, we've got the development of online platforms, especially since the financial crisis. But a few of them started a bit before, which massively accelerate this trend of reducing the sort of individual servant type labor and replacing it with, labor, which is managed by global platforms, global corporations, that food delivery services and so on, either our visible form of this and child support services.
00:31:32:01 - 00:32:04:12
Unknown
But there's an awful lot that's a lot less visible like cleaning services, childcare services, household maintenance services, an enormous amount of labor that would previously been carried out in that direct person to person, often paid in cash, kind of, servant type relationship has been substituted for this, platform labor, with all sorts of contradictory impacts.
00:32:04:14 - 00:32:14:19
Unknown
Working on it is working on it, working on it.
00:32:14:21 - 00:32:37:12
Unknown
Oh thank you. So that was a great summary of most of the things that we've been talking about as well. And I think the one thing that we would add to that is, okay, how can we understand the system within which all of these changes occur? Or maybe we can even say that, you know, this has been a conjecture about capitalism for a long time as well.
00:32:37:13 - 00:32:58:14
Unknown
When do we move beyond capitalism and how will we know this? And then usually we point to all the tensions, all the misery, all the problems that capitalism produces. And then we kind of, you know, as a good Marxist, you might say, that's the moment where automatically something will happen, the revolution will happen, whatever. And at the same time, it's kind of not been happening.
00:32:59:01 - 00:33:19:13
Unknown
And so that's where everybody's now trying to figure out, is there something that we need to change theoretically? How can we understand the buildup of tensions, but not at the same time still understand that there's no revolution to come as such right now. We will talk about this with, Mackenzie work. And also with Jody Dean.
00:33:19:15 - 00:33:47:22
Unknown
Namely, what if this isn't capitalism anymore? What if this is neo feudalism? Yeah. And what they're pointing to, in that kind of when when Mackenzie works Clay's case. Kind of a question. Right? Is this something worse is, you know, the dynamics seem to be changing, right? That is to say, it's not this direct kind of worker that produces surplus value that can be accumulated, you know, traded for and accumulated by the capitalist.
00:33:47:22 - 00:34:07:23
Unknown
Right. It's something completely different. And speaking to the point we were to the point earlier as Ursula, he's mentioned like food delivery. Right. What that is in a certain way is not a production, right? You're not making something that generates surplus value, but rather you're occupying a kind of rent, what we would call a Marxist theory, a ground rent, traditionally.
00:34:08:00 - 00:34:32:08
Unknown
And, so in a way, you're creating a place in which you can make a market where it didn't previously exist and hopefully in accordance with capitalist dictates, corner of that market. And monopolize that market. Right. And then we call them platforms. And then the problem with these platforms is that they indeed do corner a market, and then they become so dominant.
00:34:32:08 - 00:35:00:02
Unknown
So, so central to that economic, system or, or transaction or whatever you could call it, that you can't get around them. So there's, you know, not none of this traditional capitalist, competition or whatever. And at the same time, they extract both rent from you as the user of the service, but also the other end.
00:35:00:02 - 00:35:25:09
Unknown
So the supposed other user of the service, and then they pay very little. So really, they just get a lot of money for being the only player in town to know other people and connect people. Yeah. And, Ursula actually called this rentier ism, at some point, and an easy way to think about rents or to kind of begin to think about this new digital rentier economy is something like Netflix.
00:35:25:23 - 00:35:49:04
Unknown
I know I'm old enough where, like, my family owned movies in kind of real sense. Right? Like, we have these VHS is and I remember the ones like that were two VHS is like I remember casino was two VHS series. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I was like, that's yeah, you're a little younger. Yeah, yeah. But but you know, used to own movies and now that possibility even I mean it has it disappeared.
00:35:49:04 - 00:36:06:08
Unknown
You can still really go seek out movies and go try to find time to buy them. But in general, on kind of the smooth operation of the social and you pay for a Netflix subscription and then the Disney, subscription, and you don't own any of those movies. So if they decide to take it off, you can't just say, I'm going to pop in the DVD.
00:36:06:10 - 00:36:30:17
Unknown
I mean, I know that's a very minor way. Yeah. And which we're at the mercy of this company, but it's very it's a very good illustration of what we mean by by rentier ism or how these new rents are being generated. And it's not just Netflix, it's, gaming. Right? Gaming is now more and more through, like steam and other digital platforms, that you can play those games, for instance, even if it's, you technically own it.
