I was reading the super summarized version of capital that Nia Frome wrote on red sails, and this question popped into my head. In the general formulation, capitalists exploit workers who they employ, because they pay them a wage that is not in line with the value that they imbue into their product. When I think about a laundromat, though, there’s not really any employees to be exploited, seemingly. There’s certainly an owner, and they are renting out a service, but they don’t have employees working under them. Is it more akin to like, being a landlord? I was also thinking it has similarities to the Terry Pratchett “boots theory of socioeconomic unfairness” in the sense that if you can’t afford the whole washing machine, or live in a place without one, you end up spending much more on washing clothes in the long run. Anyways, I would love to hear your thoughts comrades :].
I think you’re on the right track. I would say that self-service industries extract capital more than they exploit labor, at least directly from consumers. They fill an economical niche that only exists because of the labor exploitation of workers in other sectors of the economy. So yeah, if you can’t afford a washing machine then a laundromat is one of your only options; you’re part of a captive market.
It’s the same for vending machines and gas pumps.