The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalised Economy

by Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen, Maria Mies

A product of twenty years of analysis and activism, this unique book poses a radical alternative to the current free-market industrial system. A book of history, theory and polemic, the authors show how, if we are to survive, economies must become needs-based, environmentally sustainable, co-operative and local. They explain how the current capitalist system is none of these things, is inherently unstable and is dependent on the exploitation of various marginalized groups, particularly women, and of the environment. They call instead for a new politics and economics based on subsistence and present examples of such a perspective in practice.

Genres: Feminism, Nonfiction, Economics, Social, Sociology, Ecology

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Shaun · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fantastic argument for subsistence politics and economy in an age where neoliberalism and globalized capital are aggressively pursuing the enclosure or destruction of the last peasant economies and commons. The authors turn the pejorative sense of "subsistence" on its head and demonstrate how subsistence really means the direct creation, re-production, and maintenance of life itself without intermediary (unlike the alienation of the monetary and wage-labor economy). While the content and argument can be dense at times (owed in part perhaps to a stiff translation from the original German), Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen and Maria Mies draw a convincing connection between the fate of women in the capitalist world and that of nature, each exploited as free labor and material (i.e. "housewifeization" and "natural resources" or "inputs" to the industrial machine). Better yet, they offer real-world examples of historic and contemporary subsistence cultures and practices that offer an alternative vision to life on earth, with deep roots in a subsistence perspective having been the human norm for millennia before the Industrial Revolution. Theirs is a vision for an economics, a way of life, that need not be comprised of toil, alienation, and disempowerment, where women and men are liberated to pursue free and authentic, self-directed lives in service to themselves, their communities, and the natural world to which we all belong.

[Menser · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am rereading this book which in my estimation is a lost classic for those on the radical left interested in democratic and sustainable alternatives to capitalism, especially from a global perspective--not much on the US, more on Southeast Asia, Africa and Germany. Also helps one understand what was happening in between 1968 and all that and the Battle of Seattle and rise of Global Justice Movement. Also crucial is the deep feminist perspective and focus on agriculture.

[Oktaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Subsistence not only means hard labour and living at the margins of existence but also joy in life, happiness and abundance. Such an understanding of subsistence requires that people, particularly women, stop devaluing their own--their own work, their own culture, their own power--and stop expecting the good life to be handed down to them by those ‘on top’. This devaluation of one’s own is, of course, a consequence of forced colonisation and degradation. But it has been internalised by all colonised people, including women." (p.5)

Membaca ulang, atau lebih tepatnya, menuntaskan buku ini setelah tahun lalu hanya membaca beberapa bagian untuk memperkaya artikelku untuk program Struggles for Sovereignty. Paragraf di atas sekiranya bisa menjadi sari utama dari buku ini, yang membuatku semakin yakin bahwa (1) Subsistensi dan pandangan dari bawah itu relaistis dan; (2) Kata "joy" memang selalu ada di dekatku untuk kumaknai terus menerus. Walaupun ya, beberapa bagian masih membuatku agak sebal karena nada tulisannya--marah-marah dan agak memaksa--sama seperti buku Ecofeminism yang ditulis Maria Mies bersama Vandana Shiva.

[Donatella Gasparro · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been majorly overlooked for two decades, and it’s now more important than ever. Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen have a strikingly simple and incredibly necessary proposition - radically reorienting society around subsistence (and fundamentally re-valuing what subsistence means) - that from radical left to extreme right seems to have fallen out of any political imaginary and straight into oblivion.

This is one of the few works that goes beyond a mere critique of capitalist industrial modernity and puts forward a radically constructive proposal. By no means exhaustive or ‘practical’ in the immediate, yet bold and effective in resurrecting forgotten (or actively suppressed?) peasant ‘common senses’ that some lucky ones of us here in Europe might still remember. The book stands also as a solid and grounded manifesto for healthy, uncorrupted, ecofeminism.
It’s a pity that nobody in academic circles has, as of now and as far as I know, developed or thoroughly built upon Mies and Bennholdt-Thomsen’s subsistence perspective.

[Ce · Rating 5 out of 5]

How come we have changed our values in the past century. A rural life used to be in many ways more healthy and humane. Ever since we have left progress and its coldness take control over our lives, we have lost track of what is the idea of working for ourselves. Today we work to survive, consume products that lack any nutritional value, disconnect ourselves from others and all this ball grows until we start facing a broken society in any level. Both authors mix small stories to start explaining the alternative ways to build a new way to interact and move forward.

[KT · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read on ecofeminism that criticises the current normative definition of an economy aimed at constant expansion of industry, of production and consumption of commodities and of capital accumulation. Instead advocating for a subsistence perspective that rather than centering the endless accumulation of dead money, instead putting life and everything necessary to produce and maintain life on this planet at the centre of economic and social activity

[Umi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ditulis salah satunya oleh Maria Mies, feminis radikal Jerman, buku provokatif mencerahkan--perspective local for global women.

[Devin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A look at the world economy from a feminist, anti-colonial, and environmentalist viewpoint. Highly recommended.