Love & Economics ― It Takes a Family to Raise a Village

In Love and Economics: It Takes a Family to Raise a Village, economist Jennifer Roback Morse explains how the economy, which appears to a series of impersonal exchanges, is actually based upon love. Morse also shows how the political order—Hillary Clinton’s “village”—depends upon the prior existence of loving families.

Drawing on the experience of neglected orphans, Morse argues that mothers create the basic attachments that lay the groundwork for the development of conscience. Furthermore, only the family can socialize children to use their freedom responsibly. No social program can take the place of mothers and fathers working together as a team. Unfortunately, stay-at-home mothers are often denigrated by feminists and always squeezed by the economy. Love and Economics defends the economic value of motherhood and outlines a better economic way forward.

Jennifer Roback Morse is a renowned marriage and family scholar. She is the author of Smart Sex: Finding Life-Long Love in a Hook-up World and of numerous major academic and public policy articles for journals ranging from the Journal of Economic History to Forbes, Fortune, and the Wall Street Journal.