ABSTRACT
Capitalism undermines caring partly by cutting down on the time available for emotional care, as the following incident illustrates. Sara Wostein, an 85-year-old resident of a nursing home, is awake in the middle of the night. She is mentally alert, but very disabled physically. The nurse’s assistant or aide, Tim Diamond, one of the few men in this job, is checking each room. “Is there anything I can do for you, Sara?” he asks. “Yes,” she responds, propping herself up and looking straight into his eyes, “stay with me” (Diamond 1992:123-24). But Tim doesn’t have time to stay. On the night shift he is responsible for 30 people, and is busy checking each room and entering his room checks on the medical charts, sorting laundry, getting people water, and doing other tasks. To keep profits up and labor costs down, management avoids hiring more nurses aides. As a result, aides often have too little time for emotional care because they are preoccupied with other tasks.
