{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":111,"pdf_page":119,"physical_index":119,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"ea96e927edc13cdd971696dbd7e49f1f7b46bc212ec11bbd3d5541cfe0f9bb7c"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"1.8. Explains Waste\n\nThe theory of consumption as commensuration provides a way to make sense of the huge amounts of waste produced under industrial capitalism. Commodities require time to produce utility—yet as output and real wages increase, while the working week stays constant, the time available to make use of each thing produced tends to decline. For that reason, the actual utility realized per thing produced (as opposed to the potential use power each item contains) likewise tends to decline. The diference between the aggregate potential use value of things and the use value actualized through using them is, in efect, waste. This becomes literally so as underutilized objects drift in the direction of landfills. If commodity acquisition was informed by sensible assessments of how much time and energy is available for making use of commodities rather than by the hypothetical use value contained in commodities (as a function of their physical properties), then the production of waste itself would be self-limiting. As per capita output (and hourly income) increased beyond a certain point, there would be increasing demand for time, as opposed to things, thus reducing demand and hence working as a negative feedback mechanism. If, however, as the commensuration theory suggests, the point of consumption is not just to realize actual use value but also to accumulate notional durations of activity indexed by commodity objects, to retroactively justify the labor given in exchange for the wage, then the connection between material output and actual need is attenuated. In such circumstances, natural constraints on the production of waste get removed, with dire environmental consequences.\n\n2. Some Possible Objections to the Commensuration Theory\n\nThe commensuration argument thus works quite well as an explanation for certain puzzling aspects of consumer behavior under capitalism. It is also consistent with macrohistorical patterns in twentieth-century industrial capitalism. There are, nonetheless, objections that can be raised against it, as well as some questions about how certain significant developments in capitalist economies fit with the theory. It is to these that I now turn. Objections and questions are posed in the heading of each subsection, followed by my responses.\n\nA Theory of Mass Consumption as Wage-Labor Commensuration\n\n111","previous_page":110,"next_page":112}