I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you mean the housing, food and allowance provided by the breadwinner to the homemaker.
Theres a couple of problems with that. Number one, how tf do you both cut half the jobs and raise the wage by enough to double its present value? You’d have to be able to actually get rid of half the labor base and not have employers gobble up the money saved as profits.
Number two, how do you avoid the very real class distinctions involved in that arrangement in the past? To put a finer point on it, full time housewife was a descriptor reserved for the upper middle classes and above only.
Not least, but definitely third: how do you avoid, in a racist and misogynistic society, allowing labor and its benefits to become gendered and racialized?
What you said might seem like a fair trade for a specific breadwinner and homemaker pair (at a specific time, things change!), but it’s not a fix for a social problem.
I promise you it’s not. Even in what I’m assuming is an idealized one income nuclear family that you’re alluding to, directly compensating the homemaker for the work required to reproduce that structure just gives the household more resources to distribute.
It also legitimizes the work of reproducing the socially necessary family structure without excluding homemakers from conversations of policy regarding workers rights.
Everyone wins.
I don’t think it’s very smart to exclude race from discussion of domestic labor in the western world especially America.
Eh, possibly? The biggest benefit of direct payments comes from people not working as much and instead doing the shit they need to do, weather that’s get the kids handled, do their own laundry and dishes or just go out and take a walk and those are the same benefits as a ubi.
The problem with conflating compensation for domestic labor with ubi is that compensating domestic labor accomplishes more structural goals which is a huge deal because the problems of domestic labor are structural.
One example is that on a fundamental level compensating people for domestic labor values that labor. It can’t just be shit you’re expected to do if someone cares enough about it to pay you for it. That aspect also addresses lots of racial and gendered problems with domestic labor.
Another benefit is that now the state (by dint of its distributing payments) has a stake in social reproduction and families that’s direct and not mediated through the lens of moral or religious values.
The problem with ubi is that it relies on markets to figure out how to fix shit by just giving the currency of markets to people. That works pretty well, because those markets are what’s ultimately causing people to suffer, so giving them resources to not be beaten by the market helps a lot, but it’s acting without direction or state power, effectively fighting with at best one hand tied behind your back. I think it’s more accurate to say it’s like private military contracts, money spent with the hope something happens but no real goal or idea how to actually accomplish what you want.
As I said though: it would be good if people had more money.
I’m thinking more in terms of implementation. I can’t imagine a world in which accurately tracking domestic labour would be possible, or desirable. And you can see how giving women more money for domestic labour just because they’re “supposed” to do more is very flawed at the individual level, even if seems logically sound at the demographic scale. Honestly it’s been years since I gave this much thought. I know making payments to the women in households works better in LEDCs with very strict gender roles.
Rich people do in fact pay people to do that stuff. Really one salary needs to be able to support two people, or this society thing just doesn’t work.
An alternative is to compensate people for domestic labor performed in their own homes.
Free housing, free food, and a monthly allowance covers that, doesn’t it?
I’m gonna go out on a limb and assume you mean the housing, food and allowance provided by the breadwinner to the homemaker.
Theres a couple of problems with that. Number one, how tf do you both cut half the jobs and raise the wage by enough to double its present value? You’d have to be able to actually get rid of half the labor base and not have employers gobble up the money saved as profits.
Number two, how do you avoid the very real class distinctions involved in that arrangement in the past? To put a finer point on it, full time housewife was a descriptor reserved for the upper middle classes and above only.
Not least, but definitely third: how do you avoid, in a racist and misogynistic society, allowing labor and its benefits to become gendered and racialized?
What you said might seem like a fair trade for a specific breadwinner and homemaker pair (at a specific time, things change!), but it’s not a fix for a social problem.
A loving family distributing workload, responsibility, resources, and money is apparently anathema to you.
How is race even relevant here?
I promise you it’s not. Even in what I’m assuming is an idealized one income nuclear family that you’re alluding to, directly compensating the homemaker for the work required to reproduce that structure just gives the household more resources to distribute.
It also legitimizes the work of reproducing the socially necessary family structure without excluding homemakers from conversations of policy regarding workers rights.
Everyone wins.
I don’t think it’s very smart to exclude race from discussion of domestic labor in the western world especially America.
A loving family distributing workload, responsibility, resources, and money is apparently anathema to you.
How is race even relevant here?
I don’t know man, you figure it out.
Okay, directly compensate people for their domestic labor.
If that’s a bridge too far or if concerns over efficiency come up, provide community services to make that labor easier and cheaper for everyone.
I think you could potentially package that as UBI.
Eh, possibly? The biggest benefit of direct payments comes from people not working as much and instead doing the shit they need to do, weather that’s get the kids handled, do their own laundry and dishes or just go out and take a walk and those are the same benefits as a ubi.
The problem with conflating compensation for domestic labor with ubi is that compensating domestic labor accomplishes more structural goals which is a huge deal because the problems of domestic labor are structural.
One example is that on a fundamental level compensating people for domestic labor values that labor. It can’t just be shit you’re expected to do if someone cares enough about it to pay you for it. That aspect also addresses lots of racial and gendered problems with domestic labor.
Another benefit is that now the state (by dint of its distributing payments) has a stake in social reproduction and families that’s direct and not mediated through the lens of moral or religious values.
The problem with ubi is that it relies on markets to figure out how to fix shit by just giving the currency of markets to people. That works pretty well, because those markets are what’s ultimately causing people to suffer, so giving them resources to not be beaten by the market helps a lot, but it’s acting without direction or state power, effectively fighting with at best one hand tied behind your back. I think it’s more accurate to say it’s like private military contracts, money spent with the hope something happens but no real goal or idea how to actually accomplish what you want.
As I said though: it would be good if people had more money.
I’m thinking more in terms of implementation. I can’t imagine a world in which accurately tracking domestic labour would be possible, or desirable. And you can see how giving women more money for domestic labour just because they’re “supposed” to do more is very flawed at the individual level, even if seems logically sound at the demographic scale. Honestly it’s been years since I gave this much thought. I know making payments to the women in households works better in LEDCs with very strict gender roles.