Simple living
Encyclopedia
Simple living encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify
one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions
or increasing self-sufficiency
, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need
rather than want
. Although asceticism
generally promotes living simply and refraining from luxury
and indulgence, not all proponents of simple living are ascetics. Simple living is distinct from those living in forced poverty
, as it is a voluntary lifestyle choice.
Adherents may choose simple living for a variety of personal reasons, such as spirituality
, health
, increase in 'quality time
' for family
and friends
, personal taste, frugality
, or reducing personal ecological footprint
and stress
. Simple living can also be a reaction to materialism
and conspicuous consumption
. Some cite socio-political goals aligned with the anti-consumerist
movement, including conservation
, degrowth, social justice
, ethnic diversity and sustainable development
. Whilst others choose simple living to resist taxes
, as their conscience will not allow them to fund war.
traditions of Iron Age India
. Buddha
and biblical Nazarites (notably John the Baptist
) were early ascetics. Various notable individuals have claimed that spiritual inspiration led them to a simple living lifestyle, such as Francis of Assisi
, Ammon Hennacy
, Leo Tolstoy
, Rabindranath Tagore
, Albert Schweitzer
, and Mohandas Gandhi.
Simple living has traditions that stretch back to the Orient, resonating with leaders such as Zarathustra, Buddha
, Laozi
, and Confucius
and was heavily stressed in both Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian
ethics. Diogenes of Sinope
was a Greek cynic
who advocated extreme voluntary poverty and purportedly lived in a barrel in the agora
.
Epicureanism
, based on the teachings of the Athens
-based philosopher Epicurus
, flourished from about the fourth century BC to the third century AD. Epicureanism upheld the untroubled life as the paradigm of happiness, made possible by carefully considered choices. Specifically, Epicurus pointed out that troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle tend to outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it. He therefore concluded that what is necessary for happiness, bodily comfort, and life itself should be maintained at minimal cost, while all things beyond what is necessary for these should either be tempered by moderation or completely avoided.
Plain people
are Christian groups who have for centuries practiced lifestyles in which some forms of wealth
or technology
are excluded for religious or philosophical reasons. Groups include the Shakers
, Mennonites, Amish
, Harmony Society
, and some Quakers
. There is a Quaker belief called Testimony of Simplicity
that a person ought to live her or his life simply.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
strongly praised the simple life in many of his writings, especially in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750) and Discourse on Inequality (1754).
, a North American naturalist
and author, is often considered to have made the classic secular
statement advocating a life of simple and sustainable living
in his book Walden
(1854). Thoreau conducted a two year experiment living a plain and simple life on the shores of Walden Pond
.
In Victorian Britain, Henry Stephens Salt
, an admirer of Thoreau, popularised the idea of "Simplification, the saner method of living". Other British advocates of the simple life included Edward Carpenter
, William Morris
, and the members of "The Fellowship of the New Life
".
C.R. Ashbee
and his followers also practiced some of these ideas, thus linking simplicity with the Arts and Crafts Movement
. British novelist John Cowper Powys
advocated the simple life in his 1933 book A Philosophy of Solitude. John Middleton Murry
and Max Plowman
practised a simple lifestyle at their Aldephi Centre in Essex in the 1930s.
Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh
championed a "right simplicity" philosophy based on ruralism in some of his work.
George Lorenzo Noyes
, a naturalist, mineralogist, development critic
, writer, and artist, is known as the Thoreau of Maine. He lived a wilderness lifestyle, advocating through his creative work a simple life and reverence for nature. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Vanderbilt Agrarians
of the Southern United States
advocated a lifestyle and culture centered upon traditional and sustainable agrarian values
as opposed to the progressive urban industrialism which dominated the Western world at that time.
Thorstein Veblen
warned against the conspicuous consumption
of the materialistic
society with The Theory of the Leisure Class
(1899); Richard Gregg coined the term "voluntary simplicity" in The Value of Voluntary Simplicity (1936). From the 1920s, a number of modern authors articulated both the theory and practice of living simply, among them Gandhian
Richard Gregg, economists Ralph Borsodi
and Scott Nearing
, anthropologist-poet Gary Snyder
, and utopia
n fiction writer Ernest Callenbach
. E. F. Schumacher
argued against the notion that "bigger is better" in Small Is Beautiful
(1973); and Duane Elgin
continued the promotion of the simple life in Voluntary simplicity (1981).
on goods or services. By reducing expenditure, it is possible to reduce income
and the time spent earning money
. The time saved may be used to help family or others. For example during the Christmas and holiday season, some people often perform alternative giving
. Others may spend the extra free time to improve their quality of life
, for example pursuing creative activities such as art and crafts (see starving artist
).
