this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2024
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yeah, so?
and we got by without them for thousands of years
I apologize, but this is not a coherent nor Marxist line of reasoning. Since labor is definitionally socially necessary, washing clothes by hand is just wasted time and unused labor. The socially necessary labor required for cleaning clothes is the labor of the washer and a small portion of that of the engineer, machinist, and all of those involved in the production of the machine and detergent. In washing clothes by hand, the labor performed is still only that of the labor it takes to load and run the machine, however, the effort expended by the either is significantly more than that; the labor of those involved in the production of the machine goes nowhere. By refusing to keep labor to socially necessary means, you might as well be using gold plated washing machines. The worker's time belongs to the workers and shouldn't be wasted.
you're assuming that there are no negative effects of using washing machines, which is not an assumption I feel comfortable making.
and I never claimed to be a marxist, don't go throwing that around as an insult
The negative effects of washing machines are that they consume quite a bit of electricity. This, however, is negligible compared to transportation, recreation, and cooling. Going back to 18th century technology serves only to waste a considerable amount of effort from the workers in order to save very little electricity. Furthermore, the issue with electricity is not overconsumption from residential sources, but rather industrial overconsumption and poor production.
What mathematical formula did you use to determine that washing machines consume less water than hand washing? Or that the production and shipping of washing machines totals less labor than hand washing?
M'=M+M∆applies here, but the expressionC'=c+v+salso applies. The issue with all the equations derived fromM -> C -> Mset is that they all assume exploitation by the capitalist and don't precisely map to socialist production. I strongly recommend you read Capital to understand how the labor process works. Pay special attention to chapter 1 of volume 1 as that clears up most of your misconceptions.God you're insufferable
Anti washing machine thought is revisionism