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A friend has been reading about the astronomer William Herschel, recently, and was prompted to muse briefly on the increased scarcity, and subsequent prohibitive cost, of domestic servants in most of the industrialized world:

I surmise from the details of his life related in the book that after some point he was able to spend virtually all of his time on astronomy, to a degree that would be difficult for modern people of similar means—something which was apparently made possible by hiring inexpensive household staff. It makes me wonder if one of the things we’ve lost in our egalitarian modern world is the ability for (some, largely arbitrarily-selected) brilliant people to concentrate on their work without distraction. It seems like it would have been a waste of Herschel’s (and his sister, Caroline’s) time to cook dinner or sweep the floor, but a modern-day Herschel would likely be unable to afford to hire a maid and a cook.

Thinking upon this myself, perhaps domestic service is due for a revival. Our hyper-productive economy seems to be struggling to find a use for all of these surplus layabouts who were silly enough to be born without money and connections. Eating them remains taboo for the time being, and major infrastructure renewal or re-tooling of our energy sector, e.g., would unacceptably burden the income streams of the wealthiest.

Whereas housekeeping, and preparing a fresh-cooked individualized meal, seem to be relatively resistant to automation for the time being, and what’s more, directing a larger portion of the working population into a (preferably uniformed) servants’ class would in contrast with other solutions probably win the enthusiastic support of plutocrats and Masters of the Universe. Out of Zuccotti Park and into a French maid’s uniform; that will get this country on track again.

I should get my Senator working on some serious tax incentives for domestic staff as soon as possible, in fact. Alfred, fetch me the telephone, and have Claudette bring me another glass of port while you’re at it.

(Honestly, why I haven’t been appointed to a Cabinet position yet is beyond me.)

Another in a series of posts which I basically wrote and finished except for putting them in WordPress or actually, y’know, posting them, and then forgot about as weeks became months. In this instance, I look at efforts to protect the universal franchise from GOP-backed voter ID requirements, and conclude that this is probably a worthy cause, and probably also a hopeless one.

I read an item another item about voter ID requirements recently; I don’t have the link but it basically followed the form of most such stories. Republicans want more-demanding identification requirements for voting, Democrats object that this will disenfranchise low-income and minority voters, Republicans claim “fraud” and Democrats claim “voter suppression.” And reading through the comments on this latest story basically reinforced a belief I’ve had for a while, so I might as well get on record with it here: fighting against ID requirements for voting is a losing battle, fellow liberals/progressives/Ds.

Sorry, but it is. I appreciate all of the arguments about why such requirements amount to voter suppression, and I’m skeptical of how much a threat repeat-voting really represents (as well as skeptical of Republicans’ real commitment to one-person one-vote equality), but the fact is that arguing that voters shouldn’t need ID will and does look like a defense of voter fraud to most people. The existence of Americans without driver’s licenses, bank accounts, etc., is just not real to the great majority of the country, and while logically this just underscores the importance of protecting these marginalized people’s voting rights, logic is a losing notion, here. As is the case with many issues, “gut” instinct holds sway; most people don’t know and can’t imagine anyone without a driver’s license, therefore they will not believe that such people exist.

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I’ve had this loose sense for some years, now, that America (perhaps more than nearly any other society) is becoming a victim of its own success. In more ways than one in fact, probably, but in this case I refer to the long decades of enjoying the fruits of market capitalism. I’ve arrived at this notion that the free-enterprise system has proven both so effective and so relatively easy a means of making so many things better that we’ve now gone generations without really confronting any major problem through any other way.

The last exceptions were probably the civil rights movement and the feminist revolution, and both of those were pretty much complete by the time I was born. And I’m 33.

Outside of those upheavals, the solutions to which I think required effort outside of capitalist free-enterprise but not particularly any direct conflict with it, the vast majority of America has been able to take for granted a pretty comfortable living through a combination of shopping, and a sort of “maintenance” approach to collective society. Basically, vote, at least once in a while, and beyond that just trust that the resultant government may act out amateur drama but will keep the streets paved, the water drinkable, etc., and not screw anything up too disastrously.

Which is understandably a very tempting situation to settle into, I believe, not least from my perspective; I find politics interesting but I don’t want to march or knock on doors or get pepper-sprayed or engage directly with people who disagree with me or, for that matter, people who share my views either, really. I like vote-by-mail! By contrast it’s difficult and unpleasant, hashing out situations where we can’t all simply have our own individual preference without our decision significantly affecting anyone else. Shopping is much more fun.

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