But Will It Make You Happy?
August 14th, 2010In the “normal” world, in our “normal” careers, we would have an annual combined income of roughly US$100,000. What horror would the U.S. government commit with the portion of the taxes it would demand from us? We now live well on a tiny fraction of what we would make in our “normal” careers. We have no debt. We own our small farm and our vehicles outright. We convert what’s left over at the end of the month into cash savings and gold. We also give money to people who are doing good work.
Whether you decide to leave the U.S. (like we did), or not, doesn’t matter. Living well on very little, encouraging others to do the same and actually funding people who are doing good work (allocating resources to values) are the main tactics of the frugal insurgent.
—We’re Inching Dangerously Close to the Point Where Consumers Run for the Hills
My take on frugal living is that it is a better response to the situation we’re facing than armed insurgency. Obviously, framing it in those terms doesn’t maintain the right appearances for publications like the New York Times and other dying bastions of polite circledom. Have no doubt about it, though, taking fiat confetti out of circulation hurts this thing bad, far worse than trying to kill it with fire, bombs or bullets. Things like consciously earning less taxable fiat confetti, keeping your fiat confetti “in a mattress” and buying precious metals (physical, not paper based) with previously accumulated fiat confetti are all weapons of mass destruction to the fascists of finance and the maniac vampire state that have built this concentration camp of a system.
If all of this sounds too frightening, here’s a vaguely hip, new black, new normal, cool kids spin on voluntary simplicity.
Via: New York Times:
A two-bedroom apartment. Two cars. Enough wedding china to serve two dozen people.
Yet Tammy Strobel wasn’t happy. Working as a project manager with an investment management firm in Davis, Calif., and making about $40,000 a year, she was, as she put it, caught in the “work-spend treadmill.”
So one day she stepped off.
Inspired by books and blog entries about living simply, Ms. Strobel and her husband, Logan Smith, both 31, began donating some of their belongings to charity. As the months passed, out went stacks of sweaters, shoes, books, pots and pans, even the television after a trial separation during which it was relegated to a closet. Eventually, they got rid of their cars, too. Emboldened by a Web site that challenges consumers to live with just 100 personal items, Ms. Strobel winnowed down her wardrobe and toiletries to precisely that number.
Her mother called her crazy.
Today, three years after Ms. Strobel and Mr. Smith began downsizing, they live in Portland, Ore., in a spare, 400-square-foot studio with a nice-sized kitchen. Mr. Smith is completing a doctorate in physiology; Ms. Strobel happily works from home as a Web designer and freelance writer. She owns four plates, three pairs of shoes and two pots. With Mr. Smith in his final weeks of school, Ms. Strobel’s income of about $24,000 a year covers their bills. They are still car-free but have bikes. One other thing they no longer have: $30,000 of debt.
Ms. Strobel’s mother is impressed. Now the couple have money to travel and to contribute to the education funds of nieces and nephews. And because their debt is paid off, Ms. Strobel works fewer hours, giving her time to be outdoors, and to volunteer, which she does about four hours a week for a nonprofit outreach program called Living Yoga.
“The idea that you need to go bigger to be happy is false,” she says. “I really believe that the acquisition of material goods doesn’t bring about happiness.”
While Ms. Strobel and her husband overhauled their spending habits before the recession, legions of other consumers have since had to reconsider their own lifestyles, bringing a major shift in the nation’s consumption patterns.
“We’re moving from a conspicuous consumption — which is ‘buy without regard’ — to a calculated consumption,” says Marshal Cohen, an analyst at the NPD Group, the retailing research and consulting firm.
The consumer revolution eats its children: They are the perfect consumer. Just like the perfect citizen partakes in the politcal process, the perfect consumer deliberates about his actions thoroughly.
Maybe times can change, after all. And in 100 years, capitalism is gone, just like the church and politics before…
/idle thoughts.
previous discussions of the middle class as a chief provider of resources to antigovernment activities has been theorized if not out right shown. eg:ira, french revolution, etc. however, this is something of a double edged sword as the same middle class also pays the majority of taxes and so supplies both sides with funding, manpower and resources. brother vs brother is a certainty eventually.
the circumstances we find ourselves in now are interesting. multiple downward pressures on middle class populations include un(der)employment, failed investments/debt, medical + health issues, personal security concerns, loss of faith in institutionalized business culture, perception of cognitive dissonance.
when an animal is presented to a much larger predatory animal it will attempt to present itself as the smallest target possible in order to escape notice. for the short term this may be a viable exercise in avoidance, until such time as most others have also adopted the strategy and the predator must now adopt to new prey.
