Rediscovering the Non-Monetarised Economy

* Article: What is work and where does wealth come from? Rediscovering the non-monetarised economy. Nicole Lieger.

Paper for the international conference on „Decent Work and Unemployment“ at the Center for Ethics and Poverty Research, University of Salzburg, May 26-29th, 2009

Version without illustration, full version on request by nicole.lieger at univie.ac.at

Text

Nicole Lieger:

"What is “work”? One approach would be to say that “work” are those human activities which are necessary for the survival and well-being of people – individually and collectively. There may be a connotation of duty, an assumption that work is arduous or in some wider sense unpleasant. There may also be a very positive connotation of self-fulfilment, of learning and growing and being given an opportunity to contribute and to belong to a larger whole.

If we start with the provisional understanding of “work” as human activity contributing to the survival and well-being of people, it becomes possible to see that “work” is not the same as paid employment. Nor is it the same as paid work in general.

In fact, I would say that there is surprisingly little correlation between payment and usefulness of a given activity. Designing advertisements for cancerogenous products, for example, is an activity I would consider detrimental to human well-being, yet people have well-paid jobs in that sector. Many paid jobs in industrial countries produce things that, to my mind, are fun, enjoyable gimmicks, but that would not really be missed by humanity had they never been invented. Striped toothpaste, for example, or talking dolls, or a new form of elegantly designed chairs.

On the other hand, unpaid activities are sometimes at the very heart of what allows for human survival and well-being. Child rearing is a classical example. While some aspects of child rearing have been formalised and monetarised (in kindergardens, schools etc.), a large part, even in contemporary Europe or North America, remains in the informal, non-monetarised sphere of families and social networks. Taking care of babies is a most obvious example of an activity necessary for the survival and well-being of human beings. Individually, but also collectively. Physically, but also socially, and emotionally. Our individual ability to be happy seems to depend so much on the experiences of our childhood and the way we grew up. Likewise, a society’s ability not to go to war, or to establish an internal order that is reasonably peaceful and effective, seems to depend just as much on the values, norms and practices communicated to its members not least through education and upbringing. Child rearing is not only a huge, but also an incredibly important part of human activity; its contribution to human well-being (or lack thereof) is enormous.

This has been noticed. The consequences of this insight have not, however, been fully integrated into our ongoing discussions of particular areas. Where does it feature, for instance, when we are discussing “decent work”? Is it present in the background? Is it at centre stage?

Together with childcare, housework has sometimes been brought into the field of the visible. Housework includes cooking and cleaning. For some, it may include gathering firewood and fetching water, or milling grains. If it includes feeding the hens, collecting the eggs, letting the goats out and pruning the trees we are moving into what is generally recognised as subsistence agriculture – which is, in its own right, a huge area, particularly in Africa, Asia or Latin America.

Another part of housework consists of repairs and maintenance. Painting the garden fence, fixing the door of the cupboard, looking after the bike or motorcar, repairing the well. For some it may include updating computer software, programming the heating system and figuring out the settings on a new mobile phone. People in many parts of the world also mend their own roof, or build a lean-on shed on one side of the house, or indeed the house itself. Construction work in the area of private homes includes a high proportion of non-monetarised work, even in the West. (This is not to be confused with paid work evading taxation, of which there also is a considerable proportion.)

If all these activities which we have just listed as “housework” were to be contracted out to paid servicepeople, the cost (or the growth of measured GNP) would be enormous. Of course, the level of wealth and well-being, as such, would not change. The food has always been cooked, and the roof repaired. The wealth, in terms of use-value, has always been there. What we could witness here is not growth as such, but monetarisation.

The list of wealth currently being created outside the monetarised sector continues. Voluntary organisations have been noted. Being at least formalised, if not monetarised, they stood a certain chance of being recognised in their existence, and in consequence also in their importance. Free Software is something that has also made it into the range of visibility, at least on some occasions. People are producing fairly complicated goods, without getting paid for it, and make them available to everyone with internet access. The same is true not only for software, but for all free content on the internet. The amount of information and entertainment provided that way is huge.

