Capitalism: A Fairytale

*** If sarcasm does not read well over the internet, this is a warning to say that this is a bit of a parody.


The Normalisation of Flexible Female Labour in the Information Economy

Melissa Gregg

Mellissa Gregg looks into the results of the social and technological changes of the past decades, which is feminism and the immergence of new technologies in this age of the ‘new economy’. Her specific focus is on middle class Western women entering the workforce and the impact of new technologies enabling them to have ‘flexible’ work, by being able to work at home, so that they are able to maintain their primary role as carer within the home and contribute to the labour market, thereby consecrating a preferable version of (post)feminist subjectivity suited to neoliberal economics and ideologies.

This choice, however, relies heavily upon the different flexible labour performed by women in other parts of the globe, who are exploited in order to create the product needed to sustain the neo-liberalist economy (smells like the Bourgeoisie).

“It acts as a critical background for a larger project studying the impact of information and communication technologies on work and home life, specifically their role in breaking down the distinction between the so called ‘public’ and ‘private’ sphere personae.” – Melisa Gregg

Although though this may be true for the Bourgeosie, work and the public and the private spheres has been, and are, fluid realms for many other classes and peoples throughout history.

Her argument is supported by the role of mainstream media normalising preferred uses of new media technology for work purposes, and to limit the aspirations of middle-class feminist politics to an individual level.

My focus for this presentation is, as Melisa Greg said in her introduction, the ethical challenges facing both feminist and labour politics in the so-called ‘new-economy’.

The actress Tilda Swinton, in an interview for her film I am Love, described capitalism as a ‘fairy-story’, as the Bourgeoisie surround themselves with pretty things in order to forget the many people that they are exploiting. The idea of fantasy can be seen in the media and advertisement, which Melisa Greg examines in her paper; these are constructed realities and ideals presented in advertisement to influence the consumer.




The advertisements for Software, such as Microsoft’s ‘We See’, focuses on the idea of the individual  in a creative sector of the ‘new economy’, where they present independent labour away from an office, where the worker can be independent and free with a romantic bohemian lifestyle. The lines between personal hobbies and creativity and the public employment are blurred. The selling of dreams, or the promotion of fairy-stories, can also be found in the advertisements for mobile phones that present a work lifestyle that is leisurely, active and cosmopolitan. One does not have to be stuck in a boring office, they can be out and about, living their life, but work at the same time. It is promoting the individual, but my question is: by blurring these distinctions, is the worker’s private life taken over by work? One is being defined by their labour. And, is this lifestyle only accessible to a privileged few? We all would like the lifestyle of an artiste.

The most horrifying aspect of this paper is the idea that neo-liberalism has adopted feminism – it just doesn’t compute. There can be no doubt that feminism has achieved the right for women to work in the public space, because it is seen as an inherent good and a commonsense manifestation of feminism over the last century. The only problem is that it can be assumed that we are ‘post’ feminism, that feminism is no longer needed, but it is clear that we have still a long way to go.

Women now have the choice, so is everything good? The only problem is that it is naturally assumed that women’s work must be flexible work- to be able to ‘have it all’: the career and the happy household. As said by Germaine Greer, the only thing women have all of, is all of the work! The care-giver in family relationships is not the same responsibility for men. Where is the equality in that? It is also assumed that the work women do within the household is not real work at all, and often that work in itself is mixed in with home, leisure and the private sphere. The new economy is hanging onto the middle-class nuclear family. “Rather, it is as an equal witness to a commonly imposed experience- of limited freedoms packaged within a predefined set of choices.”

Is the new-economy just the old-economy with colourful packaging?  Reinforcing the paradigms of the nuclear family, gender roles, existing class structures and the exploitation of the working class for the privileges of the Bourgeoisie?

 Why 'Having it all' still means 'doing it all'

Housewife Superstars

Sonia Williams: How you can make money in the new economy www.giveitagowhathaveyougottolose.com.au and www.showmummythemoney.com.au