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Infastructure: The Word That Can Mean Anything
There’s a new article out at The Atlantic (here), titled “How Domestic Labor Became Infrastructure,” by Moira Donegan. From the title, one might hope for an critique of the dishonesty of politicians who have apparently included $400 billion in spending for at-home care for the elderly and disabled in an “infrastructure” bill… but no.
According to Ms. Donegan:
But the inclusion of care work under the infrastructure umbrella is more than just semantic sleight of hand. Rather, it’s the realization of an argument that feminists have been making for decades: that traditionally feminized caretaking or “reproductive” labor—the child care, elder care, cooking, cleaning, shopping, and domestic logistics that usually women do, often for low pay in the homes of others or for no pay at all in their own homes—is just as essential to the functioning of the economy as roads and bridges are.
What nonsense.
As if “infrastructure” is synonymous with “essential.” I think that one could legitimately debate whether at-home care is “essential,” though I would certainly agree that it is useful and important in many instances. But it’s sure not “infrastructure.”
These people really don’t seem to understand language, or reason, or the importance of categories.
Except that I actually think that many of these people, meaning Ms. Donegan’s unspecified “feminists,” do understand the importance of categorization in language. Indeed, they count on it. People often seem to like “infrastructure” spending bills. So . . . just categorize the spending provision that you like as “infrastructure”! What a piece of rhetorical genius!
Except that it’s not rhetorical, genius. As Ms. Donegan’s article mentions, the ridiculous categorization of $400 billion in federal welfare spending (for at-home care) as “infrastructure” has led to criticism, noting:
Many Republicans and some Democrats have bristled that such spending—along with more robust family-leave mandates and investments in child-care access that are expected in a second package—is not “infrastructure.” Infrastructure, they argue, consists only of the physical things that make the American economy run: roads and bridges built by men in hard hats, which nearly all politicians in Washington agree require more investment and are usually prefaced with the adjective crumbling.
Yes, Ms. Donegan, things that aren’t infrastructure are, well, not infrastructure. If one must spend billions of dollars in taxpayer (or, more likely, bondholder) money on something, it’s nice to have something to show for it in 10 or 20 years, like a bridge or a road.
I was unable to find anything online about Ms. Donegan’s education, after an admittedly cursory search, beyond a Facebook post indicating that she is an alumna of Bard College, class of 2012. Apparently, her college work didn’t teach her the meaning of complicated words like “infrastructure.”
Nor did it include the ability to express a point coherently. I want you to carefully consider the opening of my first quote from Ms. Donegan’s article: “But the inclusion of care work under the infrastructure umbrella is more than just semantic sleight of hand. Rather, it’s the realization of an argument that feminists have been making for decades . . .”
So first she says that it is “more than just semantic sleight of hand.” In English, this means that it is the semantic sleight of hand. I find it hard to think of what the “more” could be in these circumstances (though in theory, the “more” might be something like a joke, or a pun, or a clever literary reference). To make her argument coherent, she should have said that it is not a semantic sleight of hand. Of course, that would have been false. It must be difficult to have an ideology that requires one to choose between honesty and coherence.
Then she says that the classification of care work as “infrastructure” is “the realization of an argument” made by feminists. What? What in the world is a “realization of an argument”? There’s no “realization” here. It’s just an argument, made by feminists, which is incoherent and ridiculous on its face (as usual).
So why argue about such a semantic issue? Presumably, because the feminists (and perhaps others) making this ludicrous infrastructure argument think that it will be persuasive to some people. Who, exactly? Dummies? Fools? Or, more likely, low-information voters who aren’t paying much attention?
Finally, notice the sexism angle in the quote from Ms. Donegan. Specifically, the “built by men in hard hats” part. This is a common, and dishonest, tactic of both feminists and Wokeists. The implication is that people like infrastructure spending on things like bridges not because they find bridges useful, but because bridges are made by men. As if there is no other reason to favor infrastructure spending, which at least leaves us with a potentially useful physical asset, over social spending like at-home care.
The substance of Ms. Donegan’s article is a sufficient basis for dismissing her argument. But what about her qualifications? The Atlantic article identifies her as the “[w]riter of a forthcoming book on sexual harassment.” I can hardly wait. It turns out that Ms. Donegan was the former New Republic assistant editor responsible for an anonymous “crowdsourced Google spreadsheet” titled “Sh*tty Media Men” back in 2017, which apparently circulated anonymous allegations of sexual harassment and violence in the media industry. Well, that’s something of a resume, I suppose. The Atlantic was probably wise in not mentioning it, but it would have been wiser to publish something different, perhaps by someone capable of crafting a coherent and sensible argument.