00:36:30:17 - 00:37:04:24
Unknown
So with, Netflix, you still have the issue that they can, you know, basically determine what's on the streaming service. Steam, for instance, as a service, will host all those games and keep them there. But the, ability to play those games is tied up with the existence of the company steam. So even if you were to, like, buy a game on steam, in a way, if that company goes and support goes and you name it, then it's still practically unplayable, if not directly unplayable for you.
00:37:05:01 - 00:37:28:02
Unknown
Crazy. Well, who would have thought? Well, But don't touch my games. But the development of all these new rants is interesting because it's the opposite end of the spectrum from the public sector that we were discussing. Right. You know, a lot of these services people talk about are good for people, like, say, grocery delivery, for people who are differently abled, you know, for people who are disabled.
00:37:28:02 - 00:37:48:11
Unknown
And, and that's great. But that's a state job in, in, in a former society, that's not something that somebody who can't go to the grocery store should be like paying for in a private market. Right? So it's so it's in that way where it's like, this is the dark mirror inverse of, a, fully robust kind of public sector.
00:37:48:17 - 00:38:13:15
Unknown
Exactly. And then you see that these services become, parasitic to public services, where, you know, Uber now is pretty big in the Netherlands. And at the same time, you see public transport having budget cuts and, you know, being under pressure and all that, and you've got to get rid of that public transport. Apparently, according to one of the local political parties in Rotterdam, the tram is an old fashioned vehicle, whereas the car is the vehicle of your journey.
00:38:13:15 - 00:38:48:13
Unknown
Yeah, we got on. We got the Italian Futurists. Yeah. Apparently. Basically. Yeah. Vroom, vroom. Light plus speed. I'm tired of these trans man. No no no no no no. Ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen. Bow bow bow bow bow bow. Now, Ursula, does not only leave us with an analysis or, you know, just only the dark thoughts about where this is all going.
00:38:48:15 - 00:39:08:16
Unknown
But she also discusses some possible solutions. Well, it should be said that those possible solutions are all lacking. That's true, but still. I mean, we remain hopeful to a certain extent. Maybe. Yeah, I do think you have to you have to analyze, like, positively declined things in order to kind of understand what's good about them and what's not what's not work.
00:39:09:00 - 00:39:53:19
Unknown
And we will see how these solutions do not work specifically, but at the same time, let's go through them. So the first one would be to re expand basically, or expand again, public service work. So just, you know, if you have a shortage of care work, maybe raise wages and get more nurses. Yeah, I think this is probably the most viable one in terms of an actual, you know, kind of just solution is, you know, the care the care work of, of families is being foisted upon, you know, the family members themselves with no real resources to do it or all of these different dimensions, by which domestic care,
00:39:53:19 - 00:40:22:22
Unknown
reproductive labor is just kind of, you know, considered to be part of, part of one is supporting with one's wages. Right. And how one, you know, keeps working, keeps going through society. Now at the same time, it seems that capitalism says we will not raise wages. Also, we have labor shortages across the sectors, so we don't want extra nurses.
00:40:22:24 - 00:40:51:04
Unknown
However, we can deliver, relatively large supply of volume. Yeah, it's almost the sense where, capitalism can could create a more captivating solution than not having to, you know, work under, like, exploitative conditions. The more sort of, I and I think this is emblematic in more ways than one. You know, you also have the opioid crisis, in the United States, maybe.
00:40:51:06 - 00:41:23:19
Unknown
Good to say that what we were talking about was indeed that capitalism just provides drugs. Yeah, it provides a solution. Yeah. And it's interesting. I mean, this goes to like, brave New World style stuff. I mean, which I think was pretty apt in some ways, but, yeah, it's, it is worth thinking about like, well, capitalism can provide this quick, easy pill solution that won't actually solve the problem, but it will keep everything functioning for another day to not have to, like, actually talk to other people and do like politics.
00:41:23:21 - 00:42:00:19
Unknown
I guess. But, all right. So then the second option would be to expand wage work. Now this is has been, in contention also for a while. Wages for housework, for instance, was a movement, although at the same time there was also radical wing, wages for housework. Let me just say this real quick, was the idea that maybe some of the supposed unpaid labor, we think back to Ursula Hughess model of distinguishing between paid and unpaid labor may be a solution to some of the exploitation.
00:42:00:19 - 00:42:24:19
Unknown
Inequality was to bring more of the labor from the unpaid sector to the paid sector. And so housework, for instance, would be waged. Yeah. And there's a certain logic to that, I think certain logic. But but there's a big but but the certain logic, right, would be that, well okay you're valid rising this it would also be an idea to set up a kind of universal basic service in the kind of parlance of today.
