By Joe Mancini
Published in December 1994
In theory, the household is the place where the family shares in the common project of building the family home so it can contribute to the common good of the neighbourhood. in practice the world of work has transformed the household into a house which is occupied by workers and preworkers. Children are treated as workers-in-training, they contribute very little to the household economy. Children seem to believe that watching TV is a prime activity and all work should be avoided.
Counterproductivity
The home was once a place where creativity and innovation were applied to the daily chores to lighten their burden. Today the home consumes packaged products that curtail the imagination. Industrial products spilling out of the kitchen cupboards and storage closets do more than take up space.
They signal to the user that practical do-it-yourself common sense is secondary to the status gained from consuming industrial products. Ivan Illich calls this counterproductivity, which is “an industrially induced paralysis of practical self-governing activity.”
Individualistic work takes a job and forces people to have a career doing the same job everyday. This downgrades traditional thrift skills like sewing, gardening and cooking. They become lumped together as the mindless tasks you do at “work.”
But in fact these are the most important skills to the household economy that engender creativity and dignity. Without the ability to use tools to practise traditional skills, where will the self-respect that builds community come from?
Good Work
Good work that is accomplished from the home does not create divisions between spouses and children. All can contribute talents and skills to build the household economy. The household should not be subjected to a rigid work schedule that obscures the joys of life, like making and eating meals together, taking walks together, meeting and helping neighbours. A business in the home should not allow competition to rule.
Maintaining a healthy business means creating high standards of quality. But this cannot be accomplished through undermining the values of honest work. Children will learn a great deal when they watch examples of honesty, courage, hope and laughter rather than fear and mistrust. Bringing a business into the home demands moral honesty for the sake of the children.
The Work Ethic at a Small Producer
Self-employment will only imitate the values of bureaucratic work unless choices are made to recover the ethics of small producers. Self-employment needs to be complemented by home production, which asks unique questions.
For example, home production questions the cost of driving to the store and buying packaged food. It asks the question, “Why am I doing all this shadow work which is taxing to the environment, my time and my cheque book?” “Can I replace the labour I pay for in packaged products with my own labour and time?” “Can I value what I create rather than what I purchase?”
The act of recovering the labour that has been given away in the home gives a small producer the ability to reduce overhead to shake a business idea not only more humble but more realistic and attainable.
A family that makes a transition from consuming to producing knows instinctively that they can save hard- earned dollars by participating less in the market economy. This is the key to home production. Those who find themselves out of work and at home immediately start exploring frugality. Because of the rule that expenses always seem to rise to meet income, when one loses one’s job, new ways of cutting back suddenly become obvious.
The Cost of “work”
If you live entirely inside the market economy, it will cost you a lot to work. Anyone working and consuming will pay anywhere from 35-50 per cent of their income on income tax, sales tax, GST, hidden taxes, government fee for services, licenses, UI, CPP.
You must also add in the cost of chauffeuring yourself to work each day, the cost of gas, insurance, car payments, costs of a second car, repairs, as well as the cost of clothes, daycare or after school care, and the loss from not having someone at home with the children.
The greatest loss is the daily demonstration to your children that packaged industrial french fries are to be preferred to real potatoes, or packaged soup to simple homemade soup.
The Fundamentals of the Home Economy
Home production starts by taking responsibility for the fundamentals of the home economy. How can I cut family expenses? The questions revolve around taking obvious steps. Can I arrange my affairs so that I can use the car less? Can I grow some of our own food? Can we preserve our food in the fall? How can I convert junk into useful items? Can I cut more and more packaged foods? Can we exchange expensive entertainment with just being with people? What energy-saving improvements can be made to the house? These are some of the basic questions that need to be asked.
A model for recovering home production is the self- reliance of the artisan, tradesman or small proprietor of the 19th century who, together with his family, looked after the small home or shop business while fulfilling the tasks of the householder, with both activities interwound with each role.
One hundred and fifty years ago people relied less on cash because common household tasks involved building one’s own house, processing and preserving food, candle-making, soap making, spinning, weaving, quilting, rug-making and gardening.
Home production and home businesses go together very well. They complement each other. Both have a starting point of recovering common sense and creativity in home and work. In an age of the decline of the family, this is work that can become truly important. There is something about growing food for the family that beats endless car driving. A family finds its common purpose when it recovers the fundamentals of honest productive work, frugality and the ability to maintain a high standard of personal well-being.