Another approach is to focus more fundamentally on the underlying motivation of buying and consuming so many resources for a good quality of life. Though our society often seeks to buy happiness, materialism very frequently fails to satisfy, and may even increase the level of stress in life. It has been said that "the making of money and the accumulation of things should not smother the purity of the soul, the life of the mind, the cohesion of the family, or the good of the society." There are eco-anarchist groups in the United States and Canada today promoting lifestyles of simplicity. Simple living can entail only consuming the resource
s needed to sustain life.
The grassroots
awareness campaign, National Downshifting Week (UK) (founded 1995) encourages participants to positively embrace living with less. Campaign creator, British writer and broadcaster on downshifting
and sustainable living, Tracey Smith says, "The more money you spend, the more time you have to be out there earning it and the less time you have to spend with the ones you love". National Downshifting Week encourages participants to 'Slow Down and Green Up' and contains a list of suggestions for individuals, companies, children and schools to help adopt green or eco-friendly policies and habits, develop corporate social and environmental responsibility in the workplace, and create eco-protocols and lessons that work alongside the national curriculum, respectively.
Reducing possessions
can also form part of simple living. The 100 Thing Challenge is a grassroots movement to whittle down possessions to a mere 100 items, with the aim of decluttering and simplifying people's lives.
One way to simplify life is to get back-to-the-land and grow your own food, as increased self-sufficiency
reduces dependency on money and the economy
. Forest gardening
, developed by simple living adherent Robert Hart, is a low-maintenance food production system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables. Hart created a model forest garden from a 0.12 acre (500 m²) orchard on his farm at Wenlock Edge
in Shropshire
.
The idea of food miles
, the number of miles a given item of food or its ingredients has travelled between the farm and the table, is used by simple living advocates to argue for locally grown food. This is now gaining mainstream acceptance, as shown by the popularity of books such as The 100-Mile Diet, and Barbara Kingsolver
's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
. In each of these cases, the authors devoted a year to reducing their carbon footprint by eating locally.
City dwellers can also produce fresh home grown fruit and vegetables in pot gardens
or miniature indoor greenhouses. Tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, peas, strawberries, and several types of herbs can all thrive in pots. Jim Merkel
says that a person "could sprout seeds. They are tasty, incredibly nutritious, and easy to grow... We grow them in wide mouthed mason jars with a square of nylon window screen screwed under a metal ring". One argument against gardening at home is how often people begin a garden and later stop it. Farmer Matt Moore spoke on this issue: "How does it affect the consumer to know that broccoli takes 105 days to grow a head?," [...] "The supermarket mode is one of plenty — it's always stocked. And that changes our sense of time. How long it takes to grow food — that's removed in the marketplace. They don't want you to think about how long it takes to grow, because they want you to buy right now". One way to change this viewpoint is also suggested by Mr. Moore. He placed a video installation in the produce section of a grocery store that documented the length of time it took to grow certain vegetables. This raises awareness in people of the length of time actually needed for gardens and could easily be combined with online lectures to help new gardeners.
The do it yourself ethic
refers to the principle of undertaking necessary tasks oneself rather than having others, who are more skilled or experienced, complete them for you.
, as Anabaptist
groups such as the Amish
or Mennonites have done. People who eschew modern technology are often referred to as Luddite
s or Neo-Luddism
adherents.
People who practice simple living have diverse views on the role of technology. Some simple living adherents, such as Kirkpatrick Sale
, are strong critics of modern technology, while others see the Internet
as a key component of simple living in the future, including the reduction of an individual's carbon footprint
through telecommuting
and less reliance on paper. Simple living may include high-tech components—indeed computers, Internet, photovoltaic arrays, wind
and water turbine
s, and a variety of other cutting-edge technologies can be used to make a simple lifestyle within mainstream culture easier and more sustainable.
