"It has not yet been disclosed what we are to be" (1 John 3,2)
Inspirations
The Economics of Natality
Thinking of the World as a Household
(Theses presented at the General Assembly of EFECW, Loccum, 25/08/2010)
German version
French version
1. Humans do not come into the world as autonomous, adult market players. Rather they are born bloody, mucous, entirely dependent newcomers. At first – and later as well – they need food, shelter and love. It is not possible to organize the satisfaction of these primary needs fully in the form of a market since they cannot be reduced to the logic of tough calculation between “equal” adults.
2. “Economy” originally means “law of the household” (oikos=house, household, nomos= law, teaching). To date it is still generally agreed that above all the question of how to meet human needs is at stake. Nevertheless economics has been turned into a market theory: i.e. - secondary problems and items have been placed in the centre while what is primary has been pushed to the margins or even suppressed. Moreover the satisfaction of real needs has – already in Greek antiquity – been defined as “low work”, as “slave labour” or “a woman’s job”.
3. Today the consequences of this confusion of primary and secondary realities, which is notorious in patriarchal societies, are clearly visible. The circulation of money has to a large extent become detached from the real economy (cf. financial crisis), people who just exchange money for money become more and more wealthy while those who deal with real needs – mothers, house-husbands, nurses, peasants – live on the edge of or below the subsistence level.
4. What we need is an economic theory and practice that refocuses on the satisfaction of real needs. Such an economy levers out the patriarchal separation of the “higher” symbolically male sphere of market and money and the “lower” symbolically female spheres of households. It starts over with the original question: what do real people need for their wellbeing?
5. In order to launch this kind of thinking it is helpful to remember one’s own birth (Mt 18, 2f): What did I need as a newcomer? Who fulfilled my needs then? Who is fulfilling my real needs now? What can (can’t) I buy on the market? What is the real use of the (secondary) institutions of market and money? Where and when do they become obstacles to the good life? How can money and market occupy a meaningful position on this side of their patriarchal overvaluation or even veneration?
6. Whoever rethinks economics beginning with human newcomers will realize that the patriarchal hierarchical separation of markets and households doesn’t make sense. He or she will primarily focus on realities such as nourishment, shelter, love, shit, vulnerability, fragility etc. instead of money, competition and profit. He or she will be able to reconceive the good life of all humans on this side of the bipartite world, more exactly: the good life of six and a half billion bearers of dignity that live, in ever new generations, together with innumerable other living beings in this unique, beautiful and vulnerable world.
Thank you, Melissa and EFECW translators!
Already appeared in this section (To get these texts, please contact me):
- The second step: Kinshasa 2010
www.facebook.com/note
- Postpatriarchal Glamour (dec. 2009)
- Free Female Thinking in the Business World (written on the way from Prague to Wattwil, 12/10/2009)
www.facebook.com/note
- Quotes from: Sharon D. Welch, A Feminist Ethics of Risk (revised edition), Minneapolis (Fortress Press) 2000
- Quotes from: Gloria Kehilwe Plaatje, Toward a Post-Apartheid Feminist Reading, in: Musa W. Dube ed., Other Ways of Reading. African Women and the Bible, Society of Biblical Literature Atlanta/WCC Publications Geneva 2001, 114-139
- Quotes from: Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, 1970
Thinking of the World as a Household
(Theses presented at the General Assembly of EFECW, Loccum, 25/08/2010)
German version
French version
1. Humans do not come into the world as autonomous, adult market players. Rather they are born bloody, mucous, entirely dependent newcomers. At first – and later as well – they need food, shelter and love. It is not possible to organize the satisfaction of these primary needs fully in the form of a market since they cannot be reduced to the logic of tough calculation between “equal” adults.
2. “Economy” originally means “law of the household” (oikos=house, household, nomos= law, teaching). To date it is still generally agreed that above all the question of how to meet human needs is at stake. Nevertheless economics has been turned into a market theory: i.e. - secondary problems and items have been placed in the centre while what is primary has been pushed to the margins or even suppressed. Moreover the satisfaction of real needs has – already in Greek antiquity – been defined as “low work”, as “slave labour” or “a woman’s job”.
3. Today the consequences of this confusion of primary and secondary realities, which is notorious in patriarchal societies, are clearly visible. The circulation of money has to a large extent become detached from the real economy (cf. financial crisis), people who just exchange money for money become more and more wealthy while those who deal with real needs – mothers, house-husbands, nurses, peasants – live on the edge of or below the subsistence level.
4. What we need is an economic theory and practice that refocuses on the satisfaction of real needs. Such an economy levers out the patriarchal separation of the “higher” symbolically male sphere of market and money and the “lower” symbolically female spheres of households. It starts over with the original question: what do real people need for their wellbeing?
5. In order to launch this kind of thinking it is helpful to remember one’s own birth (Mt 18, 2f): What did I need as a newcomer? Who fulfilled my needs then? Who is fulfilling my real needs now? What can (can’t) I buy on the market? What is the real use of the (secondary) institutions of market and money? Where and when do they become obstacles to the good life? How can money and market occupy a meaningful position on this side of their patriarchal overvaluation or even veneration?
6. Whoever rethinks economics beginning with human newcomers will realize that the patriarchal hierarchical separation of markets and households doesn’t make sense. He or she will primarily focus on realities such as nourishment, shelter, love, shit, vulnerability, fragility etc. instead of money, competition and profit. He or she will be able to reconceive the good life of all humans on this side of the bipartite world, more exactly: the good life of six and a half billion bearers of dignity that live, in ever new generations, together with innumerable other living beings in this unique, beautiful and vulnerable world.
Thank you, Melissa and EFECW translators!
Already appeared in this section (To get these texts, please contact me):
- The second step: Kinshasa 2010
www.facebook.com/note
- Postpatriarchal Glamour (dec. 2009)
- Free Female Thinking in the Business World (written on the way from Prague to Wattwil, 12/10/2009)
www.facebook.com/note
- Quotes from: Sharon D. Welch, A Feminist Ethics of Risk (revised edition), Minneapolis (Fortress Press) 2000
- Quotes from: Gloria Kehilwe Plaatje, Toward a Post-Apartheid Feminist Reading, in: Musa W. Dube ed., Other Ways of Reading. African Women and the Bible, Society of Biblical Literature Atlanta/WCC Publications Geneva 2001, 114-139
- Quotes from: Iris Murdoch, The Sovereignty of Good, 1970
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