in this case such a strategy already exists in global communications interceptions. signal to noise may or may not still be problem mind you, but it’s probably less of a problem than we’d like to believe.
where it gets interesting again is, as you mentioned above, and ghandi has mentioned a few times as well, the removal of tangible and intangible assets to feed the current system, or even a stripped down system one tenth its’ current size becomes unsustainable.
a few current examples of inability to maintain visible control on certain areas has been in the news for some time now and include the reduction in fire/police response. this would be one of the first very public signs of capitulation in underperforming tax bases. the temporary shift to private contracts may last a few years, it may not, it depends on what value is actually derived from potentially substandard contractors performing these types of work and what liability may be placed on the contractors, the one who pays the contract, and the community government. if dollar values paid exceed value then these services will be removed again. in urban environments this can extremely chaotic and potentially dangerous in the case of fire or running gun battles without appropriate response in a timely fashion.
this of course will continue to erode faith in institutions previously considered almost unassailable (you can’t fight city hall).
where things get hazy is: if this could be the new definition of middle class living then what does the new definition of lower class look like? and what disaffected groups do we now find in it? if younger people begin to believe that the future is not as expansive as they may have been led to believe, do not take on 100k + debt for a doctorate in physics to further weapon design, and instead find themselves in a series of unsatisfying pay the rent jobs…in what way will they decide to apply the unused intelligence they’ve withheld?
/prattle off. thanks for your time. pls tip the waitress.
@neural overload
if younger people begin to believe that the future is not as expansive as they may have been led to believe… in what way will they decide to apply the unused intelligence they’ve withheld?
See the picture of the boy in this post:
https://cryptogon.com/?p=1087
In the U.S., though, it might be older people, who paid into Social Security for decades, and wind up getting nothing back out, who will be quicker on the trigger than the young people.
i agree that scaling back household consumption and participation in the official economy is a key tactic. it is important because it not only starves the beast, it has the potential to improve people’s well-being—health and psychological state. how many people are waking up to this possibility? it is still small (a couple of percent?) but it may gain momentum over the few years left before violent systemic collapse ensues.
the post from 2007 that Kevin linked to has some important things to say that most of us would rather not hear. what is at the root cause of warlordism? my ten cents worth says that it is the psychological dependence on someone else being in charge, organising things (food electricity, petrol), keeping order and enforcing rules. all modern technocratic societies suffer from this separation of one’s own situation from personal responsibility. but how it plays out, when push comes to shove, i think, will vary greatly among industrial and post-industrial societies. key variables include culture, access to weapons, religion, how strong a sense of self-entitlement has been instilled, etc. Societies where people have been raised and lived their adult life under the strong belief that they have no responsibility or reason to make some personal sacrifices for the greater good are more likely to see a proliferation of inter-gang feuds, in my opinion. if you are sitting in the middle of suburbia, there is no petrol to be bought in the normal way, no food in the supermarkets, the electric and telecoms grids are going haywire, and the people with the serious resources are erecting private “green zones” here and there, what are you going to do? more than likely, you will go to work, not for money (fiat confetti) for the local loudmouth who says he can get you petrol and food and maybe even a diesel generator. but you and your household will be assigned various work tasks within the guy’s organisation. unless the central state can offer better, it’s goodbye federal and state government, i reckon. to be honest, i can’t think of anywhere else that has such bad prospects as the urban/exurban US. what to others think?
btw, read Orlov, he has some worthwhile views on this collapse stuff.
Here in FRA, one of the main political fronts (for years) has been the on-going privatization of public services. The “erosion of our social model”. Many community needs (water, energy, waste treatment..) that have long been provided by the State are now being transferred to big money vultures. Debate ensues. Why is it that nobody suggests community needs should be dealt with at community-level (whether it be public or private) ? I have no idea.
Regarding the frugal living tactic : you may hit the beast badly with some luck (a lot of people joining your ranks), but will you take it down ? I mean, the thing prints its own money, sets its own rules : it is God in its absurd creation.
but the beast needs an endless supply of willing slaves chasing confetti who will prostitute their time, energy and brainpower for the latest gizmo or some petty amount of power over a few other slaves. if the supply of willing slaves dries up, the beast will eventually die too. it may be a long and messy process though. choose your viewing locality carefully.
I’d be so happy to agree with you, tochigi. But I just can’t figure out how the large bulk of the people would adopt a responsible life practice. It’s just TOO easy to rely on the beast. If it dies, they’ll resuscitate it. Not to mention that the beast will never die, as robots are a virtually endless supply of willing slaves. Check.