Revisiting the Chicken Mystique

Though I am not usually the one buying my family’s groceries, I still know about the skyrocketing cost of eggs. It’s hard to escape those headlines!

Whenever groceries get more expensive or incomes fall, people get newly interested in the idea of producing their own food, as opposed to buying it at the grocery store. That was certainly the case back in 2010 when I was researching my personal finance book, All the Money in the World. The world was just climbing out of The Great Recession, and seed companies had reported a spike in interest among the newly frugal. Raising chickens in your backyard? Definitely hip.

Then, just as now, advocates often extol how much money you can “save” by raising chickens instead of buying eggs at the supermarket, but as I explored in a chapter called “The Chicken Mystique,” that’s not true. Raising chickens, growing food from seed, foraging, bartering and similar such activities aren’t free, they’re just (mostly) moneyless, which is an entirely different matter. As I wrote, “Money is so efficient that when you choose not to use it, and try to step outside the monetary economy, you must pay with something else: time.”

The problem here is that time is absolutely limited in a way that money is not. The amount saved by doing many of these activities comes out to less per hour of time invested than minimum wage. That was true for cheap eggs a decade ago, but it’s generally still true for the pricier ones we need to buy now.?

That’s not to say there aren’t other reasons to raise your own chickens: for fun as pets, or you prefer the taste of the eggs and don’t have a farmers market nearby. But one reason I called the chapter "The Chicken Mystique" (and it remains one of my favorite things I’ve ever written) is in homage to The Feminine Mystique. Even after you bring up the minimum wage point, some people then pivot to imbue moneyless endeavors with a particular meaning that transcends the work itself, just as Betty Friedan noted that the culture expected housewives to achieve bliss waxing their floors.

Personally, I think it’s a bit of a stretch. Most of us are better off working at the things we’re good at, and spending our leisure time doing things we enjoy. In an advanced market economy, this then gives us the ability to buy eggs from people who specialize in their production for far less than the time cost it would take to raise the chickens ourselves. As for meaning, there are lots of sources of that in this world. Including paid work! I definitely find writing as fun and meaningful as chickens. Even if I do really like fresh eggs!?

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