The alternative is to delineate the theoretical grounds of our feminist inquiry before we embark on policy formulation.

Todorova 09 [ Zdravka is Assistant Professor in the Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University, Dayton, USA. ] Employer of Last Resort Policy and Feminist Economics: Social Provisioning and Socialization of Investment Center for Full Employment and Price Stability Working Paper Series ER 2009/04/07 (ELR=Employer of Last Resort] //CPSW – PA

Thus, access to ownership of property or to wage income offer solutions essentially grounded in individualism. As discussed above ELR has a potential to move away from a market-based approach to empowerment. One could take however a “modernist” – dualistic understanding of the relation between gender and markets – and view ELR only as a vehicle of increasing market participation of women. Alternatively, what are the conditions of possibility for formulating an ELR policy in a way that abandons the rigid traditional/modern dualistic understanding of empowerment? A broader question: how can we do that without “collapsing into relativism” (Charusheela 2001, 206)? Feminist economists can address some of the issues in implementing ELR across various economies and cultures. While the problem of economic instability and depressed effective demand is central across regions subject to capitalist production, we need a consideration of the consequence of adopting any blanket macroeconomic policy that assumes a desire to preserve (or enhance) these very capitalist relations. To the extent that local communities may already engage in other ways of organizing their social provisioning (not necessarily based at all on wage work), it is legitimate to ask would ELR be in conflict with these values. The decentralized character of ELR’s administration distinguishes the program from other policies of the capitalist state, nonetheless, it is the institution of wage work – the main feature of capitalist relations - that is at the center of ELR. Consequently, in addition to the different macroeconomic realities such as market competitiveness of “developing” economies, the problem of what constitutes development cannot be ignored. Since the objective of an ELR is to reduce instability in capitalist production, there is of course an assumption that capitalist development is the end-in-view (albeit transformed), while in fact developing countries and local communities, at least theoretically, have other options for social provisioning, even under the conditions of capitalist globalization. Conclusion The idea of socialization of investment prompts the formulation of an ELR macroeconomic stabilization policy based on a gendered Post Keynesian theory. The possibility of full employment, price stability, and stabilization of effective demand is complementary to the possibility of socialization of unpaid care work and transformation of gender relations. ELR clearly warrants an input from feminist economics. Given the diversity of theoretical and methodological approaches in feminist economics, a clear distinction should be made between market vs. social provisioning approach towards incorporating feminist input in ELR policy formulation. ELR policy provides a way to move from marketization of housework to social provisioning. Yet such “transformation” is not obvious and straightforward given the heterogeneity of approaches within feminist theory regarding conceptualizations of empowerment and gender. In the context of ELR gender can be discussed either as a variable, or as a process; empowerment can be envisioned either as better access to market activities or as a structural change of valuation depending on are we taking a marketization or a social provisioning approach to unpaid care work. Thus, it is important to delineate the theoretical grounds of our feminist inquiry before we embark on engendering any policy formulation. My interest as explicated in this paper is in the broadly formulated social provisioning approach, (as opposed to marketization) which I see as coherent with the Post Keynesian/Institutionalist research program that works towards full employment, price stability, equity, and alleviation of socially created scarcity