Radical homemakers

[Bonsoir]

[[http://www.opendemocracy.net/openeconomy/shannon-hayes/radical-homemakers Brilliant] on the virtues of domesticity.

Here

Thanks for posting this - have only skim read it so far but seems very interesting.

I loved it! I am very enamoured of home as a place of industry/production/creativity rather than just a place of consumption.

bookmarked to read later, looks interesting

An inspiring article. I'll have to read the book now.

But what about high tech non-consumer orientated jobs which must take place outside the home ie: those who work in 20th century medicine - operating theatres? Who does those jobs?

All the rest works, but what about the cash crop theory, that we all need to make excess cash somewhere to pay for things that we cannot make, even in a sharing community ie: spectacles, books, medical equipment, cars, tractors, spare parts.

In the end you have to go back to horse drawn transport, primitive (no doubt effective 70% of time) medicine, v. local government (ie; tribal government)

I believe in radical homemakers, but I can see that it operates only in parallel with existing economic setup, which is slightly dishonest. Eg: we need big companies making the cars in factories, which we can then buy when they are secondhand 10 years down the line...and feel good that we aren't extravagant.

You only have to watch the Waltons and read Little House on Prairie to see that they were always trying to make enough CASH/GOLD to buy special consumer things, glass, cloth, tinned food despite being the Radical Homemakers you describe.

anyway have to dash..

I love the idea of going back to horse drawn transport

the original 4x4 and still the best!

plus you don't have to pass any tests, I sometimes seriously think about riding from one place of work to the next but would take ages wouldn't it?

swanriver - I don't think that the idea is that everyone should aim for the full whack radical homemaker lifestyle, rather than it is validating a choice that some families make and, in particular, validating the choice that homemakers make when deciding that their family will gain more from their own creative endeavours and domestic skills than they would from the cash generated by the same person being in the workplace.