[Themaintainers] From Managerial Feudalism to the Revolt of the Caring Classes

[C. Titus Brown]

Excellent points!

I think there is also a time component. Daily essential, weekly essential, long-term essential.

I would say (for one obvious example) that no academic research is daily or weekly essential, but without academic research you lose something substantial on the decadal scale. The same is true of artists - rarely will there be a time-sensitive need for an actors and artists, but in a very practical way we would be considerably worse off during isolation without their prior contributions.

And of course, the nature and duration of any kind of “emergency” or event then matters. Right now, health care workers are clearly essential on a daily basis! They might be less essential vs farm workers in e.g. a famine.

best,
—titus

> On Mar 30, 2020, at 12:42 AM, Dorothy Howard <dhoward at ucsd.edu> wrote:
> 
> I think the concept of "frontlines" workers (COVID-19 + evocation of wartime measures) and the legal designation of "essential services" is fraught but essentially has to do with the social processes of valuing infrastructural labor. In the context of free and open source software and other infrastructural labor that involves voluntary processes or volunteer work, maintenance workers doing essential things to keep infrastructure like software going are excluded from the legal protections and recognition of the designation of being "essential", yet are still less visible to different publics who are suddenly recognizing "essential labor" and care workers as underrecognized occupations or bringing them to the center of attention about where care and respect and risk should be allocated in society. When we evoke the term essential services as a way of recognizing often invisibilized labor, my question is who does this designation still exclude and how can resources(ing) follow recognition? 
> 
> With care, 
> 
> Dorothy
> 
> 
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 11:31 PM Ishi Crew <mediaentropy at gmail.com> wrote:
> I've seen this talk (must be alot of work to transcribe it; and i'm sort of writing something on this topic, and am aware of graeber's views )
> 
> In my area we have something we call the 'virus' (or the V (for victory)  I r U.S.   --- one for all   ).  
> 
> How many 'maintainers' are essential workers and how many are innessential?  I have seen some suggestions that some anthropologists, economists, fashion models, wine tasters, McDonald's hamburger cooks and cleaners, musicians and mathematicians and artists, and museum curators and securty guards, and web ad programmers,  are inessential.    Or perhaps they are the 'rare' essence of the universe.  
> 
> On Sun, Mar 29, 2020 at 1:54 AM Su <su at generis.name> wrote:
> Hi, all. Long-time listener, blah blah. Lee et al., I'm @TopLeftBrick
> on Twitter *waves* We've had a little contact over the years, I've
> been lurking here since pretty much the beginning and uh, have a LOT
> of free time to catch up on lists lately because Reasons.
> 
> Anyway, in case anyone was interested or wanted an easier way to grab
> a quote I put up a transcript of this talk the other day at
> http://opentranscripts.org/transcript/managerial-feudalism-revolt-caring-classes/
> It's…kinda of the moment right now.
> 
> On Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 10:51 PM Camille E Acey <connect at camilleacey.com> wrote:
> >
> > New David Graeber https://media.ccc.de/v/36c3-11241-from_managerial_feudalism_to_the_revolt_of_the_caring_classes
> > --
> > Camille E. Acey
> > connect at camilleacey.com
> > New York, NY - USA (GMT -5)
> >
> > "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." - Audre Lorde_______________________________________________
> > Themaintainers mailing list
> > Themaintainers at lists.stevens.edu
> > https://lists.stevens.edu/mailman/listinfo/themaintainers
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> -- 
> Dorothy Rose Howard 
> PhD Student, Communication
> UC San Diego
> 
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