{"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":30,"pdf_page":38,"physical_index":38,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"8529c9278ba11634eb32e89b712555f876c3d2d550e7a8d669c5901b5c454192"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"Moreover, as noted earlier, even if levels of consumption are not at the point at which, for reasons of satiation, utility drops of steeply at the margin, if ever more commodities are accumulated at fixed or only very gradually decreasing amounts of work time, the amount of time available to make use of each commodity will decline—asymptotically approaching zero. This existential constraint on consumption, which limits the degree to which commodities can be made use of, becomes particularly salient when seen through the lens of modern consumer theory, as developed by Kelvin Lancaster (1966a, 1966b) and Gary Becker (1981). Becker and Lancaster maintain, quite sensibly, that goods are not themselves sources of utility but rather should be thought of as tools used to facilitate practices that generate utility. Consumer commodities are thus equivalent to capital equipment, by means of which the labor of consumption—the activity of making use of consumer goods—produces utility as a final output. For example, roller skates are capital equipment that facilitate the production of the utility generated by the activity of roller-skating. Becker and Lancaster thus hold that an important distinction can be made between the potential usefulness of an object and the utility realized through that object being put to use. The utility of an object only gets realized in use. From this perspective, to explain the apparent preference for higher income and more consumption in terms of maximizing utility entails that commodity objects are, on average, put to use to a degree suficient to realize an amount of utility at least equal to the disutility of the work endured in order to obtain them. However, as we have seen, what is puzzling about the trade-of between commodities and free time in afluent industrial societies is that ever more objects are accumulated, while the time available for their use decreases or remains constant. If the use value of objects is realized in activity and activity demands time, then this pattern does not make much sense. From the point of view of modern consumer theory, at least some aspects of the pattern of consumption under modern capitalism therefore seem somewhat hard to explain.\n\n30\n\nTime for Things","previous_page":29,"next_page":31}