Welcome to The Third Oikos, a newsletter about what the good life looks like when technology is reshaping the household.
Oikos is a Greek term that means house, household, or family. The management of household work — oikonomia — is where we get the word “economy.” This project came from an essay by Jon Askonas and Michael Toscano in National Affairs; they argued that history has been dominated by two main forms of household organization and production. But, almost without noticing, we’ve passed into a third form.
Each month, I’m going to interview flourishing family and community builders. I’ll try to understand their ambitions, and identify the practical techniques they use to make their households functional and beautiful. I’m hoping to draw out how individuals and families have adapted to the new technological environment they find themselves in: how they are protecting against new challenges to family life, and taking advantage of new opportunities for flourishing.
My experiences with the strengths and weaknesses of our modern social fabric, particularly in family life and my close professional attention to technological trends meant I was compelled by a question Askonas and Toscano posed:
“The family as an institution is amenable to many different kinds of social organization and technologies of production, but not every kind. What must society’s underlying technological order feature for the family to survive? What kinds of technologies are conducive to its flourishing?”
They argued that new technological forms — high-speed internet, information technology, COVID, remote work, ubiquitous LLMs, and the broader acceleration of digital life — were driving huge economic shifts and reweaving our social fabric.
What does the good life look like in the third oikos? I don’t exactly know yet, but join me and let’s figure it out.
This interview series is made possible by the Foundation for American Innovation and the Institute for Family Studies.