Advertising
is criticised for encouraging a consumerist mentality. Many advocates of simple living tend to agree that cutting out, or cutting down on, television
viewing is a key ingredient in simple living. Some see the Internet, podcast
ing, community radio
or pirate radio
as viable alternatives.
. Diets that may simplify domestic food production and consumption include vegan diets
and the Gandhi diet. In the United Kingdom
, the Movement for Compassionate Living
was formed by Kathleen and Jack Jannaway in 1984, to spread the vegan message and promote simple living and self-reliance as a remedy against the exploitation
of humans, animals, and the Earth.
often advocate simple living as a consequence of their "four pillars
" or the "Ten Key Values" of the United States
Green Party
. This includes, in policy terms, their rejection of genetic modification and nuclear power
and other technologies they consider to be hazardous. The Greens
' support for simplicity is based on the reduction in natural resource usage and environmental impact. This concept is expressed in Ernest Callenbach
's "green triangle" of ecology, frugality
and health.
Many with similar views avoid involvement even with green politics
as compromising simplicity, however, and advocate forms of green anarchism
that attempt to implement these principles at a smaller scale, e.g. the ecovillage
.
The alleged relationship between economic growth
and war
, when fought for control and exploitation of natural and human resources, is considered a good reason for promoting a simple living lifestyle. Avoiding the perpetuation of the resource curse
is a similar objective of many simple living adherents. Opposition to war has led some to a form of tax resistance
in which they reduce their tax liability by taking up a simple living lifestyle.
: Economics As If People Mattered.
Recently, David Wann has introduced the idea of “simple prosperity” as it applies to a sustainable lifestyle. From his point of view, and as a point of departure for what he calls real sustainability
, “it is important to ask ourselves three fundamental questions: what is the point of all our commuting and consuming? What is the economy for? And, finally, why do we seem to be unhappier now than when we began our initial pursuit for rich abundance?” In this context, simple living is the opposite of our modern quest for affluence and, as a result, it becomes less preoccupied with quantity and more concerned about the preservation of cities, traditions and nature.
A reference point for this new economics can be found in James Robertson
's A New Economics of Sustainable Development, and the work of thinkers and activists, who participate in his Working for a Sane Alternative network and program. According to Robertson, the shift to sustainability is likely to require a widespread shift of emphasis from raising incomes to reducing costs.
The principles of the new economics, as set out by Robertson, are the following:
Simplicity
Simplicity is the state or quality of being simple. It usually relates to the burden which a thing puts on someone trying to explain or understand it. Something which is easy to understand or explain is simple, in contrast to something complicated...
one's lifestyle. These may include reducing one's possessions
Personal property
Personal property, roughly speaking, is private property that is moveable, as opposed to real property or real estate. In the common law systems personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In the civil law systems personal property is often called movable property or movables - any...
or increasing self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...
, for example. Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they need
Need
A need is something that is necessary for organisms to live a healthy life. Needs are distinguished from wants because a deficiency would cause a clear negative outcome, such as dysfunction or death. Needs can be objective and physical, such as food, or they can be subjective and psychological,...
rather than want
Want
The idea of want can be examined from many perspectives. In secular societies want might be considered similar to the emotion desire, which can be studied scientifically through the disciplines of psychology or sociology...
. Although asceticism
Asceticism
Asceticism describes a lifestyle characterized by abstinence from various sorts of worldly pleasures often with the aim of pursuing religious and spiritual goals...
generally promotes living simply and refraining from luxury
Luxury good
Luxury goods are products and services that are not considered essential and associated with affluence.The concept of luxury has been present in various forms since the beginning of civilization. Its role was just as important in ancient western and eastern empires as it is in modern societies...
and indulgence, not all proponents of simple living are ascetics. Simple living is distinct from those living in forced poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
, as it is a voluntary lifestyle choice.
Adherents may choose simple living for a variety of personal reasons, such as spirituality
Spirituality
Spirituality can refer to an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.” Spiritual practices, including meditation, prayer and contemplation, are intended to develop...
, health
Health
Health is the level of functional or metabolic efficiency of a living being. In humans, it is the general condition of a person's mind, body and spirit, usually meaning to be free from illness, injury or pain...
