The analysis you make of the "class" relations in the household seems incorrect, and not marxist. You don't take in consideration the wealth that the husband brings home from selling his labor-power. In the Capital, the value of the labor-power is equal to the labor needed to reproduce it. I never see you using this definition in your videos. The total labor-power that the household produces is a communal effort. The labor to reproduce the labor-power includes housework, raising children, studying, making meals. In a sense, even resting, regenerating the body and mind is something you got to do. Sometimes I'm just too exhausted and numb (or even in pain) from work to do anything useful. In my view, the capitalist (as a class) extract the surplus produced by the whole household. Of course, the work to produce the labor-power may be unequally distributed among the integrants of the family, and that is hard to account. I would say that, in the 50% of the couples, where both work, on average, men have more power, do less work and have more privileges. But economic exploitation of working people over their spouse is not the case at all. The surplus extracted from the consumption of the labor-force goes to the capitalist, not the male worker. In the worst case, I would say it is a oppressive relation of men over women.

Official response from Richard Wolff submitted

I appreciate your comments and your evident interest in working through a consistent application of Marx's value theory to the production and distribution of the surplus within the household economy and its relationship with the external capitalist economy. That is what we (Steve Resnick, Harriet Fraad, and I) did in the book of essays called:

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© 2009

Class Struggle on the Home Front

Work, Conflict, and Exploitation in the Household

Editors: Cassano, G. (Ed.)

• About this book
• About the authors

Home/Front examines the gendered exploitation of labor in the household from a postmodern Marxian perspective. The authors of this volume use the anti-foundationalist Marxian economic theories first formulated by Stephen Resnick and Richard Wolff to explore power, domination, and exploitation in the modern household.

You will see your concerns addressed there in detail and systematically.