I do not claim to have pinpointed the exact causes of societal breakdown. But I’ve observed an economic imbalance between production and consumption that not only erodes our families and communities but also our land. In Community and Economics, I looked at how we need to shift the way we understand capital. Building on this idea, I aim to delve deeper into why a paradigm shift in our understanding of the household is necessary. The revival of home economics can restore balance to our families and communities.
Underlying this is the idea that the home was traditionally a place of subsistence. They served as economic hubs producing goods and investing surplus into community through almsgiving and charity. Midwifery, bread-making, shoemaking, tailoring, gardening, and wet-nursing were just some of the cottage industries that were traditionally found in the home. Since the Industrial Revolution, a profound shift took place. The home was no longer the beacon of work. Labour was outsourced and people, usually men, started working wages. Meanwhile, the home slowly became a place of consumption.
From subsistence to dependencies
In his essay Shadow Work, Ivan Illich explores how wage-labour and shadow work are the products of industrial societies. He writes, wage-labour "stood in clear opposition to at least three other types of toil : the activities of the household by which most people subsisted, quite marginal to any money economy: the trades of people who made shoes, barbared or cut stones; the various forms of beggary by which people lived on what others shared with them.” With wage-labour, came the shadow work, which also fabricated the idea of the “housewife.” Shadow work is all the work that supports the earning of wages: transportation, cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc.
Illich highlights how the home became dependent on earning money. In other words, money became the de facto capital. Social capital, for example, no longer needed to be accounted for. Homes became dependent on the new leviathan: the market. It was no longer feasible for homes to produce their own goods. In fact,the production of goods is actively discouraged in industrial societies. The English economist John Maynard Keynes, in The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, explains how reduction in consumption has detrimental effects on society:
“For although the amount of his own saving is unlikely to have any significant influence on his own income, the reactions of the amount of his consumption on the incomes of others makes it impossible for all individuals simultaneously to save any given sums. Every such attempt to save more by reducing consumption will so affect incomes that the attempt necessarily defeats itself. It is, of course, just as impossible for the community as a whole to save less than the amount of current investment, since the attempt to do so will necessarily raise incomes to a level at which the sums which individuals choose to save add up to a figure exactly equal to the amount of investment.”
Industrial societies must ensure that households are dependent on the market economy. The economic structure is designed in way that relies on consumption for it to continue. Subsistence living reveals the fragility of industrial societies since the latter depend on households to be consumers. Once that consumption stops, prices will rise, which will further encourage others to stop spending. In macroeconomic theory, this is called the paradox of thrift.
But before we continue, we need to acknowledge that there is truth in the paradox of truth. At a community level, hoarding wealth and not reinvesting it in community projects is indeed counterproductive. This, I believe, is what Keynes meant when he says that reducing consumption necessarily defeats itself. The point here is that we need to differentiate small-scale economics (community organizations, local businesses, local trades, local credit unions, etc.) and large-scale economics (monopolies, big banks, big tech, etc.). What Keynes fails to see is that thrift can be applied at a community level to resist global economic structures.
The degradation of our land, our air and our water is also a by-product of this economic structure. When households are mere consumers, the desire to care for assets is lost. A productive household is more likely to prioritize the care and preservation of its assets and of its community. And what greater assets than our land, our air and our water? Productive households are more sustainable, if not regenerative. A household with a vegetable garden will think twice before using toxic pesticides because they know exactly what they are eating.
Thriftiness and resisting macroeconomics
The paradox of thrift is a symptom of a greater economic problem: infinite growth on a finite planet. What both socialists and capitalists fail to understand is that thriftiness is revolutionary. By definition, it resists global market economics. Endless discussions on policies and politics will be futile if our homes fail to function as economic hubs of production and continue to be solely consumers.
The current political discourse between the left and the right presents a false dichotomy. Big government and big business are two sides of the same coin. Current political ideologies fail to address issues such as rampant consumerism, the erosion of communities and families, and the conservation of our land, air, and water. Both sides of the political spectrum have the same mantra: the economy must grow.
