A Government Is Not a Household, Stop Saying That
Every time someone says, “The government should spend within its means,” a Keynesian economist astral-projects into their home yelling, “Babe, who do you think creates the means?” Households use dollars. Governments issue them. This is not a metaphorical distinction; it’s a material one.
The Household Metaphor Was Invented to Keep You Quiet
This isn’t a misunderstanding—it’s a strategy. The “government-as-family” metaphor was engineered by think tanks in the 1970s to make austerity sound like responsibility.propagandaWhen elites need you to accept suffering, they describe it as maturity. The story goes like this: a responsible family tightens its belt in hard times, so a responsible nation should too.
But this framing was designed to moralize scarcity. It taught people to believe that funding healthcare is reckless, housing the unhoused is indulgent, and feeding children must be deserved. If care requires moral worthiness, then deprivation becomes personal failure. You are no longer witnessing structural neglect—you’re witnessing your own supposed irresponsibility.
The Government’s Job Is Not to Save Money
Households try not to run out of money. Governments try not to run out of capacity: infrastructure, healthy workers, educated populations, functioning cities, breathable air, and time.
Money is not the constraint; it’s the coordination mechanism. The constraint is what we can actually build, teach, heal, and sustain. Dollars are a tool. Capacity is the point. The only question that matters is whether we are using public power to expand collective possibility—or shrinking it for the comfort of creditors.
“But My Family Can’t Just Print Money!”
Correct—and your family also doesn’t issue sovereign currency, stabilize national markets, guarantee deposits, or underwrite collective survival. If your family were the Federal Reserve, your dining room would have a monetary policy committee and an interest rate target.
Household logic applied to national spending is not humility; it’s confusion. A sovereign government is not like a household because its liabilities are everyone else’s assets. Your household cannot create the currency it spends. The state can.
The Household Metaphor Protects People Who Already Have Everything
When politicians say, “If you want a better world, find the money yourself,” they’re not promoting prudence—they’re protecting hierarchy. The metaphor works beautifully if you already own everything and need everyone else too exhausted to ask questions.
Austerity is not thrift. It is class war disguised as prudence. It shrinks the public sector, hollows the safety net, and narrows the future until private wealth looks inevitable. Starve public imagination long enough, and the market starts to look like destiny.
Capacity Is the Real Resource. Money Just Allocates It.
The real question is never “Can we afford it?” The real question is “Do we choose to build it?”
When a politician says we can’t afford housing, healthcare, or climate adaptation, what they mean is that the people profiting from scarcity would like to keep doing so. Balancing the budget doesn’t safeguard prosperity—it destroys the infrastructure that makes prosperity possible. It shortens lives, collapses public health, kills education and art, and ensures the future remains owned by the past.
Stop Comparing the Government to Your Kitchen Table
You don’t need to be an economist to see the difference. A kitchen table cannot issue bonds, direct industrial policy, or stabilize global markets. A household can’t decide to end child hunger tomorrow. A government can.
And when it refuses to use that power, it’s not being “responsible.” It’s choosing surrender over possibility.
Because the only thing more dangerous than a government that spends too much is a government that stops believing it can build the future at all.