The Care Economy as Alternative Economy

This essay explores the care economy, defined as activity oriented toward sustaining life and promoting basic well-being, whether that activity is paid or unpaid. The essay finds parallels between Pope Benedict XI’s concerns about neoclassical economics as expressed in Caritas in Veritate and feminist scholarship addressing the care economy. Both Benedict and feminist economists challenge sharp binaries between the market and the state and affirm a spectrum of motives driving economic activity. Both Benedict and feminist economists critique an individualistic, voluntaristic anthropology of self-interest, and both understand true economic development to promote the holistic well-being of all persons. However, Benedict does not draw on scholarship about development and the care economy. Progress toward the vision of development outlined in CV requires consideration of this economy and acceptance of a more complex and pluralist account of the social organization of caregiving than Benedict envisions