, increase in 'quality time
Quality time
Quality time is an informal reference to time spent with loved ones which is in some way important, special, productive or profitable. It is time that is set aside for paying full and undivided attention to the person or matter at hand...
' for family
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
and friends
Friendship
Friendship is a form of interpersonal relationship generally considered to be closer than association, although there is a range of degrees of intimacy in both friendships and associations. Friendship and association are often thought of as spanning across the same continuum...
, personal taste, frugality
Frugality
Frugality is the quality of being frugal, sparing, thrifty, prudent or economical in the use of consumable resources such as food, time or money, and avoiding waste, lavishness or extravagance....
, or reducing personal ecological footprint
Ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to...
and stress
Stress (medicine)
Stress is a term in psychology and biology, borrowed from physics and engineering and first used in the biological context in the 1930s, which has in more recent decades become commonly used in popular parlance...
. Simple living can also be a reaction to materialism
Economic materialism
Materialism is a mindset that views the consumption and acquisition of material goods as positive and desirable. It is often bound up with a value system which regards social status as being intrinsically linked to affluence as well as the perception that happiness can be increased through...
and conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption is spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status....
. Some cite socio-political goals aligned with the anti-consumerist
Anti-consumerism
Anti-consumerism refers to the socio-political movement against the equating of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions...
movement, including conservation
Conservation ethic
Conservation is an ethic of resource use, allocation, and protection. Its primary focus is upon maintaining the health of the natural world: its, fisheries, habitats, and biological diversity. Secondary focus is on materials conservation and energy conservation, which are seen as important to...
, degrowth, social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...
, ethnic diversity and sustainable development
Sustainable development
Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use, that aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come...
. Whilst others choose simple living to resist taxes
Tax resistance
Tax resistance is the refusal to pay tax because of opposition to the government that is imposing the tax or to government policy.Tax resistance is a form of civil disobedience and direct action...
, as their conscience will not allow them to fund war.
Religious and spiritual
The recorded history of voluntary simplicity, often associated with asceticism, begins with the ShramanaShramana
A shramana is a wandering monk in certain ascetic traditions of ancient India including Jainism, Buddhism, and Ājīvikism. Famous śramaṇas include Mahavira and Gautama Buddha....
traditions of Iron Age India
Iron Age India
Iron Age India, the Iron Age in the Indian subcontinent, succeeds the Late Harappan culture, also known as the last phase of the Indus Valley Tradition...
. Buddha
Gautama Buddha
Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
and biblical Nazarites (notably John the Baptist
John the Baptist
John the Baptist was an itinerant preacher and a major religious figure mentioned in the Canonical gospels. He is described in the Gospel of Luke as a relative of Jesus, who led a movement of baptism at the Jordan River...
) were early ascetics. Various notable individuals have claimed that spiritual inspiration led them to a simple living lifestyle, such as Francis of Assisi
Francis of Assisi
Saint Francis of Assisi was an Italian Catholic friar and preacher. He founded the men's Franciscan Order, the women’s Order of St. Clare, and the lay Third Order of Saint Francis. St...
, Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Hennacy
Ammon Ashford Hennacy was an Irish American pacifist, Christian anarchist, social activist, member of the Catholic Worker Movement and a Wobbly...
, Leo Tolstoy
Leo Tolstoy
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist...
, Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore
Rabindranath Tagore , sobriquet Gurudev, was a Bengali polymath who reshaped his region's literature and music. Author of Gitanjali and its "profoundly sensitive, fresh and beautiful verse", he became the first non-European Nobel laureate by earning the 1913 Prize in Literature...
, Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer
Albert Schweitzer OM was a German theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary. He was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Alsace-Lorraine, at that time part of the German Empire...
, and Mohandas Gandhi.
Simple living has traditions that stretch back to the Orient, resonating with leaders such as Zarathustra, Buddha
Buddha
In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...
, Laozi
Laozi
Laozi was a mystic philosopher of ancient China, best known as the author of the Tao Te Ching . His association with the Tao Te Ching has led him to be traditionally considered the founder of Taoism...
