WUNRN
Input for UNCTAD Public Symposium 2009
UNCTAD - UN Conference on Trade & Development
Proposals For the Way Forward – Obstacles and
Opportunities
Helsinki, Finland
Email: hilkka.pietila@pp.inet.fi
THE
GLOBAL HOUSEHOLD NEEDED
A Sketch for Sustainable Human Economy
In my
childhood the term household literally meant holding the house
i.e. cultivating the land and maintaining family. It provided the extended
family with basic needs; food, housing, the textiles for the house and clothing
for the people. Now we would need the
global household for the same purpose.
But now our
extended house is in tremendous disorder. The efforts we call development bring
only maldevelopment:
- poverty and hunger are increasing;
-
resources are
declining;
-
environment is
deteriorating;
-
inequality and
injustice are increasing both between the continents, countries and people;
-
climate is changing
without restraints.
How we can
urgently stop present maldevelopment and recover our economy in such a way that
it will benefit us instead of making disaster worse?
First of
all we have to realize that human economy is not only monetary economy and the
problems we face are not solved with money only. The contributions needed are
not only financial and the progress cannot be measured only in monetary terms.
We need to comprehend that the human economy is composed of three basic
components, households, the cultivation and the market.
Households have always been functioning as the basic unit of human economy and
the centre of social and economic provisioning. However, the basic production
and growth on earth takes place in living
nature. In past centuries there was much less people on the Earth and they
have cultivated natural resources in
sustainable ways.
The man-made industrial economy, the market is in our hands. It is up to us to decide, what role we
want to give it. In any case, it should operate with a view of serving human
needs and preserving natural resources. These are the only justification and
legitimate purpose of the market. The economic growth is not an end itself.
Today the
neoliberal economics is imposing the terms of the market – competition and
profitability - on cultivation and households, which is fatal for these vital
components of the human economy. The business interests and profitability
prefer the do away the households, because that would make people totally
dependent on the market. And since the mainstream economics does not recognize
the laws of nature, it would annihilate the cultivation, too.
This paper is an effort
to present shortly a picture or the sketch for a global household or the
sustainable human economy, within which we should integrate the private
households, the cultivation economy and the market and make them to operate harmoniously and sustainable.
- Exploring a
holistic view of economics?
Both the ecological economy and feminist economy share a critique of the
way in which the commodified market system handles the international trade and
economy. A British researcher Mary Mellor
suggests that feminist and ecological economists should “present more cogent challenges
to deficiencies in both economic theories and systems” if they were to develop
new theories (Mellor, 2005).
The feminist economists
“By linking these two concerns – theoretical and practical gender and ecological perspectives – a feminist ecological economics provides
theoretical justification and impetus for those concerned with ecological
sustainability or the economic contributions of women. These explorations show
the fruitfulness of such a double focus and the importance of linking the
discussions in feminist economics and ecological economics.” (Perkins and
Kuiper, 2005)
Ecological sustainability is one of the basic questions of human
survival. How to solve the problems of overconsumption, exploitation of natural
resources and climate change in such a way that ecological sustainability will
be preserved and the climate change being stopped?
Perkins also points out that feminist economics is not the same as gender economics or the economics of women and
work, which are only theoretical, historical and policy aspects of gender-based
economic differentials of mainstream economics. The feminist economics’
critique of neoclassical economics centres on whom economics is for and what it is about.
The feminist-ecological economics explicitly discuss interrelationships
between the economy and nature, emphasizing the distinction between industrial
exploitation of natural resources and the more benign interactions applied in
small-scale agriculture and household cultivation. Feminist ecological economics
places households and community production and reproduction at the centre of economic focus, because
without human beings and the society they live in, the economy has no meaning (Perkins,
1996).
-The holistic picture of human economy
At present
only feminist-ecological economists are making efforts to shape a holistic
picture of human economy as a whole including its three distinct components of
cultivation economy, households and the industrial business economy.
The fundamental problem is, that
economics as science is based exclusively on the logic and terms of industrial
production, extraction and manufacturing of lifeless elements, minerals and
non-renewable energy resources. Its value is measured only with fictional
notion of money. When the logic of this economics is applied to living
production of cultivation economy and its demands
Figure 1.
THE TRIANGLE OF HUMAN ECONOMY
HOUSEHOLDS
1. Skills&ability
2. Voluntary work
3. Care&wellbeing
Graph:
Figure 1. Households,
Cultivation and Industry and trade are the basic pillars of the human economy.
They form the essential triangle of the human economy in toto. Each one of these components has different
foundations and terms of operations. In their interactions and relations each
one of these three components is operating differently according to its
respective logic and terms. This has to be taken into consideration in the
agency of human economy in order to achieve sustainable exchange and
collaboration between all three. The flexible collaboration between
them is the prerequisite for the sustainability in human economy.
_
_ _ _
_ _ _
_ _ _
_ _ _
_ _ _
_ _ _
_ _ _
of ever increasing productivity and
competitiveness are imposed on agriculture and husbandry, the system is bound
to run into fatal difficulties.
Therefore it is urgent that the
permanent distinctions between these three components of human economy are
acknowledged and each one of them is taken into consideration on their respective
terms (Figure 1). The interaction and dynamism between
the three components has
to be thoroughly studied and understood in order to achieve a successful and harmonious interplay between them, which is the
essential prerequisite for sustainable life on the earth (Pietilä, 1997).
-
Households as a Counterforce to Globalization
Today, in times of recession or
economic transition the households can provide for national economies a buffer
cushion, which sooth the consequences of high unemployment as well as budget
cuts on social service allocations. For the families the household economy
provides a reserve potential to
cope with their daily life even in circumstances of unemployment and declining
incomes. Furthermore we can make
households even a counterforce to the globalized market forces.
