Economics is the
mother tongue of public policy, the language of public life and the mindset
that shapes society.
Pre-analytic vision.
Worldview. Paradigm. Frame. These are cousin concepts. What matters more than
the one you choose is to realize that you have one in the first place, because
then you have the power to question and change it.
What enables human
beings to thrive? A world in which every person can lead their life with
dignity, opportunity and community -- and we can all do so within the means of
our life-giving planet.
Mainstream economic
theory is obsessed with the productivity of waged labour while skipping right
over the unpaid work that makes it all possible, as feminist economists have
made clear for decades. That work is known
by many names: unpaid caring work, the reproductive economy, the love economy,
the second economy. However, as
economist Neva Goodwin has pointed out, far from being secondary, it is
actually the "core economy", and it comes first every day, sustaining
the essentials of family and social life with the universal human resources of
time, knowledge, skill, care, empathy, teaching and reciprocity.
Wherever people are
present, so too are power relations.
