The Real Wealth of Nations: Creating a Caring Economics (BK Currents (Hardcover)): Riane Tennenhaus Eisler
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Accomplished feminist social theorist and activist Eisler follows up her 1987 international bestseller The Chalice and the Blade with an inquiry into the nature and causes of “the real wealth of nations” in a contrarian work of grand economic theory. She begins with her original thesis: that we inherit and inhabit a personal and social world that masculinity has built by consistently devaluing and subordinating the feminine. Pointing out the socially and ecologically destructive flaws inherent in both capitalist and socialist economies, she then asserts that our emerging global society needs a new story of what human nature and economics are and can be. For Eisler, economies are social inventions imbedded in larger social systems. She offers a clearly written and compelling account of how the masculine “dominator” mentality brought us to our present juncture, and how a feminine “partnership” mentality can help us redefine key concepts such as “value” and “needs.” Citing the most recent economic data and offering numerous relevant examples of places where efforts to practice a caring economics have succeeded both in preindustrial and modern societies, such as the Nordic nations, the book is ambitious in breadth, depth and scope. Eisler delivers another impressive work that’s remarkably well referenced, well argued, insightful and hopeful. (Apr.)
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From Booklist
Forward-thinking social scientist Eisler, author of The Chalice and the Blade (1987) and Tomorrow’s Children (2000), is renowned for her innovative perspectives on relationships, education, sex, and spirituality. Now in a similar vein as Bill McKibben in Deep Economy (2007), she addresses the need for a “more equitable and sustainable economic system” based on the “essential work of caring for people and nature.” Current economics fails to value the most fundamental aspects of people’s daily lives, Eisler observes, and she identifies the “lack of caring” as the “common denominator” underlying grave social and environmental problems. Eisler precisely maps her detailed vision of a caring economy and diligently supports her concept with a fascinating spectrum of information and analysis of everything from how little we value child care to the true cost of war and pollution. On a deeper level, Eisler writes about how the cultural stories we absorb–women are inferior to men, nature is indestructible–perpetuate an economics that is proving disastrous. Eisler argues cogently that now is the time to invest in life. Donna Seaman
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