![]() In “ How Ice Cream Won the Cold War” ( Freeman, fall 2015), I used the event to explore the importance of luxury to economic development. ![]() Instead of the abstractions of economics and ethics, of power struggle and political theory, we have two men embodying East and West, communism and capitalism in the mid-20th century. There’s something compelling about the story of the Kitchen Debates. “And perhaps,” Wilson adds parenthetically, “he was partly right about this.” ![]() ![]() “In America,” Nixon had announced while spokesmodels showed off the latest kitchen conveniences, “we like to make life easier for women.”Īccording to Bee Wilson, who tells the story of what came to be known as the Kitchen Debates in her book Consider the Fork, the top communist was “implying that instead of making life easier, these machines only confirmed the American view that the vocation of women was to be housewives.” Nixon was there to represent not just the US government but also General Mills, Whirlpool, and General Electric - to represent, in other words, what both men understood as the essence of capitalism. Nikita Khrushchev was addressing Vice President Richard Nixon during the opening day of 1959’s American National Exhibition in Moscow. “Your capitalistic attitude to women,” said the Soviet premier, “does not occur under communism.”Ĭapitalism didn’t create the sexual division of labor it began the process of eliminating it. ![]()
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