‘Why is it that we are so rich, yet feel so terrible? How have we reached a moment where we are at the very pinnacle of wealth and technological progress, but our care systems are crumbling and people are dying on the streets?’ In Deficit, Emma Holten traces (via witch trials, midwives and the treatment of Britney Spears) how economists, from the Enlightenment onwards, created a value framework that looked down on women and care work. Unable to assign value to acts of care, these acts have, by default, been assigned a value of zero. And this has horrible consequences for all of us, trapped in a world where our perceived value is linked, at political and societal levels, to our economic productivity, above all else.