, and Confucius
Confucius
Confucius , literally "Master Kong", was a Chinese thinker and social philosopher of the Spring and Autumn Period....
and was heavily stressed in both Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian
Judeo-Christian is a term used in the United States since the 1940s to refer to standards of ethics said to be held in common by Judaism and Christianity, for example the Ten Commandments...
ethics. Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes of Sinope
Diogenes the Cynic was a Greek philosopher and one of the founders of Cynic philosophy. Also known as Diogenes of Sinope , he was born in Sinope , an Ionian colony on the Black Sea , in 412 or 404 BCE and died at Corinth in 323 BCE.Diogenes of Sinope was a controversial figure...
was a Greek cynic
Cynicism
Cynicism , in its original form, refers to the beliefs of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics . Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and...
who advocated extreme voluntary poverty and purportedly lived in a barrel in the agora
Agora
The Agora was an open "place of assembly" in ancient Greek city-states. Early in Greek history , free-born male land-owners who were citizens would gather in the Agora for military duty or to hear statements of the ruling king or council. Later, the Agora also served as a marketplace where...
.
Epicureanism
Epicureanism
Epicureanism is a system of philosophy based upon the teachings of Epicurus, founded around 307 BC. Epicurus was an atomic materialist, following in the steps of Democritus. His materialism led him to a general attack on superstition and divine intervention. Following Aristippus—about whom...
, based on the teachings of the Athens
Athens
Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state...
-based philosopher Epicurus
Epicurus
Epicurus was an ancient Greek philosopher and the founder of the school of philosophy called Epicureanism.Only a few fragments and letters remain of Epicurus's 300 written works...
, flourished from about the fourth century BC to the third century AD. Epicureanism upheld the untroubled life as the paradigm of happiness, made possible by carefully considered choices. Specifically, Epicurus pointed out that troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle tend to outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it. He therefore concluded that what is necessary for happiness, bodily comfort, and life itself should be maintained at minimal cost, while all things beyond what is necessary for these should either be tempered by moderation or completely avoided.
Plain people
Plain people
Plain people are Christian groups characterized by separation from the world and simple living, including plain dress. These group include Amish; Old Order, Conservative and Old Colony Mennonites; Old German Baptist Brethren; the Hutterites; and Old Order River Brethren; and at one time Quakers,...
are Christian groups who have for centuries practiced lifestyles in which some forms of wealth
Wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
or technology
Technology
Technology is the making, usage, and knowledge of tools, machines, techniques, crafts, systems or methods of organization in order to solve a problem or perform a specific function. It can also refer to the collection of such tools, machinery, and procedures. The word technology comes ;...
are excluded for religious or philosophical reasons. Groups include the Shakers
Shakers
The United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, known as the Shakers, is a religious sect originally thought to be a development of the Religious Society of Friends...
, Mennonites, Amish
Amish
The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
, Harmony Society
Harmony Society
The Harmony Society was a Christian theosophy and pietist society founded in Iptingen, Germany, in 1785. Due to religious persecution by the Lutheran Church and the government in Württemberg, the Harmony Society moved to the United States on October 7, 1803, initially purchasing of land in Butler...
, and some Quakers
Religious Society of Friends
The Religious Society of Friends, or Friends Church, is a Christian movement which stresses the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers. Members are known as Friends, or popularly as Quakers. It is made of independent organisations, which have split from one another due to doctrinal differences...
. There is a Quaker belief called Testimony of Simplicity
Testimony of Simplicity
Testimony of Simplicity is a shorthand description of the actions generally taken by members of the Religious Society of Friends to testify or bear witness to their beliefs that a person ought to live his or her life simply in order to focus on what is most important and ignore or play down what...
that a person ought to live her or his life simply.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
strongly praised the simple life in many of his writings, especially in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences (1750) and Discourse on Inequality (1754).
Secular
Henry David ThoreauHenry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
, a North American naturalist
Natural history
Natural history is the scientific research of plants or animals, leaning more towards observational rather than experimental methods of study, and encompasses more research published in magazines than in academic journals. Grouped among the natural sciences, natural history is the systematic study...
and author, is often considered to have made the classic secular
Secularity
Secularity is the state of being separate from religion.For instance, eating and bathing may be regarded as examples of secular activities, because there may not be anything inherently religious about them...
statement advocating a life of simple and sustainable living
Sustainable living
Sustainable living is a lifestyle that attempts to reduce an individual's or society's use of the Earth's natural resources and his/her own resources. Practitioners of sustainable living often attempt to reduce their carbon footprint by altering methods of transportation, energy consumption and diet...
in his book Walden
Walden
Walden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...