00:42:24:19 - 00:42:58:11
Unknown
Right, where, where that would be something that was accounted for in all these different house. But as you said. But there is a big but which is. Jamie, do you want to go? Well, you seem you seem itching to just tell me why it's wrong. Well, I mean, you know, thinking along with, somebody like Sylvia Federici who's, published on this as well, and the somewhat ironically stated wages against housework, she her point was something like the end point is not that, that kind of housework just becomes waged because then it's just included into the capitalist system.
00:42:58:11 - 00:43:33:01
Unknown
The real point, the real goal that they were after with this was to, overturn how that system functioned so that, you know, there would be a different kind of equality in how there's a division of labor also within households and so on. Which kind of brings us to, well, I was going to say sorry. Well, I just wanted to say really quickly on that one that, the yeah, it's kind of like UBI universal basic income in that regard as well, the kind of critique of it from the left, which is like, yeah, but then you just kind of inculcated into capitalism like really deeply.
00:43:33:12 - 00:44:01:10
Unknown
And yeah, sure, you get a check cut every month, but it's nothing and not even, you know, it won't even be worth survival, and things like that. So these universal measures that themselves get inculcated in capital, can be pretty tricky. And then there's the final solution, which Ursula was. Sorry. I mean, the final possible answer that we will discuss here.
00:44:03:05 - 00:44:33:23
Unknown
Yeah. So this a point in third and third aspect I can think of more, synonyms for, is basically socialism in a household. Now, Ursula was least enthusiastic about this one, and I think we can be pretty quick about this. It's something like the Jordan Peterson clean your house before you tell somebody else something first.
00:44:34:08 - 00:44:54:22
Unknown
It's something like social. I mean, the socialism in a household means. Well, we might live in a crazy capitalist system that exploits me on all sides, but at least we share the tasks in the household. Yeah, and it also, it can also have this kind of false radical bent. Right? Yeah. We're socialists in this household. But, you know, then it's really kind of tame.
00:44:54:22 - 00:45:11:17
Unknown
Then I want to hear some like myth Firestone full surrogacy now like stop to think exactly like let's get radical with it. You're just talking about living in, like, this exploitative society, and being able to, like, afford to be happy about sleeping.
00:45:11:19 - 00:45:18:17
Unknown
In city state, you.
00:45:18:19 - 00:45:45:10
Unknown
Despite the fact that we've talked about, solutions or options or possibilities with, earthly hues, they don't seem to be very convincing or, you know. No, but I have to say, man, all this talk about rents is depressing. I don't really what do I own? I've toaster. I got a TV. See, I don't even have a toaster.
00:45:45:10 - 00:46:01:17
Unknown
Have a toaster machine. Oh, yeah. The Dutch panini press. But you know what I mean. None of these are making me any money. No. That's true. This is. This is bad. I'm a bad cat, but I. You watch my TV, I do, yeah. Must I charge it? I got to be a better capitalist. This is depressing. I don't have anything I can rent.
00:46:02:09 - 00:46:24:15
Unknown
But maybe I won't come over as much anymore. I have to keep enticing you. It's free TV, man. Like. Well, what can I say? That's. That is why were you befriended me? You are like, you know, I'm a free TV. I'm going to get out of this. I mean, despite it being so dark, I guess so, yeah.
00:46:27:00 - 00:46:51:19
Unknown
So you're not charging me for watching your TV, but, everybody else is charging me for almost everything. I mean, I just have to look at all of the, accounts that I have for stuff, you know, whatever. Not just Netflix, streaming. Spotify. Well, you and Max have criterion. I have criterion, yes. That's just that's just, you know, that's extravagant, so.
00:46:51:21 - 00:47:15:11
Unknown
Well, well, thank you for, implicating me in, bourgeois capitalism. Now, everybody knows that you love to watch really famous bourgeois movies, but we watch for on a blow. So that's why I've never seen it. Because I'm a I. Because I'm a supporter of the working class. No film channel for you. Well, perhaps one question.
00:47:15:13 - 00:47:40:14
Unknown
What would maybe what would it look like? What would they rent in the future if they're already considering what they already renting? Well, Well, Max, what if you have to rent the future? You mean the future itself? I'm just spitball. Yeah, I think there was a film about that, called In Time with Justin Timberlake, where I remember this one scene where he was, like, playing poker.
00:47:40:15 - 00:48:01:08
Unknown
Do they get that on criterion of. Yes, I do have a criterion, channel membership, but, no, this in this film, they have this poker scene where, what they bet is it's time. And then obviously in good movie style fashion, the counter is about to run down. JT has all of his money or, well, time in this one hand.