Let’s close on a happy note. I want you to picture the inimitable Mandy Patinkin, in his best Inigo Montoya garb. Hear the accent in your mind. “Infrastructure. You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Wokeism delenda est.
Published in Domestic Policy
‘Infrastructure’ is usually thought of as referring to capital assets, things that you buy or build now but that are going to be around (and useful) for a long time. That’s why infrastructure is usually thought as a more appropriate target for debt financing than are other kinds of expenditures.
People have gone to prison for categorizing things as ‘capital investments’ when they should have been considered as ‘expenses’ under Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.
I’m in favor of it in the case of Ms. Donegan.
Great post. I would like to see the Republican Senate take the House bill, and strip out all of the non-infrastructure and put it to a vote.
How would we pay for it? President Reagan can show us the way. In 1981, Reagan suggested that the 4 cent a gallon federal gas tax be increased 125% to 9 cents a gallon. The federal gas tax has not been increased from 18.4% since 1997 when Bill Clinton was President. A 125% increase would take it from 18.4 cents a mile up by 23 cents a gallon to 41.4 cents a gallon. The gas tax is the ultimate “user fee.”
Good points, guys.
Though not made in the OP, there is another difference between “infrastructure” and other spending. Some government social spending could be characterized, at least arguably, as creating something like a “capital asset.” I’m specifically thinking of education spending which, at least in theory, can create “human capital” in the form of a more productive person.
But infrastructure also involves a “public good,” at least as the term is usually applied. A bridge is a classic example. Everyone gets to use a bridge. No one can use my education, except for me.
I like the point about GAAP. It’s been a long time since I worked in accounting, but I don’t think that GAAP allows the classification of employee training as a capital asset. Here is an online explanation of this, under the IAS (international accounting standards). The basic argument is that something can’t be a asset unless the company owns or controls it, and the company does not own or control its employees. Well, at least the company doesn’t control its employees in the sense meant by this definition. Obviously, a company can control its employees while they are at work, but it can’t make them stay.
Precisely how big of a tax increase are your proposing here? Not in cents per gallon — in dollars. How much would it raise?
Tax increases aren’t exactly popular. George H.W. Bush promised “no new taxes” — I remember reading his lips — but he broke that promise.
According to this NYT article from 1983, the increase from 4 cents to 9 cents (per gallon) was the first increase in 23 years. Remembering that period, I can justify such an increase as an inflation adjustment. Your 23 cent/gallon increase seems a bit high by this standard, given the lower inflation that has prevailed since 1997.
I don’t think that your suggestion is completely without merit, Gary. An online CPI calculator indicates inflation totaling about 65% since 1997, about half of your suggestion.
To finish out the math — when Reagan agreed to a 125% increase in 1983, the first increase since 1960, cumulative inflation over that period (1960 to 1983) had been about 237%.
Great points. I can live with a 65% increase. I don’t know what the gross increase is.
We will also need to develop a way to tax electric vehicles who also use the highways.
“Republican Senate”??? Hahahahahahahaha! That Gary. What a kidder!
Our new Secretary of Transportation has been talking about “user fees” to finance highway construction and improvement. Maybe someone should tell him about the federal gas tax?
This is easy. Words, concepts, definitions are always evolving to what the Left needs them to mean to get its way. There is no such thing as truth anymore.
And the Atlantic Magazine is fine with that.
Blame Bill Clinton. He started it by calling all of his spending programs “investments.”
More super heavy forges would be good
There are only a few and are critical to essentially everything and we haven’t really made any since like WW2.
The world would be a lot better place if Republicans and libertarians started using that term a lot more. It is such a mistake for the government to go beyond that. With very few exceptions, all it does is retard growth and cause social problems.
I knew a guy who was chosen to run a start-up product effort within a large company. He was complaining, one day, about having to stay within his expense budget, and thought that these costs should be considered capital investments rather than expenses, so that he could expand his R&D (mostly D) efforts.
A couple of years later, the project was cancelled, among delays and growing concerns that it wouldn’t be competitive even when it finally did get done. If the costs had been capitalized, there would have been a big writeoff.
When I worked for a public university, it was important to make the distinction between capital costs and expenses when dealing with federal grant money. There was a certain amount of game-playing to get as many things as possible categorized as capital costs, usually getting them packaged as part of big capital items, so as to avoid a huge internal “tax” in the form of what were called “indirect costs.” But there were lines that could not be crossed. There were auditors who kept an eye on it. (Auditors may not be the correct term, because this was different from the audit process that a department might occasionally be subject to.) Besides getting yourself fired for abusing the distinction, there may have been legal consequences, too, for the people who got caught doing it. I’m not sure. I never heard of it happening to anyone, but we did have people who were not afraid to use the terms “prosecution” and “jail” at an employee suspected of wrongdoing in other aspects of the purchasing process.