In fact, the amount of information and entertainment provided outside the internet may be larger still. How much entertainment do we derive from talking to our friends, from a game of cards, from going for a walk together, from having a party in our place? Even in Western societies, where the “entertainment industry” has become relatively large, non-industrial, non-monetarised entertainment probably still holds by far the largest share. Quite a number of people currently hold jobs in the entertainment business. An even larger number of people provide entertainment without getting paid for it, and the value they create may be correspondingly higher.

As with entertainment, so it may be with education, with information, with counselling and consultancies. How often do people learn to use computer programmes by trying it out for themselves, reading instructions and asking friends who already know? That way of learning may hugely outnumber the instances of learning in formalised, monetarised computer courses. And so it may be in most areas of learning; the formalised education connected to diplomas (and paid teachers) is not necessarily larger than autodidactic and mutuality-based learning; it is simply more visible (and more respected?). The wealth that we create directly for ourselves is perhaps the least perceived an appreciated part of all. Do I value my own daydreaming as much as a commercial movie in the cinema? Is the bathtub I ran myself worth as much as the one in the wellness centre?

So the first point I would like to make is one about the size of the non-monetarised sector. Even in societies as highly monetarised as contemporary Europe, the wealth created through unpaid activities is huge compared to GNP. The exact size is of course not known and measurement would be a question of definition. However, I don’t think we need exact figures to move on with our argument. All we need is an awareness that all this activity exists, and that it contributes enormously to human survival and well-being. Often, the monetarised economy is presented as the place where a society’s wealth is produced; that is what keeps us alive, and which allows other (unpaid) things to survive on its fringes. I would like to suggest another reading: human life, with all its facets and activities, with its ways of being and of relating, with all the embedded structures of meaning that make us a society rather than an accumulation of individuals, as the primary sphere, which is larger than the monetarised economy, which provides the basis and which carries the monetarised economy in its midst. The monetarised economy is embedded in a larger whole, and it produces part of what is needed for human survival and well-being, but not necessarily the largest part. The largest part, even in contemporary Europe, may be seen to come from human activity that is not monetarised.

I’d like to envision that as concentric circles, with the monetarised sphere of human activity smaller than the non-monetarised one, and embedded in it, carried by it. I usually add another circle, larger still than all of human activity, to represent all living beings, and the cosmos. For human life, too, is embedded in something much larger, and our survival and well-being is ensured by much more than just our activity. Plants and animals keep human beings alive, and so do the clouds and the sun. That may or may not change our further discussion on the notion of work. I personally feel it does make a difference to include that broader presence in our awareness. It may help to put things into perspective, and to induce a feeling of abundance and ease, which can in turn make political and academic discussions a lot more open and productive.

A very similar approach has been suggested by other people, for instance by Vandana Shiva, who visualises it in terms of pyramids rather than circles. i The debate around the introduction of a basic income, to be granted unconditionally to all citizens, also raises many of the points I have made here about human activity outside the monetarised spher

The material and the immaterial; activities and livelihoods

It may be worth taking a look at this point at another aspect that perhaps shapes our thinking about wealth, the monetarised economy and “work”.

The difference between the monetarised and the non-monetarised sector is not one between physical and immaterial goods; nor is it one between essential needs of survival on the one hand and luxuries or pleasant additions on the other. Very basic needs of immediate survival are often cared for in the non-monetarised sphere; e.g. in childcare. Material goods are created and passed on in the non-monetarised sphere, including areas as diverse as breastfeeding of infants, subsistence agriculture and construction work, and goods produced in the monetarised sector, but then distributed within the gift economy, such as second hand clothes and furniture passed on between friends.

Besides, paid work or “the economy” is not necessarily concerned with the production of physical goods or material objects. The notion of industrial societies transforming into information societies indicates that a larger and larger proportion of what counts as “the economy” at least in the West is about intangible things: information, understanding, know-how, contacts and networks, creativity, ability to organise efficiently, design of systems, perhaps even of systems that deal primarily with the creation and distribution of symbols and meaning (e.g. money; passports; movies).

