Care Work:

Love and Money?

Julie A. NelsonGlobal Development and Environment

InstituteTufts 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?

“Commodification” is automatic: Arlie Hochschild, Virginia Held, June O’Connell Davidson…and much popular thought

Literature Review

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

Positive

Negative

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 short-term profit

Creation of boss/worker relations of oppression and alienation

Greed and selfishnessA 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

steered by: money media, anonymous market mechanism

applicable rationality: normative

and aesthetic

applicable rationality: instrumental, strategic

colonization

More Intellectual Roots

• Karl Marx

• Max Weber

• Jürgen Habermas

• Adam Smith – “System Theory”

Economics and Feminism

• Rationality

• Autonomy

• Self-Interest

• Mind

• Market

• Money

• Emotion• Connection• Other-Interest• Body

• Family• Care

Feminist Questions

• Families as economic (intra-household allocation and unpaid labor)

• Poverty and dependence (bodily needs and care)

• Discrimination in labor markets (prejudice and power)

• Rationality

• Autonomy

• Self-Interest

• Mind

• Market

• Money

• 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”

• 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).

• Responsibilities for provisioning: A good wage can make it possible for a caring (feeling) person to care (activity).

Society

Economy

(provisioning activities)

deliberation

communicationsubjectivity

responsibility

objectification

irresponsibility

greed

states

businesses

families

money

Economics Ethics/Care

Positive

Negative

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

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

An exclusive focus on short-term 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.