According to an Italian economist Mario
Cogoy the extreme form of market
utopia consists of two ideas: On one hand people are supposed to acquire
professional competence only in one single field, where they will earn money
enough for buying everything else from the market. On the other hand it implies
a total abolition of work and skills from the families, the private life of
people. All labour and skills are absorbed into the market (Cogoy, 1995).
Cogoy also
says that this follows exactly the old dogma
of industrial society that economic progress consists of a continual shift
of labour and skills from household-based production to the commodity-based
consumption. Along with this “progress” the living households would cease to
exist and homes might remain only as a place to sleep. This is the ultimate
utopia of the market.
Today this
utopia is realizing itself very soon in well to do countries, since practically
all life and society are becoming a market place. Even the family services and
needs are being “externalized”, i.e. bought in the market rather than made at
home.
The household ideology is very different. In this
ideology human being and her wellbeing are the point of departure, her dignity
and integrity are the basic values. All work and production is done for people,
to serve their needs and aspirations, physical, social and cultural. According
to this school of thinking every individual is indispensable as a dignified
member of family and community, a subject in her own life, not an object of
anonymous market forces.
We can turn
the household even as a counterforce to globalization. The richer the family is
in practical skills and competencies of its members, the more independent they
are together to decide their relationships with both the labour and commodity
markets. And the richer the village, the community or the cooperative is in
skilful and multitalented members, the less dependent they are on the goods and
services provided by the market.
This turning around in our private life makes us conscious subjects
again and to reject being objects of the market forces. We can learn consciously to reject the impact of advertising, fashions,
marketing and other manipulation, to defend our minds against these actors and
decide independently by ourselves, what we need and what we don’t need.
- The sustainable human economy
to be built
Finally we
can rewrite the explanations in the triangle of human economy in the way, how
the sustainability, equity and wellbeing for all and everybody will be realized
(Figure 2).
In the
present situation the active households, sustainable cultivation and small
cooperatives are the only economic actors which still have some potential power
over the market. The more access to production forces – including the know-how
and skills - the people in small communities have, the more they also have
options to develop livelihoods of their own. What is important is that people and consumers
have the right and opportunities to decide themselves how much of their work,
skills, know-how and time they are willing to sell to the labour market and how
much goods and services they are willing to buy
from the commodity market.
No
household in the industrialized societies is fully self-reliant any more, but
even as consumer units the households have options to decide the amount and
selection of goods they buy and to regulate their consumption and their degree
of dependence on the market.
The pivotal
assets are skills and money, but the skills are more important than money. We
have to realize, what enormous “hidden market force” or potential leverage of
power there is in the hands of individuals, families and households.
Figure 2.
A SKETCH FOR SUSTAINABLE HUMAN ECONOMY
HOUSEHOLDS
1.Wellbeing of families
2.Restoration of skills,
self-help,cooperation
3. Dignity&self-determi-
nation.
Graph:
Figure
2. In
this picture of Sustainable Human Economy we rewrite the explanations. We also
rehabilitate the household and put it back to the key position in the human
economy. We are aware that the cultivation as the subsistence economy needs
support and protection everywhere instead of being exposed to the market and
merciless competition. And we claim that another new Equitable and Global
Economic Order has to be established to regulate the industrial economy,
the market to respect the terms of biosphere and the limits of natural
resources of the globe and to pursue the survival of the humanity.
The situation today has intimidated
also the democracy, even in the
countries where it has been fairly functional. The consumer movements have
tried to mobilize consumer power to substitute the political power. But they
have realized only part of the strength, since they have induced people only to
make conscious choices between different products. Even this has been effective
on several occasions in counteracting the policies of transnational
corporations.
But
really powerful choice in the hands of people is to buy or not to buy – more
than they need. The more self-reliant you are in your household the more power
you have against the market. The virtue of everybody is the awareness of the
limits to growth in this planet and respecting the justice and solidarity
towards all other people near and far.
After all, the entire human economy
should be turned the right side up; the
industrial and commercial economy should be seen as an auxiliary to serve the needs of people and families
instead of using them as means of production and consumption. The
democracy in the age of globalized neoliberal economics is the consumer disobedience against the power of the market.
REFERENCES:
Cocoy, Mario,
Market and non-market determinants of private consumption and their impacts on the environment. Ecological Economics 13, 1995, pp.169-180. 1995.
Mellor, Mary, Ecofeminist political economy:
Integrating feminist economics and ecological
economics. Feminist Economics,
11, No.3, 2005, pp.120-126.
Perkins, Ellie & Kuiper, Edith,
Introduction: Exploring Feminist Ecological Economics, Feminist Economics, 11, No.3, 2005, pp.107-150.
Perkins, Ellie, Feminist Ecological Economics
in a Nutshell. Part of lecture series,
Pietilä, Hilkka, The triangle of human
economy: Household – Cultivation – Industrial production. An attempt at making
visible the human economy in toto, Ecological
Economics 20, No.2, 1997, pp.113-127.
Pietilä, Hilkka, A Sketch for a
Pietilä, Hilkka, Cultivation and Households:
The Basics of Nurturing Human Life, [in Quality of Human Resources:
Disadvantaged People. Ed. Eleonora Barbieri-Masini], in Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems (EOLSS), 2004, UNESCO/Eolss
Publishers,
Pietilä, Hilkka, Provisioning by Cultivation and Households,
Varjonen, Johanna – Aalto, Kristiina,
Household Production and Consumption in Finland 2001, Household Satellite
Account, 2006, Statistics
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