Is human well-being largely to do with material, physical, palpable things?

In any case, it is worth remembering that the monetarised economy is not necessary. It does produce some material objects, but an increasing share is production of immaterial goods. Practically all of these immaterial goods are also being produced in large quantity outside the monetarised sector. That may make it ever more dubious to give so much more importance, status and attention to one and not the other.

One way of trying to balance our awareness of the monetarised and the non-monetarised is to expand the term “work” to cover all sorts of unpaid activities as well. Childcare thus becomes work, talking to my lover is working on my relationship, and reading and meditating is working on myself. That approach is laudable, and perhaps effective, in trying to restore the balance in attention and importance given to different kinds of activities. It has the serious drawback of making everything seem very serious, if not heavy. Life is not something I have to labour through; at least I don’t want it to feel that way. Calling everything “work” may make life seem a bit of a drag; calling some things “work” and others not may distort our perception and lead to unhelpful policies. A third option might be to call none of our activities “work”, and all of them “activities”. Or “play”, perhaps, for those of us willing to experiment with the utopian powers of language.

“Activities”, however, seems a neutral enough term to me; there is nothing particularly utopian about it and most of us should be able to relate to it easily enough. Yet it keeps the horizon of our thinking wide open. It includes the monetarised sector, but does not narrow our perception down to only that sector. If we make “activities” rather than “work” the topic of our debates, new perspectives will be able to emerge, which is a good thing not only in times and in places where paid employment does not fulfil all the hopes put in it.

Another useful term might be that of “livelihood”. It can be used in the context of the “development” discourse, precisely to draw attention to the fact that people do not necessarily live off jobs, that they may not do so at present and maybe need not do so in a future society we envision. The term livelihood may be just as useful in opening up debates that in Europe currently focus on jobs and the creation of employment, or help broaden the range of options considered – and features of reality noticed – when it comes to economic transformation in the former Soviet Union. ii

Pro and contra monetarisation

There are a multitude of forms livelihoods can take. Some of that variety is indicated by the examples of non-monetarised activities given above. Subsistence activities include not only farming, but also repairing one’s house and doing one’s dishes. Free software and internet content shows not only that we contribute without getting paid, but also that we receive without paying. The same goes for all the comfort, fun and advice given and received in friendships. Livelihoods can include any number of non-monetarised activities, and / or a combination of monetarised ones. Economía Solidaria is a term that has helped to broaden our perspectives on the forms production can take. Many of the approaches represented under that umbrella are based on money, or on comparable mechanisms. Paid jobs in a monetarised market economy can also form part of livelihoods, as can state systems providing welfare payments, health care, education and other services.

One nice thing about the term livelihood is that it can refer not only to the means of making a living in material terms, but also to the way of life that entails. Smallholder farming, for instance, can be seen to be a way of being and relating that is in no way replaced by, say, government payments delivered to an urban building, even if the amount would allow for the purchase of exactly the same goods that were home-grown and self-made before. It makes a huge difference; whether it is for better or for worse is a question of viewpoint, conviction or personal experience. What is a cosy home to one person may be a claustrophobic nightmare to another; what feels like liberation to some is alienation to others. Personal desires and ideas of the good life are as relevant here as collective visions of how society should be structured and why. We are here at some of the most classical questions of politics and philosophy.

My suggestion is that we be conscious of the presence and relevance of these questions whenever we are discussing practices and policies for one particular sector.

Monetarisation and formalisation change more things in a society than just the size of measured GNP. It changes the nature of the activity. It changes both the “production” and the “consumption” side, not least by introducing that distinction in the first place.

Maintaining my own home, the place I live in, taking care of the things - and the people – that surround me may be seen as a most forceful example of meaningful work. It can give a sense of immediate purpose and gratification, of obvious and intrinsic value. It could be looked at like an antidote to alienation. Strong arguments have been made with respect to the alienating and possibly totalitarian potentials of monetarisation and the formalisation which usually comes with it. If more and more areas of my life are handed over to experts, who possess the diploma certifying that they are able to deal with it (while I am not), then what remains? Would we not be better off reclaiming our lives from experts and commercial solutions, and to develop the human capacities we have, individually and in community?

