Free Markets and Family Breakdown

There's nothing especially original about noting the tension between free markets and traditional family structure, but I think the tension warrants some meaningful reflection given today's political climate, where unabashed support for free market supremacy is widely perceived as going hand in hand with unabashed support for two-parent families. In his 1997 book Endgames: Questions in Late Modern Political Thought, the British philosopher John Gray writes provocatively on this subject. He notes that "the institutions of the free market are potent destroyers," wiping out "not only defunct industries but also obsolete moralities." A prime example is the way "in which the workings of free markets can thwart human needs for enduring relationships and attachments. This can happen through the imperative to unencumbered mobility exerted on individuals and families in deregulated labour markets," especially when the market demands that both parents earn wages. Gray argues that "the increased fragility of our families cannot be unconnected with the strains imposed on them by economic policies that put flexibility of labour above any social consideration." He criticizes American communitarians like Amitai Etzioni and libertarians like Charles Murray for essentially "accept[ing] market individualism without question or criticism while calling for the restoration of a form of family life that is irrecovably gone."

Especially in religious circles, the breakdown of the family is often portrayed as the product of the individual rights revolution and/or some sort of secularist anti-family conspiracy. Should the focus of our blame be shifted to our free market economy? If so, is the family's demise just a lamentable but unavoidable by-product of an otherwise beneficial way of life, or is there something we can and should be doing about it in terms of state intervention? If any readers or co-bloggers have any input, I'd welcome it.

Rob