Transcript Care Work: Love and Money?

Care Work:
Love and Money?
Julie A. Nelson
Global Development and Environment
Institute
Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA
Outline
• Love versus Money: The “Commodification”
Debate
• Insights from Economics and Feminism
• Love and money?
The “Commodification” Debate
Does the presence of money, profit, or
markets drain care work of social
meaning and authenticity?
Is “real care”
thus
destroyed or
endangered?
Literature Review
“Commodification” is automatic: Arlie Hochschild,
Virginia Held, June O’Connell Davidson…and much
popular thought
Perhaps “contested” or partial commodification is
possible: Margaret Jane Radin, Elizabeth Anderson
Questioning the “separate spheres” and “hostile worlds”
views: Viviana Zelizer, Martha Ertman, this essay
“When in the mid-nineteenth century,
men were drawn into market life and
women remained outside it, female
homemakers formed a moral brake on
capitalism.”
Arlie Hochschild, The Commercialization
of Intimate Life (2003)
“Other proposals [for raising foster care rates]
have often run aground on the argument that
paying more would attract parents who were
simply in it for the money. 'You don't want a
cottage industry of professional foster parents for
pay,' Jeffrey Locke, the interim [Social Services]
commissioner, said yesterday.
(Boston Globe, March 20, 2000)
Economics
Ethics/Care
Aesthetic, moral, and spiritual
development
The creation of emotionally
healthy, mutually
respectful relations
among people
Care and concern for the
weak and needy
Positive
Ecological balance and
sustainability
Negative
An exclusive focus on shortterm profit
Creation of boss/worker
relations of oppression
and alienation
Greed and selfishness
A fixation on growth and
runaway consumerism
Intellectual Roots
• Max Weber - iron cage
• Jürgen Habermas - colonization of the
lifeworld by the system
Lifeworld
Economic System
domain: social private and public
life
domain: economy
organizations: informal, based on
mutual understanding
organizations: formal,
hierarchically-organized capitalist
enterprises
regulation: conscious and
deliberative
regulation: unconscious and
mechanical
people have: subjectivity,
personality, freedom, meaning,
responsibility
people are: objectified performers
(wage laborers, customers)
steered by: communicatively
established consensus
applicable rationality: normative
and aesthetic
colonization
steered by: money media,
anonymous market mechanism
applicable rationality: instrumental,
strategic
More Intellectual Roots
• Karl Marx
• Max Weber
• Jürgen Habermas
• Adam Smith – “System Theory”
Economics and Feminism
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Rationality
Autonomy
Self-Interest
Mind
• Market
• Money
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Emotion
Connection
Other-Interest
Body
• Family
• Care
Feminist Questions
• Discrimination in labor markets
(prejudice and power)
• Families as economic (intrahousehold allocation and unpaid labor)
• Poverty and dependence (bodily needs
and care)
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Rationality
Autonomy
Self-Interest
Mind
• Market
• Money
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Emotion
Connection
Other-Interest
Body
• Family
• Care
Love and Money
Refuting “System Theory”
• Money is a social construction, not
“media” backed by law or gold
• Neither law nor competition rules out
greed and discrimination — or
responsibility and care — existing
alongside attention to profits
• Communication and human
relations are important in markets and
within organizations
Refuting “Money = Greed”
• Responsibilities for provisioning: A
good wage can make it possible for
a caring (feeling) person to care
(activity).
• Intrinsic and extrinsic motivations:
Extrinsic rewards crowd out intrinsic
motivations if they are perceived as
controlling, but crowd in if they are
perceived as acknowledging (Frey).
Society
states
objectification
families
businesses
money
Economy
(provisioning
activities)
irresponsibility
greed
deliberation
responsibility
communication
subjectivity
Economics
Positive
Negative
Ethics/Care
Production of goods and
services that support
survival and flourishing
Creation of employment
opportunities
Self-support and financial
self-responsibility
Opportunities for creativity,
innovation, and growth in
the enjoyment of life
Aesthetic, moral, and spiritual
development
The creation of emotionally
healthy, mutually respectful
relations among people
Care and concern for the weak and
needy
Ecological balance and
sustainability
An exclusive focus on shortterm profit
Creation of boss/worker
relations of oppression
and alienation
Greed and selfishness
A fixation on growth and
runaway consumerism
Passivity about provisioning of
goods and services
Otherworldliness, with little
attention to practical needs or
constraints
Financial nonresponsibility, leading
to dependency
Fear of money and power
Which teaching is likely to have
more positive results?
• Economic life is by its nature harsh and
ugly. People cannot be responsible when
acting in their economic roles in
contemporary economies.
• Ethical (and caring) behavior is the
responsibility of all people and
organizations in all activities—including
provisioning activities.