Ah, but they are pushing electrical vehicles, which won’t use gas so no gas tax. Also, maybe it’s paranoia, but they push a tracking mechanism that they claim is to count miles but could be used for controlling the population.
I can tell you living in Minneapolis, this stuff makes me very nervous. It is very difficult driving in some areas because of all the crazy lines on the road etc. and the light rail + bikes + pedestrians. They need to upgrade the freeway because it’s super dangerous and crowded in some areas and put less pressure on the center of the metropolitan area but they won’t do it. I am seriously thinking of trading up just to get a better anti-collision system, and mine is very good.
“But you said infrastructure.”
“That’s right! Infrastructure!”
“But infrastructure doesn’t mean that.”
“When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’ ‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’ ‘The question is,‘ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.”
Well, this is weird. The original title of my post was “I do not think it means what you think it means, Ms. Donegan.” Admittedly, this is a bit obscure, but I did it for a reason, to invoke the Princess Bride reference made explicit at the end.
This has been changed to: “Infrastructure: The Word That Can Mean Anything.”
I do understand that the editors sometimes change a title, or insert a picture, upon promotion of a post. But this one wasn’t promoted (yet).
I’m not upset, or even annoyed. Just perplexed.
Of course they do. This is all very intentional.
Infrastructure includes care work (a phrase that sets my teeth on edge, incidentally)
Coronavirus relief includes school funding
Court-packing means filling Supreme Court vacancies as they occur
(Perceived/imaginary) white supremacy is a public health issue
Local murders and mass shootings are examples of terrorism
Reproductive health is synonymous with abortion (think about that for a minute…)
They know exactly what they’re doing. And it’s totally working.
Maybe that quote is copyrighted.
What Ms Donegan is saying is this: “We’re doing more than using language in a manipulative and dishonest way, because our sophistry, in this case, reflects our respect for the work women have always done.”
?
Ms Donegan believes that a class of wiser people should deceive and deliberately confuse the vast majority of other people in order to elicit their compliance with what’s best for them.
Last January we learned that it is a bad thing to incite people to riot. Not that anyone necessarily did that, but it’s bad.
Now we have someone whose improper use of the term “infrastructure” could incite people to ignore the distinction between capital costs and expenses. a distinction that has important legal consequences when dealing with the feds. Isn’t that a bad thing? Wouldn’t that place Ms Donegan on the same moral level as people who incite riots at our nation’s capital, assuming there were such people?
The post has now been promoted, so I’m no longer perplexed. I guess that I just checked in the middle of the process.
From the end of “How Domestic Labor Became Infrastructure”…..
“….In the past year, moreover, the paid care economy has been devastated by the pandemic, leading many workers OUTSIDE that sector—-women, primarily—-to leave the labor force because they cannot access the family support that they need.” (Caps emphasis mine.)
I’m thinking: “Hey Ms Donegan, for people with a completely different cultural vision, women led by necessity to leave the labor force to care for their own young and old family members would usually be better…..what’s the word ?…..oh yeah….“infrastructure”…..would usually be better cultural infrastructure in that role in their homes than paid strangers are at a child or day care center.
What Donegan seems to be saying is that she has so much respect for the kind of work women have traditionally done for their own families that she wants everyone to ensure, through the taxes they have to pay, that people, primarily women, are adequately incentivized to avoid this kind of work. She wants it to be financially better for them to outsource it than to do it themselves.
Am I missing something ?
Fake: “This is easy. Words, concepts, definitions are always evolving to what the Left needs them to mean to get its way. There is no such thing as truth anymore.”
Don’t you know all “truth” is relative and situational. Please. Of course, those on the Left are always
rightcorrect.Mr. Giordano must be some insolent Domestic Terrorist or something . When someone of Ms. Donegan’s exalted stature opines on a subject, her opinion should be greeted with the great reverence it deserves. This antiquated idea that the definition of a word is limited to the common historically based dictionary definition is just another example of the White Patriarchy at work imposing their disgusting White Supremacist views on the unknowing public as they have done for hundreds of years. We must recognize that the “truth” is fluid and it’s relevance must be considered in the light of who said it lest we might fall under the demonizing and seductive spell of the Alt-Right.
You only say that because I’m fat. Your fat shaming is despicable.
Do I have the technique down? It seems pretty tricky, requiring something like a third-grade education.
On a serious note, has anyone noticed that this Wokeist linguistic strategy was noted by Lewis Carroll? There is no escape from the White Supremacist Patriarchy! Bwa ha ha ha!
I am fat too Jerry. But I am working on it. So there.