On the other hand, the case is being made for formalisation, including monetarisation. For example, is it not preferable to have professional healthcare, with people who have proper training and years of experience, and to pay these people accordingly, rather than rely on a do-it-yourself system in that area? Likewise, is it not important to have a unified school system that provides the same standard of education for all children, irrespective of their class or caste background? Isn’t that one of the most important steps towards a fairer and more egalitarian society, or towards equality of opportunity if you prefer? Indeed, a professional system of education may not only be better for the children, but also for the parents, especially for the mothers, who are thus enabled to shed the roles the have been traditionally assigned and to form their lives according to their own desires and talents.

The creed of modernity and progress has accompanied us since the Age of Enlightenment, and has shaped many aspects of the system we live in, and of the policies that are currently being proposed and implemented. Likewise, the critics are many and eloquent, whether they focus on the West, as for instance Marianne Gronemeyer does, or on the global South and “development” discourse, as for instance Gustavo Esteva, Arturo Escobar or Vandana Shiva do.

My argument here is not, per se, for one direction or the other or a third one. My main point is to open the discussion. Or rather, to open that discussion wherever it is relevant, i.e. whenever we are discussing a policy area where these questions will be decided upon, one way or the other. If we are going to decide on that question, then at least let us do so consciously, rather than implicitly, automatically, without even noticing there would have been a choice, and a question.

This, unfortunately, can happen very easily. Let’s look at the issue of work again. If we say “work” and mean “paid employment” or at least “paid work” we are already narrowing our view to the formalised, monetarised sphere. But have we done so explicitly? Very often the debates that follow are based on the assumption that people need work; either for their individual survival, or personal growth, or because society can only function that way. At that point, the discussion I wanted to open is closed already. A major decision has already been made, without the question ever having been tabled. We have decided to focus on one particular sector of the creation of wealth, namely the monetarised one. All the others have become invisible to us. The policy proposals deriving from our debates are likely to strengthen the monetarised sector, without reference to any others, and possibly to their detriment.

Policy implications: the example of unemployment agencies in Europe

I would like to give an example of the implications current policies have, and what might change if we take a different perspective.

Coming back to the notion of “decent unemployment”, I would like to look at the possibilities of state agencies administering unemployment benefits in Western Europe. At the moment these agencies tend to have a mandate that compels them to try to get the people registered with them back into paid employment, or perhaps paid self-employment. They may offer support in the form of information about the job market, trainings or similar measures. They may also try to exert control over their clients, demanding information and proof of various details of their behaviour, and perhaps exert pressure on them, backed by the threat of withholding payments. The repressive side of such regimes may create considerable suffering, not exactly in line with a notion of “decent unemployment”.

All the activities on the part of the agencies are officially aimed at reintegrating those registered as unemployed into the labour market. The agencies, and the people employed by it, have very little room for manoeuvre. Even in cases where it seems quite clear that no paid employment will be found, they are not allowed to pursue a different course of action; neither the agency, nor the people concerned are allowed to do that.

Life might be easier for everybody, and our society more prosperous, if we approached the issue with a somewhat broader perspective on what is a possible and desirable outcome. Paid employment is a wonderful option, desired by many people, and often available. If it is not available, or not desired, it might be reasonable to consider other options. The aim would a way of living that feels all right to the person concerned and that ideally is beneficial to society at large, or at least not harmful.

Commitment to an activity in the voluntary sector could be encouraged under such circumstances. At the moment, people registered as unemployed may indeed be discouraged or forbidden to make substantial commitments to voluntary organisations. That may be because there is an assumption that they ought to be on call on a daily basis in case a potential employer shows up. So, no long term commitments to other causes, please. This way people are prevented from making any reasonable plans as to what to do with their lives. Not only work in a voluntary organisation demands a time horizon that is longer than a day; commitment to anything large and important enough to build the centre of a person’s activities is likely to do so.