Our social, political and spiritual resistance starts in the home and in our communities. As Bill Mollison wrote in An Introduction to Permaculture, “the greatest change we need to make is from consumption to production, even if on a small scale, in our own gardens. If only 10% of us do this, there is enough for everyone. Hence the futility of revolutionaries who have no gardens, who depend on the very system they attack, and who produce words and bullets, not food and shelter.”
Assessing production and consumption
With rising food prices, it’s becoming clearer that we need to learn to feed ourselves and our communities. But even before we start growing food, we need to rethink our relationship to money, work, and accounting. I recently picked up Vicky Robin’s excellent book Your Money or Your Life. She remarks that we’ve developed a new caste system based on what we do for money:
“We call that jobism, and it pervades our interactions with one another on the job, in social settings and even at home. Why else would we consider housewives second-class citizens? Or teachers lower status than doctors even though their desk-side manner with struggling students is far better than many doctors’ bedside manner with the ill and dying?”
Producing goods at home becomes an act of resistance against jobism. Whether its growing, cooking and preserving our own food, sewing and mending our own clothes, or teaching our children, these are all revolutionary acts against the global market.
Practically, the revival of home economics can take many forms. But I’ve began to adopt the practice of accounting for my production and consumption, and doing my best to ensure that my household is producing more than consuming. I regularly assess my household's production on a monthly basis. This usually is summed up in the following categories: income, food produced, energy produced (cycling, walking, water capture, solar), community service hours, education. I’ll then look at what we consume, which looks at expenses (groceries, taxes, transportation, entertainment) and energy consumed (gas, electricity). This method is by no means perfect but it starts to broaden my relationship to my home. After doing this, I started seeing to what extent my home is dependent on much a larger system, most notably, the global market and fossil fuels. The reality is that we will only start truly resisting these global systems once our outputs outweigh our inputs. Until then, we will continue to consume more than we produce.
Where do we go from here?
In Lean Logic, the late David Fleming defines the climacteric as “a stage in the life of a system in which it is especially exposed to a profound change in health or fortune.” He writes:
The climacteric considered in Lean Logic is the convergence of events which can be expected in the period 2010–2040. They include deep deficits in energy, water and food, along with climate change, a shrinking land area as the seas rise, and heat, drought and storm affecting the land that remains. There is also the prospect of acidic oceans which neither provide food nor remove carbon; ecologies degraded by introduced plants and animals; the failure of keystone species such as bees and plankton; and the depletion of minerals, including the phosphates on which we depend for a fertile soil.
The climacteric will be the convergence of events where households will need to produce more than they consume. Fleming continues:
“the climacteric could be one of those rare historical turning points when society switches into a new mode of production—into a radically different way of using its resources; its labour, capital and land—changing its expectations and values. The shift could be partly voluntary and partly an involuntary reaction to circumstances. Potentially, this could be an opportunity, for it is at such turning points that it is practical to make deep, radical breakthroughs, before new conditions settle in which we can do little to change.
If global markets continue to deteriorate, as indicated by rising interest rates, food prices, and diplomatic tensions, households may return to their original role as the bedrock of communities. We can start by sharing our skills and knowledge, and to start collaborating on meaningful projects that will nourish each other physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The point is not to be bogged down by potential global collapse but to foster the resiliency of our families and communities.
Drawing Inspiration
Every week, I share books, podcasts, films, and other resources that will support your journey as a community facilitator and builder.
Books
Earlier, I mentioned that I started reading Your Money or Your Life by Vicky Robin. To be honest, I’m usually skeptical of personal finance books and other “how to get rich” schemes. But this book was recommend by the late Toby Hemenway in his book The Permaculture City (another great read). Robin’s unique approach actually looks at our emotional and spiritual relationship to money and consumerism as a source of financial insecurity. She argues that we consume too much because our lives aren’t whole. Once we find out what we truly need, we can start rectifying our relationship with money. Definitely worth the read!