--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, tartbrain <no_re...@...> wrote: > > > > --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "curtisdeltablues" <curtisdeltablues@> > wrote: > > > #1 Women's work The world wouldn't turn without the work of raising > > children, and caring for family and community. But it's the work that is > > most often and quite literally taken for granted. If the work that women > > did were to be paid, how much would it cost? Researchers put it at $11 > > trillion in 1995, or half the world's total output. Movements demanding a > > basic income grant are laying the foundations for this new way of working > > and living. Valuing women's work would, more than any other single thing, > > transform the way we think about our economy and society. > > > > Will mothers get performance reviews? If under performing do they get sacked? > Do fathers get anything? (no pointed editorial comment here). >
Its a truism that parents -- hardly just mothers -- spend huge amounts of "labor" raising their kids -- outside the market economy -- that is,they are not paid for this labor with explicit money. And a majority of homeowners put in much "free" non-market labor fixing up the house, landscaping, putting in a deck, etc. (often men) However, to me, trying to monetize this labor seems going in the wrong direction. If you monetize it, it becomes taxable. Do we really want to tax motherhood? If anything, I would hope the direction is towards DEmonetizing parts of the economy. Indeed, what has spawned a lot of problems (and some good) is the increasing search to monetize processes. Technology upstarts, Google is a great example (monetizing every las drop of advertising potential) , and investment bankers (e.g. securitizing mortgages) are all on the same path -- monetize more. Which means taxing those newly monetized processes Taxes exist to raise revenue for gov't functions, to provide a disincentive to activities that have a negative impact on society, and to compensate society for those negative activities. The tobacco tax and the carbon tax (or cap and trade) are examples of the latter two effects. Is motherhood a negative activity? (Some parenting methods may seem so) but to monitize, tax and disincetivize motherhood, parenting, and "home building" (as in "Home, Sweet Home") seems backwards. Tax bad things, not good things. Which brings up labor in general. Should any labor be taxed? Ideally, all necessary revenue for the gov't should be raised by taxes on bad things, not good things. (bad things meaning have a significant bad effect on individuals and society -- and eventually cost real dollars to clean up the mess some years later). By monetizing non-market labor -- e.g. motherhood, is a turned in the wrong direction, in my view. Markets are where things are bought and sold. Things that are too precious to be monetize: human beings (the whole entity -- that is, slavery); sex and affection -- that is, prostitution, are deemed inappropriate for the crass valuation of markets. Why would we want to monetize motherhood? (This does not in any way imply no supporting all enabling resources for individuals and families -- such as health and education.)
