Obliging Need

For centuries throughout large portions of the globe, petty agriculturalists and industrialists have set their physical and mental energies to work producing products for direct consumption by their households and for exchange. This twofold household reproduction strategy, according to both Marxist and neoclassical approaches to development, should have disappeared from the global economy as labor was transformed into a producer as well as a consumer of capitalist commodities. But in fact, during the twentieth century, only the United States and Britain seem to have approximated this predicted scenario. Tens of millions of households in contemporary Asia, Africa, and Latin America and millions more in industrialized capitalist economies support themselves through petty commodity production alone or in combination with petty industry wage labor. Obliging Need provides a detailed and comprehensive analysis of small-scale peasant and artisan enterprise in the Oaxaca Valley of Mexico. The authors show how commodity production is organized and operates in different craft industries, as well as the ways in which it combines with other activities such as household chores, agriculture, wage labor, and petty commerce. They demonstrate how—contrary to developmentalist dogma—small-scale capitalism develops from within Mexico's rural economy. These findings will be important for everyone concerned with improving the lives and economic opportunities of countryfolk in the Third World. As the authors make clear, political mobilization in rural Mexico will succeed only as it addresses the direct producers' multiple needs for land, credit, more jobs, health insurance, and, most importantly, more equitable remuneration for their labor and greater rewards for their enterprise.

In The Emotional Toolbox, Dr. Bochner provides a fresh and accessible perspective on the most common issues of psychotherapy and mental health. This book is a Manual for Mental Health and is organized as an owners manual for the relational world, which Dr. Bochner calls the great life machine. Unlike other manuals that focus on all brand-new systems functioning perfectly, however, The Emotional Toolbox recognizes the various types of likely breakdown that occur over time and focuses intently on helping you bring yourself to full potential. In essence, The Emotional Toolbox is the Introduction to Psychology people truly want and need, even though it does not include the typical Psych 101 articles on rats in mazes, pellet-pecking pigeons, cat-zapping contraptions, or old tired theories no longer useful in modern day psychotherapy. Instead, in this Manual the reader finds and feasts on expert knowledge regarding the intricacies of human interaction, the vagaries of couple and family life, and the ins and outs of mental health diagnosis. Dr. Bochners Emotional Toolbox addresses the most commonly encountered issues of life, explains emotional difficulties and interpersonal communication at a level where the reader can feel personally understood, and offers solutions and redemption where people struggle most.

production for family consumption and for the wider market. While the importance of women’s domestic labor has been generally recognized, the complex articulation between household activities and the changing nature of the economy has rarely been examined in greater depth than in this volume. The authors explore, theoretically and empirically, the relationships between household labor, wage levels, markets, economic change, and the status of women in the context of both first and third world countries. In the process, narrowly-defined debates are expanded, suggesting ways in which our understanding of domestic activities is relevant to studies of petty commodity production and vice versa.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1883.