"The purpose of the economy is to promote human flourishing"
Joan Tronto, quoted in The Stolen Year, by Anya Kamenetz
I've been looking for a theorist that "flipped the script" on the economy; our purpose is not to use human flourishing to promote the economy, but the other way around. I found an unlikely hero in Joan Tronto. I should not be surprised. Where else would a theory of care (true care... caring for rather than about) come from other than a Marxist feminist woman? And it's interesting to consider the contrast of a man's version of care, as put out in something like the Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance; a care for things (the objects of a man's affections) rather than people. I'm certain that there is a lot to unpack in the contrast of care between men and women.
Considering the economy, though, there are so many unnecessities that we take for granted; essential. We have become enslaved to the economy to the extent that our flourishing costs at least 100k in the US, when, by contrast, it costs a wild plant or animal very little to survive on our vital earth. We know that the future must take into consideration energy efficiency in the pursuit of caring for mankind, the spitting image of God. Ah, but that's just it! In our modern economy, what is our real value?
Until we bodily come to the revelation that our ultimate goal is not pushing forward the flourishing of modern life, but rather the flourishing of life, period, we will not become revisionist with our economy. I'm not sure what it would take, but I have my fears.
