*Flexes* time to do some non-market labour! Last night Brendan and I went back to the apartment to begin the long process of packing everything up. We are moving our stuff out in batches, as we no longer want to live in the apartment anymore and I hope to get everything ready so my parents (who own the place) can do whatever they want with it.
We spent all night last night tidying and packing and not being paid any wage$ for it, and neither of us feel hard done by so far. This morning, I continued to unpack everything at my parent's while Brendan diligently earned $$ at his computer. Tis been a while since I properly did some non-market work - I know I was studying for a year, but I view that more as an investment activity, proximate to earning a market wage.
Hmm, seems weird to think of everything in terms of market efficiency doesn't it? I suppose Brendan's time is way more valuable than mine at the moment because I haven't started work yet. Then again, his job brings him some disutility, and his grumbling then brings me disutility, so we should reduce the effective utility from his market wage by an appropriate amount. Moreover, even though he'll earn more than me after I start working, there will be a marginal difference after accounting for tax (people never seem to account for that when making those trite "opportunity cost" arguments).
I had a former colleague who is a trained economist and - you guessed it! - pale and male. All that remains is for him to become stale so that he can join the scrapheap of uninspired economists we all need less of - and the signs are promising! No doubt he would approve of using the market as the unit of evaluation for absolutely everything. Once upon a time, Adam Smith wrote that our desires would inform market prices, nowadays market prices inform our desires. I would say - do not be so unoriginal! Do not be so - I don't know - sheep. You were born with more imagination than that. Then again, I am perhaps talking to (mainly) boys, or men, who have never been taught to do an honest day of non-market work in their lives. Who do not have non-market values, no non-market sentiments, no non-market humanity. They don't specialise in stuff outside of the market.
Unfortunately for them, the neoclassical tides can turn. As more women - and more men of a different kind - entered the market, the demand for this kind of men (the kind of men that could only talk prices and incentives and opportunity costs) fell. Unfortunately there was one thing these Market Men didn't do - diversify.
If anything this is a collective failure of all of us. Yes, I know that past a certain age you should take responsibility for your own failings, but I think of the way boys are sometimes raised - it's a miracle if they turn out to be the kind of man who can actually express feeling.
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Brendan and I went to the shops on Sunday because he needed to buy a new phone. I made him wander into a Mecca store with me and he promptly pointed to a shelf of goods and said "Mecca Athletica!?!?!". To which I replied it was for sporty people, like him. But then I said, "Wait a minute, what about Mecca Academica? For all the nerds like us?". And then we figured that he would need Mecca Mathematica, and I would need Mecca Econometrica. What's your Mecca?
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I recently started drinking oat milk (for fun, and to diversify my plant-based milk options since I've been drinking soy for quite a while now). We tried Oatly - and I didn't realise I had bought the "barista" edition. To put it simply, I couldn't get over the superior mouth-feel. Anyway, I've just bought six bottles of Chobani "barista" edition oat milk online (it's currently 50% off), because I was scouting for cheaper oat milk options. Just a heads up that if the expiry date turns out to be pretty soon I might ask around to see if any of you want to try some. Help me!
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In other news, Brendan and I have been watching season 2 of the Mandalorian. Spoiler alert: it is a bit macabre when bebs yods (our nickname for baby yoda) starts eating the frog spawn (feel terrible for frog lady, who was genuinely so cute especially when she started leap-frogging in that cave with all the not-spiders), but I still massively enjoy it. And when we found out that old Mando here is actually from an ultra-conservative sect of mandos, we also laughed, being the more liberal mandos we are (haha). It is the way.
thank you for bringing our household utility from the entertainment I derived from reading this post :P
ReplyDeleteoat milk is the best!! I think I prefer it to normal milk actually. and was contemplating trying to make it at home but then that idea was met with a healthy dose of CBF.