“I’m shocked by the number of middle class people I know who have someone clean their houses.”
If someone earning $50 hourly can hire someone for $10 hourly to clean their house (or mow their lawn or clean their clothes), then electing to do these chores themselves costs society 5 times as much (in terms of the value of resources used) than if they buy such labor. Thus, what you view as sloth may actually be common sense contributing to efficiency.
You might well legitimately argue that such an individual won’t work any of the extra time saved by farming out chores. Fair enough. But then you have to ask what’s the value of time spent with a family? For people in that income bracket, it likely exceeds $10 an hour. Pretend it’s $30 an hour. Once again, giving up that time (even though unpaid) to do chores reduces the welfare/happiness of such individuals and their families. So how is protecting that time by buying out services that can be easily and cheaply done by others a sign of sloth?
Most of us don’t grow our own food, bake our own bread, make our own clothes etc. Is this seriously a sign of sloth, or progress?
I agree that hiring a cleaning lady isn’t, per se, laziness. I know professional couples—doctors in particular—who literally work around the clock. Hiring people to take care of the house is justifiable there. And as I said about the peeled fruit, I have no problem with market solutions that make certain tasks easier. The issue is a lot of people who have the time to clean their own houses and do their own simple repairs don’t because they are lazy. Its almost a character issue for me. If you have the time, why not fix your own toilet or clean your own house? It generates pride of accomplishment. Anything—repeat, anything—is better than sitting in front of the TV.