(1854). Thoreau conducted a two year experiment living a plain and simple life on the shores of Walden Pond
Walden Pond
Walden Pond is a 31-metre-deep lake in Massachusetts . It is in area and around, located in Concord, Massachusetts, in the United States...
.
In Victorian Britain, Henry Stephens Salt
Henry Stephens Salt
Henry Stephens Salt was an English writer and campaigner for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a noted ethical vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist, socialist, and pacifist, and was well known as a literary critic, biographer,...
, an admirer of Thoreau, popularised the idea of "Simplification, the saner method of living". Other British advocates of the simple life included Edward Carpenter
Edward Carpenter
Edward Carpenter was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist....
, William Morris
William Morris
William Morris 24 March 18343 October 1896 was an English textile designer, artist, writer, and socialist associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the English Arts and Crafts Movement...
, and the members of "The Fellowship of the New Life
The Fellowship of the New Life
The Fellowship of the New Life was a British organization in the 19th century, most famous for a splinter group, the Fabian Society.It was founded in 1883, by the Scottish intellectual Thomas Davidson...
".
C.R. Ashbee
Charles Robert Ashbee
Charles Robert Ashbee was an English designer and entrepreneur who was a prime mover of the Arts and Crafts movement that took its craft ethic from the works of John Ruskin and its co-operative structure from the socialism of William Morris.-Early life:He was the son of businessman and erotic...
and his followers also practiced some of these ideas, thus linking simplicity with the Arts and Crafts Movement
Arts and Crafts movement
Arts and Crafts was an international design philosophy that originated in England and flourished between 1860 and 1910 , continuing its influence until the 1930s...
. British novelist John Cowper Powys
John Cowper Powys
-Biography:Powys was born in Shirley, Derbyshire, in 1872, the son of the Reverend Charles Francis Powys , who was vicar of Montacute, Somerset for thirty-two years, and Mary Cowper Johnson, a descendent of the poet William Cowper. He came from a family of eleven children, many of whom were also...
advocated the simple life in his 1933 book A Philosophy of Solitude. John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry
John Middleton Murry was an English writer. He was prolific, producing more than 60 books and thousands of essays and reviews on literature, social issues, politics, and religion during his lifetime...
and Max Plowman
Max Plowman
Max Plowman was a British writer and pacifist.-Life to 1918:He was born in Northumberland Park, Tottenham, in London. He left school at 16, and worked for a decade in his father's brick business. He became a journalist and poet...
practised a simple lifestyle at their Aldephi Centre in Essex in the 1930s.
Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh
Patrick Kavanagh was an Irish poet and novelist. Regarded as one of the foremost poets of the 20th century, his best known works include the novel Tarry Flynn and the poems Raglan Road and The Great Hunger...
championed a "right simplicity" philosophy based on ruralism in some of his work.
George Lorenzo Noyes
George Lorenzo Noyes
George “Shavey” Lorenzo Noyes was an American mineralogist, naturalist, development critic, writer and landscape artist.-Biography:Noyes was born in Norway, Maine, and was the son of Amos Oscar Noyes and Anna Chase Noyes. Since A...
, a naturalist, mineralogist, development critic
Development criticism
Development criticism refers to criticisms of technological development.-Notable development critics:*Edward Abbey*John Africa*Stafford Beer *Charles A...
, writer, and artist, is known as the Thoreau of Maine. He lived a wilderness lifestyle, advocating through his creative work a simple life and reverence for nature. During the 1920s and 1930s, the Vanderbilt Agrarians
Southern Agrarians
The Southern Agrarians were a group of twelve American writers, poets, essayists, and novelists, all with roots in the Southern United States, who joined together to write a pro-Southern agrarian manifesto, a...
of the Southern United States
Southern United States
The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...
advocated a lifestyle and culture centered upon traditional and sustainable agrarian values
Agrarianism
Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values...
as opposed to the progressive urban industrialism which dominated the Western world at that time.
Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Veblen
Thorstein Bunde Veblen, born Torsten Bunde Veblen was an American economist and sociologist, and a leader of the so-called institutional economics movement...
warned against the conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption
Conspicuous consumption is spending on goods and services acquired mainly for the purpose of displaying income or wealth. In the mind of a conspicuous consumer, such display serves as a means of attaining or maintaining social status....
of the materialistic
Economic materialism
Materialism is a mindset that views the consumption and acquisition of material goods as positive and desirable. It is often bound up with a value system which regards social status as being intrinsically linked to affluence as well as the perception that happiness can be increased through...
society with The Theory of the Leisure Class
The Theory of the Leisure Class
The Theory of the Leisure Class: An Economic Study of Institutions is a book, first published in 1899, by the Norwegian-American economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen while he was a professor at the University of Chicago....
(1899); Richard Gregg coined the term "voluntary simplicity" in The Value of Voluntary Simplicity (1936). From the 1920s, a number of modern authors articulated both the theory and practice of living simply, among them Gandhian
Gandhism
Gandhism is the collection of inspirations, principles, beliefs and philosophy of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi , who was a major political and spiritual leader of India and the Indian Independence Movement....
Richard Gregg, economists Ralph Borsodi
Ralph Borsodi
Ralph Borsodi was an agrarian theorist and practical experimenter interested in ways of living useful to the modern family desiring greater self-reliance...
and Scott Nearing
Scott Nearing
Scott Nearing was an American radical economist, educator, writer, political activist, and advocate of simple living.-The early years:...
, anthropologist-poet Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder
Gary Snyder is an American poet , as well as an essayist, lecturer, and environmental activist . Snyder is a winner of a Pulitzer Prize for Poetry...
, and utopia
Utopia
Utopia is an ideal community or society possessing a perfect socio-politico-legal system. The word was imported from Greek by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book Utopia, describing a fictional island in the Atlantic Ocean. The term has been used to describe both intentional communities that attempt...
n fiction writer Ernest Callenbach
Ernest Callenbach
Ernest Callenbach is an American writer. Life & Work =Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he attended the University of Chicago, where he was drawn into the then 'new wave' of serious attention to film as an art form...
. E. F. Schumacher
E. F. Schumacher
Ernst Friedrich "Fritz" Schumacher was an internationally influential economic thinker, statistician and economist in Britain, serving as Chief Economic Advisor to the UK National Coal Board for two decades. His ideas became popularized in much of the English-speaking world during the 1970s...
argued against the notion that "bigger is better" in Small Is Beautiful
Small Is Beautiful
Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher. The phrase "Small Is Beautiful" came from a phrase by his teacher Leopold Kohr...
(1973); and Duane Elgin
Duane Elgin
Duane Elgin is an American author, speaker, educator, consultant, and media activist.For more than three decades, he has researched and written about the personal and collective dimensions of the human journey, including the topic of "voluntary simplicity", also known as Simple living...
continued the promotion of the simple life in Voluntary simplicity (1981).
Reducing expenditure, income and possessions
Some people practice simple living by reducing expenditureExpense
In common usage, an expense or expenditure is an outflow of money to another person or group to pay for an item or service, or for a category of costs. For a tenant, rent is an expense. For students or parents, tuition is an expense. Buying food, clothing, furniture or an automobile is often...
on goods or services. By reducing expenditure, it is possible to reduce income
Income
Income is the consumption and savings opportunity gained by an entity within a specified time frame, which is generally expressed in monetary terms. However, for households and individuals, "income is the sum of all the wages, salaries, profits, interests payments, rents and other forms of earnings...
and the time spent earning money
Money
Money is any object or record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts in a given country or socio-economic context. The main functions of money are distinguished as: a medium of exchange; a unit of account; a store of value; and, occasionally in the past,...
. The time saved may be used to help family or others. For example during the Christmas and holiday season, some people often perform alternative giving
Alternative giving
Alternative giving is a form of gift giving in which the giver makes a donation to a charitable organization in the recipient’s name, rather than giving an item...
. Others may spend the extra free time to improve their quality of life
Quality of life
The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and politics. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of...
, for example pursuing creative activities such as art and crafts (see starving artist
Starving artist
A starving artist is an artist who sacrifices material well-being in order to focus on their artwork. They typically live on minimum expenses, either for a lack of business or because all their disposable income goes toward art projects....
).
