"The most popular labor-saving device is still money"
About this Quote
Money shows up here as a sly rebuke to every shiny promise of convenience. When Phyllis George calls it the most popular labor-saving device, she’s puncturing the cultural fantasy that “saving time” is mainly a technological story. Dishwashers, apps, productivity hacks: they all matter, but money is the master switch. It buys time outright by outsourcing tasks, smoothing friction, and turning other people’s effort into your ease.
The intent is both practical and a little biting. “Device” is the key word: it frames money not as a neutral medium of exchange but as a tool that reorganizes daily life. George’s phrasing implies that what we really crave isn’t innovation; it’s relief. And relief is unevenly distributed. The subtext is a quiet indictment of how convenience is subsidized by someone else’s work, typically less visible, less protected, and less celebrated. When money “saves labor,” it often just relocates it.
As a journalist and media figure whose career ran through late-20th-century consumer culture, George is speaking from an era when “having it all” was marketed aggressively and domestic labor was being renegotiated in public. The line lands because it’s compact, conversational, and faintly cynical: a one-sentence reminder that status isn’t just what you own, it’s what you don’t have to do. In a culture obsessed with efficiency, she points to the oldest hack in the book: pay someone.
The intent is both practical and a little biting. “Device” is the key word: it frames money not as a neutral medium of exchange but as a tool that reorganizes daily life. George’s phrasing implies that what we really crave isn’t innovation; it’s relief. And relief is unevenly distributed. The subtext is a quiet indictment of how convenience is subsidized by someone else’s work, typically less visible, less protected, and less celebrated. When money “saves labor,” it often just relocates it.
As a journalist and media figure whose career ran through late-20th-century consumer culture, George is speaking from an era when “having it all” was marketed aggressively and domestic labor was being renegotiated in public. The line lands because it’s compact, conversational, and faintly cynical: a one-sentence reminder that status isn’t just what you own, it’s what you don’t have to do. In a culture obsessed with efficiency, she points to the oldest hack in the book: pay someone.
Quote Details
| Topic | Money |
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