Home Economics

Here is an uneven essay arguing that the economy should be family centered instead of individual centered. Uneven, but full of plums. So, little Jack Horner, stick in your thumb. What a good boy you are!

Highlights:

The idea that economics is the study of markets is one of the greatest mistakes of our time. Properly understood, economics is the study of the production of goods and the provision of services. The market is only one realm in which goods production and service provision are found. The others are the family, the state, and civil society (the nonprofit or charity realm). The family is the oldest economic institution, as the very term “economics”—from the Greek word for household management—suggests.

Each of the four interlocking economies that make up the econ­omy as a whole is based on a different set of principles. In the family economy, family relationships govern the pattern of both contributions and entitlements among family members. In the public econ­omy, the state takes in taxes and provides goods or services to citizens according to some conception of the public interest. In the market, goods are produced and services are provided by firms or individuals in return for profits or wages. In the nonprofit or charity economy, people donate gifts of money or labor to organizations which help needy individuals or supply social goods (like higher education or museums or hospitals or symphony orchestras).

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