If we are thinking in terms of livelihood, unemployment payments count in. They may, for some people, constitute sufficient monetary income to lead a reasonably pleasant life. It may be good for everyone if those for whom that is agreeable take the unemployment payment, and leave the paid jobs available to those who, for some reason or other, feel that they cannot do without one (I am of course thinking of a situation where there are fewer jobs than people, as we currently have in Europe.)

The focus would always be on how people get what they need for survival and well-being, and how they can and wish to contribute. All these areas can and probably will comprise monetary and non-monetary aspects. We are usually contributing anyway. Someone who is taking care of small children does, to my mind, not need an additional excuse for not seeking paid employment. Of course it should be possible for that person to seek paid employment if he or she wishes; but should it be compulsory? Are we so sure that no matter what that paid employment actually consists of, it will contribute more to the well-being of society than an extra amount of childcare, and of relaxation, and reading, and talking to friends would have contributed? At the moment, our policies seem to be based on that assumption. However, that may be because in our calculation, we compare the activity in the paid employment to nothing, to a void, to “doing nothing”. That is a consequence of pushing the whole non-monetarised sphere into invisibility. We end up comparing something to (apparently) nothing, and think that surely something is better than nothing. And then we create a lot of pressure to push for that something to happen. However, the alternative is not “nothing”, and monetarisation is not the same as growth. What may look like growth from a limited viewpoint will, as soon as the field of vision is expanded, turn out to be just a change, a replacement of one activity by another. If we value the reading, and talking, and relaxing of that lone parent as much as we currently value formal education, counselling and consulting, professional entertainment and the wellness industry, we can see that a lot of value is being created here – even apart from the childcare as such.

State agencies could encourage and support people in establishing fulfilling and creative livelihoods. They could provide rooms for people who wish to set up reading circles, for instance. They could at least not forbid them to commit to setting up reading circles and study groups by excluding anything that is intensive or long-term from their permissible activities, and forcing them to spend their time writing applications instead.

If we do not curb people’s creativity and will to be active, but instead support them in finding a way of living that pleases them and allows them to contribute we may all be better off. For European unemployment agencies that would mean that their mandates should be broadened. People receiving unemployment benefit or similar payments should not be required to seek paid positions at any cost. Those who chose not to do so continue to receive the payments; an apparatus of control and coercion becomes unnecessary. That already restores a lot of the respect essential for unemployment to be decent. Support may be offered to those who wish, providing information, or training, or networking facilities. This is not so different from what is happening at the moment, only that it would be strictly on the wishes of those concerned (which would probably increase the efficiency e.g. of training no end). And, of course, that the vision of what is a possible positive end result has broadened: in addition to paid employment, a whole range of unpaid activities that are pleasant and useful for society comes into view. That, of course, means that there are many new avenues that can be explored, and there is little need to feel stuck just because paid employment does not materialise.

This may be true on the individual level as well as on the level of society. Going for increasing monetarisation of most areas of life, and for full employment is one option available to a society. If that does not seem to work, or if that does not seem desirable, the political decision may be to try in another direction, or to try one sort of mix or another. This is an important conclusion not only for unemployment agencies in Europe, but also for policy making in other regions, notably those that have not as yet seem such a high degree of formalisation and monetarisation. “Development” does not have to mean a society on the move towards monetarisation; there is a political choice and we are invited to make it consciously, explicitly, aware of the immense horizon of human ways of making a living, of ensuring the survival and well-being of people (and hopefully other beings) on this earth."

Notes

i Shiva, Vandana (2005): Earth democracy. justice, sustainability and peace, South End Press, p.52

ii Among the authors drawing attention to the multitude of ways in which people in contemporary Russia make ends meet is Ehlers, Kai (2008): Erotik des Informellen: Impulse für eine andere Globalisierung aus der russischen Welt jenseits des Kapitalismus, edition 8