by Nancy Folbre (Author)

When does the pursuit of self-interest go too far, lapsing into morally unacceptable behavior? Until the unprecedented events of the recent global financial crisis economists often seemed unconcerned with this question, even suggesting that "greed is good." A closer look, however, suggests that greed and lust are generally considered good only for men, and then only outside the realm of family life. The history of Western economic ideas shows that men have given themselves more cultural permission than women for the pursuit of both economic and sexual self-interest. Feminists have long contested the boundaries of this permission, demanding more than mere freedom to act more like men. Women have gradually gained the power to revise our conceptual and moral maps and to insist on a better-and less gendered-balance between self interest and care for others.

Author Biography

Nancy Folbre, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, has won international recognition for her research on the interface between feminist theory and political economy. Her empirical research focuses on the amount and value of time devoted to care of dependents. She has recently published Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family (Harvard University Press, 2008), and co-edited Family Time: The Social Organization of Care (Routledge, 2004). She has written several books for a broad audience, including The Invisible Heart: Economics and Family Values (New Press, 2001) and four editions of the popular Field Guide to the U.S. Economy. A recipient of a five-year fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation, she is also a Charlotte Perkins Gilman Fellow of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, a past president of the International Association for Feminist Economics and an Associate Editor of the journal Feminist Economics.

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