Customer Reviews

The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Anyone economist whom the Wall Street Journal takes a swipe at is doing something right in my book. I don't recall the exact quote but the Journal says something like Folbre is a "feminist economist who studies family economics (socialism)." Folbre wonders aloud if the Journal believes families are necessarily socialist. Judging from their characterization of Folbre's work, and their endorsement of strict neoclassical econonmic theory in their editorial section, it appears that the Journal and other business and economic theorists of their ilk would prefer to simply call families names than deal with their true economic and moral value in the realm of capitalism.

Folbre's thesis is that capitalism has been enjoying a "free ride" on families and communitites from very early on. She further argues that capitalism is changing the ways people and families concieve of themselves. Using memorable examples, she makes a convincing case for the inclusion of traditional women's work such as child rearing in such measures as the GDP. After all, don't corporations need smart well-trained workers? And don't smart well-trained workers grow up inside families who nuture, care, and educate them? Further, don't families and workers mostly pay for their training?

Most economists are uncomfortable thinking about how the social and moral structure of society underpins capitalism. This is because they can't find ways to measure this "natural resource." Conservatives know that capitalism encourages radical individualism -- that's why they are always trying to impose "traditional values" on workers. Conservatives know that capitalism depletes people's sense of obligation and responsibility -- that's why they talk about it so much. What they don't talk about is that the encouragement of economic self-interest plays havoc with social reciprocity and moral standards. As Folbre points out, business contracts are almost meaningless in and of themselves. They are based on mutually accepted customs of reciprocity and obligation that have developed over the course of Western history. They are a simply a more elaborate version of the handshake.

Witty, pithy, and astute, Folbre's "Invisible Heart" is the perfect antidote to inane blatherings of the Chicago School knuckleheads and their mealy-mouthed descendants.

This book, The Invisible Heart, is a tremendous contribution to the field of economics. Folbre completely changes the lenses in our glasses, allowing us to see for the first time how the capitalist system is rooted in a non-capitalist entity--the family--without which capitalism would crumble. She then describes how capitalism punishes those economic actors that make it possible (i.e., the unpaid caregivers of all human beings), making care increasingly irrational. If capitalism succeeds, it will not only sound the death knell of the family, but also its own death knell. This should be required reading for anyone who understands that it is the invisible heart, not the invisible hand, that makes prosperity possible.

She attempts to make a feminist arguement which is fine but she makes dozens upon dozens of claims without backing them up with any source or validity.This book was clearly not peer reviewed let alone proofread. There are better feminist writers (Naomi Wolf), better liberal writers (Alexander Cockburn) and better economists (Milton Friedman).
Here are some of the logical errors w/ page numbers.
Xix She rambles about some story about a drunk rich man that used to go hunting with her father and yet she says "I learned at a tender age that some very successful men couldn't always tell the difference between milk and mayonnaise" Well that's because he was a chronic drunk that happened to be rich! Talk about leaving a detail out or a general assumption....

4. Her first stat is an automatic bias because it is quoting the economic department of UMass Boston Amherst of which she was the Chair

16. Quotes whirlpool foundation's poll even though they are not a polling agency!

22. She completely ignores the fact that there are other groups that were performing labor for men. Now she obviously mentions women being a feminist and that's fine and she also mentions children. Child labor on the large scale ended in the USA in the 1930's...she fails to mention slavery...one could buy a slave when it was legal. There was however no buying of women,infact in the old dowry system it was often the opposite!

40. States that mothers are often reluctant to threaten for fear that loss of contact with the father will harm the child...based on what...there's no statistic given here....no empirical data at all

46 "Most families already have a hard time paying their child care bills" according to who? most? What a generalization here! "most" being what? 70%? 60%? 51%?

62 "Most parents obviously cannot afford cyber supervision, and those who do seldom have the time to carefully scrutinize what they see" how does she know that? More importantly you don't know what goes on in public or private schools so what's the point of this statement?

85 She states that Thomas Robert Malthus made a bad argument that assistance to the poor encourages them to breed. She claims that british families started reducing children before the new poor law went into affect...no really! that's because the Irish potato famine was going on!
[...]
To disregard what some feel was an attempted genocide is unethical at best!

88 "Pooling risks though social insurance is efficient because it shares the risks." But yet in mass healthcare keeps going up..how is that efficient ?

92 She ignores that Massachusetts is the only state in the country where alimony doesn't end.

95 "Moreover, white Americans panicked when they heard that fertility rates were higher among immigrants, blacks and Hispanics than among the "native stock" Racism increased opposition to propels that might have helped others people's children." Panicked? Is that really a scientifically accurate term? Where is the empirical data to back this claim up?

107 A claim of a man from Massachusetts that fled to Florida to avoid paying 200K of required child support was nabbed...again no claim of a source

110 She states that the UN convention o the rights of the child was ratified by all nations except Somalia and the US. This is highly misleading to say the least. The US signed it in 1995..
[...]
12 countries in Europe passed restrictions on it. This agreement was taken piecemeal..many Islamic countries said they would go along ONLY if it complies with the Shai'ra

112 on child income credits "For families with incomes below the poverty line, who pay zero income taxes, the benefits are nil" and yet as we continue to have a progressive income tax system of course this makes sense. You only get a tax credit IF you pay taxes

116 "Most, though certainly not all, welfare recipients in 1995 were either working or trying to find a job...." Again no statistical claim

124 "A significant share of all women on welfare have experienced domestic violence." What share? What source of information? What is "significant" 10%? 60% 99%?

129 She quotes herself as her own source on child poverty rather than cite the citations in that other book. Life expectancy in the USA 78.2 years, France 80.7, Sweden 80.9, Canada 80.7 and Japan 82.6. None of which is statistically significant! 3-5.6% is not that big of a difference

138 She contradicts herself by implying that SAT scores have declined but yet she claims on the previous page that standardised tests are bad..so which is it?

139 "Most children now spend far more time watching tv and playing computer games than they used to, activities that may help explain overall declines in reading ability" That's a bit of a hard argument given that the internet requires people to be able to read...as do most modern video games. If this wasn't the case then why has Apples Ipad and Amazon's kindle sold quite well?

149 talks about how family owned cafes and diners were driven out of business but yet nearly every town I've been in has a local sub shop and pizza shop etc.

153 William Weld doesn't have freckles...who is she talking about?

154 She equates education and higher skills from protecting itself from computer viruses and surfing the internet? You don't need an education to surf the internet...

174 About the income tax stating "After the war ended, it was dismantled" (war being civil war) that is TOTALLY misleading since it was the Supreme Court that ruled it was unconstitutional! That's like trying to say that Roe Vs Wade was a minor detail of womens rights.
[...].

175 She implies that Reagan cut taxes when actually congress creates the budgets...not the president.
As a percentage of national income JFK's tax cut was the largest as it cut federal funding 1.9% No tax cut as of yet has been more than 2% of national income
[...]

176 empirical evidence suggests that taxes....ok what evidence? What link? What citation?

217 There was no soviet union in 1993. Soviet Union dissolved 12/31/1991 How someone with a ph.d can get something so wrong is beyond me.

I had a few dozen more but these were the major ones.
For the record at best she is a limousine liberal. She has no children and yet somehow she knows about raising them? She owns horses and lives in a small town of Amherst.She has no work record outside of academia. This book is better described as opinion pretending to be facts...