Allan Carlson The Family Centered Economy
Alexander Chayanov?s emphasis on a farm?s sexual division of labor ?turns marriage into a necessary condition of fully-fledged peasantship.? The family itself is a ?work unit,? with family members fundamentally bonded to each other: husband and wife need each other to survive and prosper; and they, in turn, need children to prosper and survive. Shared labor in a common enterprise binds the family together. Mark Harrison summarizes: Peasant economy reproduces itself through the family. The family is the progenitor of the family life-cycle and of population growth. It is the owner of property. As such, it expresses the fact that the aim of production is household consumption.
Quoting Pitirim Sorokin
Now families are small, and their members are soon scattered?. The result is that the family home turns into a mere ?overnight parking place’.
Quoting Wendell Berry
“We are going to have to gather up the fragments of knowledge and responsibility? that have been turned over to governments and corporations during the 20th Century and ?put those fragments back together again in our own minds and in our families and households and neighborhoods.?
