20. Family is Our Minimum.

Family is Our Minimum.

Bob Komives
::

There are no true rugged individuals.
Either they died
for lack of nurturers after birth,
or they were never born
for lack of lovers before conception.

Ruggedless

The science of ecology tells us how we share biospheric wealth with other species, often to our mutual benefit. We must share. No element of life is self-sufficient. We must tax other individuals and species; they must tax us. Humankind has no self-sufficient individuals. From Lewis Thomas in Lives Of A Cell, I learned that the mitochondria in our cells are but one of several kinds of creatures with their own genetic structures that live symbiotically with us, within us. We tax them for their knowledge in order that we might survive; human genes alone do not know enough to keep us alive.

Even if I were to refuse to recognize mitochondria as anything other than "me," I could not ignore the two people who had to undergo bisexual reproduction for me to arrive in this world. Then I cannot ignore that once I got here, during infancy and well beyond, I continued to depend upon adult nurturers for my survival and well-being.

To support bisexual reproduction and to solve the challenge of infant dependency we organize ourselves into families. Family is the minimum biological unit of organization for species survival. Many of us do more than survive. We depend upon our families and their particular patterns of role playing to do more than reproduce and nurture hunks of genes and protoplasm. Adults carry brain knowledge and have artifacts that they wish to distribute to their children and others. Family is the convenient minimum to carry out this complex wealth distribution. Through family we receive and pass along culture and experience. Thus, our adopted children--who carry none of our genes but carry knowledge that we acquired during life--may inherit and pass along more of what we are than do our biological children.

Family is the minimum--the macroeconomic minimum-- the smallest organ that our species knows can capture, distribute, and recirculate knowledge we need to survive and prosper. Since reproduction requires two people and produces a dependent, over time there must be at least three individuals in a family. The minimum number of roles to play, however, is four: father, mother, dependent, and nurturer. There are no maxima.

Beyond the biological minimum necessary for survival, our species has unique flexibility in choosing the family form through which one generation can pass biological, brain and artifactual knowledge on to the next. Adjectives such as matrilineal, patrilineal, extended, monogamous, and polygamous each describe a family pattern that has proved useful. Nouns such as nucleus, band, clan, tribe, chiefdom, city, federation, and even nation, describe scales at which family-type roles can operate.

Microeconomics is important because it helps us understand the dynamics of individuals (or even families acting as individual entities) who buy and sell goods and services in a marketplace. Some of these individuals may be close to rugged, but, here at least, we do not give a damn. What does it profit a man to control a market but suffer a dearth of things to trade? We cannot look to microeconomics to understand the dynamics that produced the market goods and services in the first place -nor the greater wealth that never goes to market. To gain that understanding we should be able to turn to macroeconomics and its minimum economic unit, the family, in all its forms. There we can hope to find out how our species reproduces, expands and nurtures its wealth.

:: Bob Komives, Fort Collins © 2006 :: Plum Local IV ::20. Family is Our Minimum ::
With attribution these words may be freely shared, but permission
is required if quoted in an item for sale or rent

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::