00:48:01:10 - 00:48:23:17
Unknown
And as the clock runs down ten, nine, eight, the other guy is like, I'm not sure if I'll go all in with you. So fold. And then one second boom. And then he gets 300 million years on his arm. Yeah. That's where like you can tell your own time. So you want a poker hand, you want 300 million in a poker hand in years?
00:48:23:19 - 00:48:38:20
Unknown
Wow. Yeah. Great job. Just would you want to. Would you want to live that long? 300 million. You probably not. But, I mean, if I'm renting, because then you could just make money selling it back. I'm actually. I think I would short the future.
00:48:38:22 - 00:48:57:21
Unknown
I would bank again. The future. Honestly. Yeah. I'm calling up Deutsche Bank. All right. What can what what kind of investment can we set up for you? I'd like to short something. Yes, sir. The future. So a whole new meaning on futures in, financial gamble. Feel like. I feel like there's some elected officials that might have shorted the future Deutsche Bank.
00:48:57:24 - 00:49:21:13
Unknown
Be. We already did that. Yeah, yeah, the Nestlé guys like you think we're not buying and trading these right now. We bank against humanity. Okay? I have a bet against humanity. Last ten years cost me a fortune. That's still going to. But we're still going to get it. Deutsche bank's new business plan. So to sum it all up, we don't own anything anymore.
00:49:21:13 - 00:49:57:19
Unknown
Everything is rent. We've become super dependent on all these kinds of platforms. And really what we've mostly learned is not that he was wrong about the exploitation, but that it is much more prevalent and around us in all these other relations as well. Yeah, it's pretty dark. However. Yeah. I okay, okay. I'm Rambo, I ramshackle machetes like rat traps on your blackberry.
00:49:57:19 - 00:50:16:20
Unknown
I crash at your here I can't I, I get caught up then I put it my ass like I'm running. Running shit. Don't give me shit. I do what I say. I did not fabricate one be. I have been a fucking real business. My dream in a big yeah, yeah. Cuz you want to buy me bitch I put your daughter around the profit.
00:50:16:20 - 00:50:30:05
Unknown
Just have to do some damage in my whole fucking ass. Like a bad bitch, a zombie, right? This shit like I'm on fucking track. It like I run. Feel like I'm a fucking on like a cheap, fucking fast. Like greedy boy in a church with a passion I like. I'm not. I'm just playing like, yo, I'm hanging bitch.
00:50:30:05 - 00:50:57:00
Unknown
I mean, when I'm saying money, my money is on me. Shit I'm after. You can cut the faint shit. I'm not in my fucking act. I'm on top of my cream like a my fucking track that you niggas back to me bitches, you bitches back to me. Cash I got the shit from my house a bit. You come back, man, I'll enjoy your shit I am, I'll be blasting it I do a ton of shit like I'm die real shit and not Jared.
00:50:57:00 - 00:51:21:01
Unknown
I'm nasty, I'm insane. I'm straight grains I came from, I'm rocking bottom, I climb now, I ship lanes, I kick shit like oh shit like no shit like, oh shit I get in my way, I fuck up everything like horse shit. See I wouldn't like to. And I'm not the one I need to be trouble I be like that dumb bitch I'll be in here like I'm pumped up now I'm like I'm chug like fish like like me.
00:51:21:01 - 00:51:39:21
Unknown
Go let me fuck, bitch. Wow. All that money and mo money is the only shit I'm after. You can cut the fake shit. I'm not on my fucking act. I'm on top of my green. Like I'm my fucking track. That you niggas by them be bitches. You bitches bother me. Cash for me to feed it back to my tongue.
00:51:39:21 - 00:51:53:21
Unknown
Get the block and grab your bitch I be at my peak I am not the one that be mad. That I'm the one that be. After I'm sweeping you I'm just. Then I just popped up out the blue I'm spontaneously combust. Then no different. Hit me just a minute. Hand me the beat. Now me touching. I'ma kill it.
00:51:53:24 - 00:52:14:04
Unknown
We're not the same. One day I'm gonna get it under the map. Oh, fraction of a tick. Something I want me to go like in the hand today. Back to the beginning. Cause I think I'm like a fucking crackhead. When my knee is down, I'm after. You can cut the fing shit. I'm out of my fucking neck. Down on top of my clean like a my fucking track that you niggas back to be bitches.
00:52:14:04 - 00:52:25:02
Unknown
You bitches back to me. Cash flow.
00:52:25:04 - 00:52:29:20
Unknown
Bitch.
00:52:29:22 - 00:52:44:06
Unknown
You.