A century ago, it was not at all uncommon to have an entire extended family — one or two sets of grandparents, parents, at least a half-dozen children — all in one house.
Thus wrote a Catholic by the name of Skellmeyer in a highly interesting
Fifth Column post a few years back (via
Instapundit).
Families like that used to pose an enormous problem to modern economies.
Think about it. A dozen or two people living in one house find
hand-me-downs virtuous, they only need one set of cook pots, they only
have one toaster. Large households are not good for the economy because
they consume fewer goods.
If there were some way to split those people up so they inhabit three,
four, five or six households, then we can sell five or six toasters,
five or six sets of cook pots, five or six sets of dishes or cars or
houses. From a capitalist’s point of view, it would be best if every one
of our 300 million Americans lived in a separate house since that would
maximize both purchases and profit.
However, as one might expect, while there are enormous economic
advantages to creating this level of social disintegration, there’s a
downside as well. In order to break up the multi-generational family,
sowing social dissension between the members of the family is absolutely
critical. The most efficient way to set the various family members in
opposition to one another is to encourage every kind of selfish
behaviour. If each person thinks only of his own best interests, then
each person will spend his income on himself, saving none of it for
anyone else.
Unfortunately, this selfishness bleeds over into the workplace. A
selfish worker is more likely to steal, to use up sick days and similar
benefits at the highest possible rates, in short, s/he will have little
loyalty to the company.
Part of the cost of doing business is precisely the controlled anarchy
that tends to be engendered in the larger society as each person looks
out primarily for number one. As experience shows, anarchy can be
managed so as to produce significant profits for particular people.
But, to be fair, most businesses don’t do well in total anarchy. Rather,
they do best at a level just below total anarchy, a situation in which
everyone invests their money in goods and services that will protect
them from the various kinds of physical, emotional, and social harm
which the larger society so willingly inflicts on the weak.
Unmade in America
Since World War II, the United States has been the pre-eminent leader in
creating an economy whose citizens tremble on that knife edge between
maximum profit-generation and general anarchy.
We do this by placing enormous obstacles in the way of every personal
relationship. Early daycare, year-round schooling and the perceived need
for a two-income family effectively separates parents from their own
children for as long as possible each day, guaranteeing that the family
is essentially composed of strangers living at the same address. Better
yet, the schools teach children how to be consumers: needy, unable to
solve their own problems, always looking towards the external authority:
peer pressure.
We encourage pornography and contraception, and thereby divorce, by
transforming every person into an object of use. Easy access to abortion
and euthanasia encourage family members to destroy one another at the
first sign of burden. Homosexuals become the icons for our generation
because they (1) rise rapidly on the corporate ladder through assiduous
attention to their own good and (2) spend all their money on their
greatest love, themselves. Homosexuals are the darlings of the media
because homosexuals have far more per capita disposable income than a
married couple with five children.
But, even as the corporate world encourages homosexuality precisely
because it is profligate, encourages contraception/abortion precisely
because it is an abdication of responsibility and encourages euthanasia
precisely because it does cut costs, Christian faith attempts to
undercut these movements. America’s economy works well because it has
harnessed two opposing forces: integration and disintegration, and kept
both from gaining majority control.
We Need a New Quarry
But there’s a problem in paradise. You can shear a sheep many times, but
you can only skin him once. … In its endless quest for profits, too many sheep have been skinned.
American corporations are running out of families to exploit. There are
fewer and fewer families to break up, fewer and fewer children to
dispossess.
But not to worry. We still have Mexico.
… Hispanics … are Christians who still tend towards
multi-generational households, households whose piggy banks are growing
through the money sent home by immigrant workers. The American economy
needs Hispanics not just because they do jobs Americans will not, but
also because their unbroken families are as untilled fields to us, their
Catholicism is strong enough to maintain the necessary tension against
anarchy. Like a new granite quarry, they can be tunneled into, mined,
and blown apart. These are sheep we know how to shear.
