{"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":283,"pdf_page":291,"physical_index":291,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"d4a9c52c6f95bb92e5f502495d1147a548a6e6f1f809c3e887a63f05b2029d3c"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"22. The deflating take on this reaction is that it reflects a culturally and historically specific sensibility that is hostile to materialism—a legacy of some combination of valuesystems such as Victorian sobriety, Protestant asceticism, monastic self-abnegation, or perhaps even (reaching more deeply into the past) classical Stoicism. On this view, the question of overconsumption is not a real question at all but rather is just an expression of value judgments made within a particular culture. I want to resist this kind of argument, insisting instead that we take seriously our puzzlement about modern patterns of consumption. After all, any question, scientific or otherwise, can be explained as a product of the culture or history within which it is formulated. To interpret the surprise we feel and questions we have about the world as merely expressive of the violation of normative expectations that are essentially arbitrary is, in efect, a species of skepticism (what some philosophers call “genealogical skepticism”)—according to which our normative responses to the world are questionable because they are held to be nothing more than contingent consequences of culture, historical forces, society, and so on. But of course, to assume that position raises the question of the status of the skeptical claim itself, since skeptical arguments can (and indeed should, for the sake of consistency) be made against skeptical positions. After all, skepticism is no less contingent on culture and history than any other position. So why should the skeptical stance be the only valid one? In taking seriously the question of consumption and free time under conditions of afluence, as I have construed it, I am admittedly assuming to some degree a normative position with respect to economic life. In doing so I follow the tradition—with origins in Aristotle and most powerfully represented in modern times by Marx, although also supported by economists such as Amartya Sen—that seeks to ground theories of economic behavior in a general account of our social and ethical makeup. See Scott Meikle (1985, 1992, 2000) for an excellent discussion and defense of this tradition.\n\n23. On the Marxian view, commodities must have some use value. Yet use value is ultimately only realized through final consumption. Capital goods can of course have use value in the production process, but the usefulness of that process is in turn tied to the production of consumer goods. For that reason, in order for the capital goods produced in Department I to realize a profit, they must be connected to the consumption of final goods produced by Department II. Capital goods must be used to facilitate the production of consumer goods. Those consumer goods must in turn be sold, or else the demand for capital goods will eventually collapse. If the means of production are not used to facilitate final consumption, they are ultimately useless.\n\n24. It is possible in the short run for irrational collective optimism about the future prospects of Department I to manufacture economic booms. But, as Magdof and Sweezy (2013) note, “sooner or later—many factors, technological as well historical in a broader sense, affect the length of time—the weak growth of final demand for consumption goods works its way through the system and brings the boom to an end.” Demand for consumer goods works in this way as an ultimate limit for demand for capital goods.\n\n25. The idea that the capitalist economy faces a structural contradiction of underconsumption is quite controversial within the Marxist tradition. Marx in general wanted to locate the central contradiction of capitalism on the side of production, in the tension between the tendency of the organic composition of capital to increase over time and the constitution of value by labor time. Nonetheless there has been a persistent current of Marxian theorizing that has drawn attention to systemic problems of aggregate efective demand and profit realization created by the downward pressure on real wages relative to productive capacity.\n\nNotes to Pages 21–23\n\n283","previous_page":282,"next_page":284}