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economic vulnerability. 15 “It’s not just that people sacrifice their live relationships, and the care of their children, to pursue their careers,” says philosopher Charles Taylor. “Something like this has perhaps always existed. The point is that today many people feel called to do this, feel they ought to do this, feel their lives would be somehow wasted or unfulfilled if they didn’t do it.” 16
    “In a word,” says economist Stephen Marglin, “markets are the cutting edge of the loss of human connection.” 17 Most economists, he adds, see that loss of human connection as a virtue; markets are more efficient than communities, which valued friendliness, community spirit, and a willingness to work on behalf of the community without expecting to be paid. As markets develop for what used to happen in families for free, the caring that happened at home is slowly transferred to larger, more impersonal institutions. The cost of care goes up, not least because it had nowhere to go but up since women working at home weren’t being paid for what they did. That rising cost of care is good news if you’re someone who wasn’t being paid for the care you were giving, but not so good if you’re someone who needs care and who can’t afford to pay for it. But even if you can afford to pay for it, money doesn’t guarantee that the care you get is going to be high quality. 18
    The economic story says that getting involved in your community is a constraint and an obligation. Your parents or grandparents might have stayed in one neighborhood — even one house — for thirty, forty, or fifty years, and known everyone within shouting distance. Psychologist Mary Pipher wrote: “There is pleasure in just acknowledging each other, in nodding on the street and chatting in the cafés and grocery stores. To move away from a true home is to move away from life. I don’t think we begin to acknowledge and understand how much we have lost.” 19
    But in the economic story, staying put is not ideal. Being mobile is preferred because mobility enables economic development. The more mobile you are, the story says, the more access you’ll have to jobs, education, services, and social activities. 20 Even marriage doesn’t have to keep you in the same city as your spouse anymore. Couples in commuter marriages live apart during the week to pursue their individual careers in different cities and maintain their relationship over the phone or through weekend flights “home.” You need to stay loose, be ready to pick up and go, though that makes it harder for you to put down roots and develop close, long-term relationships. 21
    Those close, long-term relationships, though, aren’t what they once were either. In the economic story, friends, neighbors, people in your community, and even strangers, whether in person or online, are all potential members of the audience you’re building for whatever it is you do as you strive to develop your personal brand. As business author Tom Peters put it, “When you’re promoting brand You, everything you do — and everything you choose not to do — communicates the value and character of the brand. Everything from the way you handle phone conversations to the email messages you send to the way you conduct business in a meeting is part of the larger message you’re sending about your brand.” 22
    Your relationships are transactional — a means to an end, not an end in themselves. What matters is building a bigger audience. If you can connect with the right people, the people with the biggest audiences themselves, you never know what someone might be able to do for you or how you might be able to monetize those connections in the future. German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies called that type of association Gesellschaft , a connection created to promote the interests of its members, where people who are essentially separate come together for a period of togetherness because it is to their benefit to