Underskud

In Underskud, Emma Holten focuses on everything that conventional economics cannot measure, including care, warm hands and the invisible work done in the home. The language of economics is everywhere. When politicians, managers and economists say there is ‘no money for it’ or that something ‘doesn’t pay’, most of us hear it as factual and beyond dispute. But value is not simple to measure – least of all the value of care. The Enlightenment ambition of a society that could be run like a factory has turned people, hours, relationships and, ultimately, the whole future into priced products. That world view lies behind almost every major decision that shapes our lives, yet we rarely talk about it. Underskud is a book about everything we take for granted, wear down and lose when we cannot measure its value.