by Jeb Smith
Capitalism began to emerge during the 14th century, as towns and the merchant class became prominent economic and political forces. During that period, the bulk of the people lived very localized lives in agrarian, self-sufficient, small villages. In this setting, the extended family and like-minded individuals, “united wholes,” as Thomas Aquinas referred to them, survived largely intact; aunts, grandmothers, uncles, cousins, other relatives and similar groupings of other extended families all helped raise and teach children. Local tight-knit societies provided a safety net and a family-oriented community. The saying it takes a village to raise a child was true then.
In a self-sufficient system, everyone had a job, and the few necessities needed from off-site were bartered or purchased through the sale of cash crops or craftworks. These agrarian units had no desire, need for, or interest in stock markets, bailouts, inflation, the economy, subsidies, recessions, job numbers, etc. They did not “go to work.” They worked for themselves (often with obligations of tribute to the Lord and tithing to the church). If they had a shop or business, it was family-owned and attached to their house; they were their own bosses, devoid of regulation and taxation (under capitalism, we are taxed to a far greater degree than serfs were during the Middle Ages). They were managers of themselves and providers for themselves. Further, without a centralized power passing laws and regulating them, they were far more free and self-governing than are people in modern societies.
Capitalism does not desire an extended or self-sufficient family that can provide for itself; rather, it aims to be the provider of essential goods such as food, clothing, appliances, and other necessities that families used to manage on their own. It wants individuals to be single and isolated, focusing solely on work and careers without support from the local community or extended family. And capitalists want everyone within the national capitalist economy so as to lower wages. They need people to “find themselves” and move across the country for education, jobs, and more, to “explore themselves.” They are encouraged to be “independent”, and buy their own cars, homes, dishwashers, and so on (more sales) so that they must earn lots of money and work, as many hours as possible to pay for these objects, thus becoming enslaved to a capitalist and the money economy.
Over the centuries to come, the powerful capitalists, colluding with the political powers, utilized government power to control the market and help maintain and increase their monopolies.
Through property tax, regulations, subsidies, bailouts and other means, the powerful capitalists removed people from their land and as small shop owners. They squashed any up-and-coming competitors and drove people into the cities to work as hourly earners under a capitalist boss in factories. They forced them to enter the capitalistic economy they were building as wage slaves, swelling the ranks of workers and providing bountiful cheap labor for the elites, whose greed maintained a tyrannical grip on the economy, politics, workplaces and individual workers.
Small businesses were crippled by expenses the major corporations can handle, and thus, they dominate the market by running competition into the ground. The capitalist buys former owners’ land or shops, incorporates them into his own, and uses his power and influence to hire politicians through endorsements.
What we call a family today is not its original use before the rise of capitalism, but a “town family” of two parents and kids. As people were pushed off their self-sufficient dwellings as independent producers and into the money economy in the towns and factories, they lived in tight spaces that could only house their immediate family. People were uprooted from their extended family and became isolated and dependent. Parents quickly became overwhelmed by the competing demands of earning a living and raising a family.
Bringing up children became harder to manage with just a mother and father, the network of older relatives that once would have helped out was no longer there, and so we had to work harder and longer. According to Harvard professor Juliet Schor in her book, “The Overworked American,” “One of capitalism’s most enduring myths is that it has reduced human toil.” Schor discovered that “far from rising leisure time, the development of capitalism involved a tremendous expansion of human effort. People began to work longer and harder.” Compared to medieval serfs, she says, we work over 50% more hours and at a far more dehumanizing pace.
Under modern American capitalism, money is placed above human beings. Humans have become servants of money and industry; our best physical and mental effort goes into job production for the economy. Kids are housed in government day cares we call schools, raised more by teachers than by parents. Individuals spend more time with coworkers than with spouses, often traveling long distances with coworkers of the opposite sex for conferences and other work-related doings, leading to cases of infidelity. Students are sent off to colleges nationwide and then corporations, putting careers above family. This ensures the extended family and next generation are scattered across the country, once more isolating families from each other — uncles from nephews, sisters from brothers, parents from kids.
Many defenders of capitalism will point to it being a great economic system they say is needed to protect us from our enemies by upkeeping America’s military. Ignoring the enemies we have created via military action or the exaggeration of what is actually needed to protect Americans if we were not interventionist, the fact is the military destroys families as well.
It leaves thousands of families with a dead parent and hundreds of thousands of parents away for long periods. Military families often pack up and move across to other bases, stripping children of stability, and relocating away from any previous family members in the area. During wartime, parents are separated for long periods of time, often cheat on each other, or simply lose their connection; divorce rates skyrocket among these military families during war.
The industrial capitalist and feminist movements were interconnected. They sought to bring women into the workforce, discouraged traditional family values, and replaced them with values that benefited the industrialist.
In The Economic Theory of Sex Industrialism, Feminism, and the Disintegration of the Family, Eric Morse points out that in an industrial society, pregnancy and nursing children are seen as a burden instead of a boost to the family economy, “a disease needing a cure.” This led to the eventual legalization of abortion, and contraceptives, and to legal divorce. Kids kept women out of the workforce, caused workers to miss work often and limit their hours, and they also depleted resources.
Women were encouraged to pursue “careers” like men, and those who stayed at home with the children were discriminated against. The industrialists somehow convinced women that slave wage work was a better life than being at home with the family. Women were told that they would finally be “free and independent” if they joined industrial pursuits.
Yet, as Morse penned, the real issue was “To bring women into the realm of industry” where they would double the workforce, allowing for lower wages to be paid to workers. The capitalist could provide such poor conditions and compensation that half the workforce could walk off, and they would not skip a beat. Since women in the workforce drove down wages and earnings, families now needed two incomes to survive. This forced kids into state-run schools and daycares, further diminishing parental influence.
Practical Distributism 