Let me make some assumptions to begin with. These are not exactly politically correct, and I can see some of you thinking I am an Austrian economist (I’m not that certain) and anti progress, retrograde,  a paleo-conservative. (Well, a New Zealand conservative. We have had some form of welfare state since the 1890s, and it has driven us close to bankruptcy a few times in the process).

1. There is a limit to what you can tax a people. If you push taxes too high, people will put effort into avoiding the same. Or leave. Or do both. Capital flight is a natural consequence of socailism.
2. Nations have to pay debt back. Eventually. The alternative is debasing their currency, and losing reserve status: consider the fate of Spain, Holland and Great Britain. Given the above, the wealthy will ensure that their capital and investments are in safe currencies.
3. Given this, there are limits to the amount of income transfer that any nation can have, and we are approaching them.
4. This limits the ability of the state to subsidize and pay for care giving, or single parents, or the unemployed. Or to promote affirmative action: if the state increases its regulation of the economy the society then stumbles.
5. The substidization of caregiving etc has led to an increase in illegitimacy, a marked increase in the use of day care or non parental child rearing, an atomization and isolation of the old, and a loss of social cohesion.
6. As a consequence of all this, the birth rate is deteriorating. Which decreasees the number of people working, the production of the nation, and the size of the cake — or, as the Soviets found out, 100% of not much is not much.

All this economic and political discussion, which occurs in both the thoughtful alt-right and alt-anarchist circles, misses an fundamental point.

Liberals seem to forget that, in the english language, ‘care’ refers to both the activity of spending time and assisting a person who may not be able to do it completely by themselves (caring for) and the state of mind where the fate of a person carries a strong emotional component (caring about). It is no coincidence that the same word is used, you can’t do a good job caring *for* someone if you don’t also care *about* them. I don’t know how Ann-Marie Slaughter can talk about the “care paradigm” being about “love, kinship and clanship” and then try to insert it into the global economy. Maybe she thinks all human beings are connected and care deeply about every single one of the 7 billion individuals (we also join hands and sing Kumbaya on the weekends).

The liberal worldview: globalization, economy of scale, capitalism and reducing everything to monetary values -> BAD. So let’s take the remaining humane activities and subject them this reality!

The corporate state reduces all people to consumers: the socialist state reduces all people to economic units, producers. Both miss the point: one cares for those they are intimate with. We don’t care for, and love those outside our families.

And a society that kills the family will die. If you remove the church from society, you also die. Our nations are doing both.

So, the question is what should the church do? My suggestion, which I made a day or so ago, is that we should set up women’s and men’s houses.

The church needs to look at this and realize that the state is senscent. Time to re-establish single communities. Time to encourage families to be at home. Time for the church to collectively buy properties. Time, perhaps, for us to rebuild our places of refuge in the modern desert (which is not on the coasts, or near liberal universities).

[If you read church history, the bishops reacted to the first monastics: these communities were started without asking permission, but the occasional forgiveness was sought. Some Catholic saints were excommunicated initially — Mary McKillop, from memory — but we need the facilities to care for each other.

That means either a network of women-at-home, or a brotherhood and sisnterhood that accept part of their role is providing a place for the old, the frail, and the dying. I think we need both.

AR, in the same thread at SSM’s place, had a more USA centric view.

100 years ago the US was full of fraternal societies like the Elks, Moose, Shriners, and so forth. These mutual aid societies established hospitals and homes for the old, and the younger men made sure the older ones had a clean, safe place to live. These organizations often took care of aging men who had no family. Maybe it wasn’t up to the care a daughter or daughter-in-law would provide, but it was still a group of people with a personal stake in the operation.

Most of those organizations were supplanted by both corporate and government retirement plans in the 40?s, 50?s, and 60?s, leading to more and more impersonal care. The very best homes for the old are on a par with the fraternal organizations. Others, not so much. The ongoing economic crisis (don’t get me started) will have many effects in many places, but it likely will it the care of old people very hard.

My suggestion to baby boomers: if you neglected to have children, or if you estranged them with your divorce, you’d better find some other network to help you. Those of religious beliefs better look to their church, and not a church full of even older people with a woman or mangina preacher, either. Better find a church where 20-something married couples have babies…

We as a culture are discovering that feminism is a luxury we can no longer afford.

Now, at this point I went on a walk, and thought about this, in particular around my parents and parents-in-law. Some of whom are quite frail: the main reason I am in Auckland is so my son can spend time with one of his grandparents, who is now very frail and trying to get his affairs in order while he remains in a fit state of mind. We were thinking about the traditions in both sides of the family is to not retire, to continue to care for each other (and the parts of the family that alienate children, which exist, lose out) and to care for each other. And that neither of us would want to end up in such a home.

I was thinking that if and when I have to leave the employ of my university, I want to work with the poor, in a poor nation: look after my health and my kids… but be in a more traditional place and space.

Because… we are at a point of “peak state”. We cannot ask it to do more. And the state will not care.

It is better to have families. And if we have no family of blood, it is far, far, better that the church become a family and care for its own.

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Chris Gale