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Running Hard to Stay in the Same Place Some years ago I read an article on Amish Economics. I don't remember the details but the gist of it was very simple. The author interviewed an Amish farmer to draw up a profile of his profits and costs. He wanted to know how much the farmer spent on labour: nothing, the farmer replied. He did what he did because he loved doing it and it would be absurd to put a cost on his time. Suppose he needed assistance? He would get help from fellow Amish, and he would help them when they needed it. How much free time did he have? All his time was free, as he loved what he did, but the amount of time he spent in the fields varied on the time of the year. What about costs, for example on fertiliser? He didn't use it. Farm equipment? Mostly he maintained the horse-drawn equipment himself. The author conducted a similar interview with a Western farmer who was able to provide a detailed breakdown of capital costs, wages, expenditure, equipment etc. At the end of the year nearly he all his profits had been taken up in expenditure. He paid out enormous amounts to purchase his combine harvesters and in order to make them profitable he had to farm more and more intensively. One bad harvest and he would have to borrow from the bank simply to stay solvent. There is a parallel in the lives of many city dwellers. Many married women are desperate to return to work after the birth of a baby. They spend a large proportion of the additional wages on childcare and more money on washing machines, driers and other devices to enable them to use their limited free time ‘efficiently’. More money is spent on holidays, home theatres and status symbols. The children get limited attention from the harassed parents and the parents get even more stress from guilt feelings. People complain that there argent enough hours in the day and life is hectic. There are, in fact, around 24 hours in every day. What we do in these hours depends ostensibly on our priorities. In fact, people rarely think clearly about how they spend their time. I've dealt with this in some respects in ‘Understanding Time’. Sometimes couples caught up the treadmill of high expenses and little time do stop and re-think their priorities. More usually they just complain but don't do anything about it. They are not prepared to question the basis of their assumptions.