Alternative Models of Peasant Families : A Critique of the New Home Economics
In presenting some ideas about the organization of families, this paper includes an explicit criticism of « economistic » theories of the family and social institutions. Broadly conceived, « economism », or the explanation of societal forms and phenomena through economic and productive processes, has become one of the dominant paradigms in modem social science. Two powerful currents of thought have largely contributed to the development of this perspective – Marxism on the one hand and, more recently, the Chicago school of economics which applies so-called neoclassical analysis to all kinds of institutions ranging from slavery (Fogel and Engerman 1974), to feudalism (North and Thomas 1971), to the family (Becker 1981), and to legal organizations (Posner 1981).