Another approach is to focus more fundamentally on the underlying motivation of buying and consuming so many resources for a good quality of life. Though our society often seeks to buy happiness, materialism very frequently fails to satisfy, and may even increase the level of stress in life. It has been said that "the making of money and the accumulation of things should not smother the purity of the soul, the life of the mind, the cohesion of the family, or the good of the society." There are eco-anarchist groups in the United States and Canada today promoting lifestyles of simplicity. Simple living can entail only consuming the resource
Resource
A resource is a source or supply from which benefit is produced, typically of limited availability.Resource may also refer to:* Resource , substances or objects required by a biological organism for normal maintenance, growth, and reproduction...
s needed to sustain life.
The grassroots
Grassroots
A grassroots movement is one driven by the politics of a community. The term implies that the creation of the movement and the group supporting it are natural and spontaneous, highlighting the differences between this and a movement that is orchestrated by traditional power structures...
awareness campaign, National Downshifting Week (UK) (founded 1995) encourages participants to positively embrace living with less. Campaign creator, British writer and broadcaster on downshifting
Downshifting
Downshifting is a social behavior or trend in which individuals live simpler lives to escape from the rat race of obsessive materialism and to reduce the “stress, overtime, and psychological expense that may accompany it.” It emphasizes finding an improved balance between leisure and work and...
and sustainable living, Tracey Smith says, "The more money you spend, the more time you have to be out there earning it and the less time you have to spend with the ones you love". National Downshifting Week encourages participants to 'Slow Down and Green Up' and contains a list of suggestions for individuals, companies, children and schools to help adopt green or eco-friendly policies and habits, develop corporate social and environmental responsibility in the workplace, and create eco-protocols and lessons that work alongside the national curriculum, respectively.
Reducing possessions
Personal property
Personal property, roughly speaking, is private property that is moveable, as opposed to real property or real estate. In the common law systems personal property may also be called chattels or personalty. In the civil law systems personal property is often called movable property or movables - any...
can also form part of simple living. The 100 Thing Challenge is a grassroots movement to whittle down possessions to a mere 100 items, with the aim of decluttering and simplifying people's lives.
Increasing self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency
Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...
reduces dependency on money and the economy
Economy
An economy consists of the economic system of a country or other area; the labor, capital and land resources; and the manufacturing, trade, distribution, and consumption of goods and services of that area...
. Forest gardening
Forest gardening
Forest gardening is a food production and agroforestry system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables which have yields directly useful to humans...
, developed by simple living adherent Robert Hart, is a low-maintenance food production system based on woodland ecosystems, incorporating fruit and nut trees, shrubs, herbs, vines and perennial vegetables. Hart created a model forest garden from a 0.12 acre (500 m²) orchard on his farm at Wenlock Edge
Wenlock Edge
Wenlock Edge is a limestone escarpment near Much Wenlock, Shropshire, England. It is long and runs from South West to North East between Craven Arms and Much Wenlock. It is roughly 330 metres high...
in Shropshire
Shropshire
Shropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
.
The idea of food miles
Food miles
Food miles is a term which refers to the distance food is transported from the time of its production until it reaches the consumer. Food miles are one factor used when assessing the environmental impact of food, including the impact on global warming....
, the number of miles a given item of food or its ingredients has travelled between the farm and the table, is used by simple living advocates to argue for locally grown food. This is now gaining mainstream acceptance, as shown by the popularity of books such as The 100-Mile Diet, and Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver
Barbara Kingsolver is an American novelist, essayist and poet. She was raised in rural Kentucky and lived briefly in the former Republic of Congo in her early childhood. Kingsolver earned degrees in biology at DePauw University and the University of Arizona and worked as a freelance writer before...
's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life is a non-fiction book by Barbara Kingsolver detailing her family's attempt to eat only locally grown food for an entire year....
. In each of these cases, the authors devoted a year to reducing their carbon footprint by eating locally.
City dwellers can also produce fresh home grown fruit and vegetables in pot gardens
Container garden
Container gardening is the practice of growing plants exclusively in containers instead of planting them in the ground. Pots, traditionally made of terracotta but now more commonly plastic, and windowboxes have been the most commonly seen. Small pots are commonly called flowerpots. In some cases,...
or miniature indoor greenhouses. Tomatoes, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, peas, strawberries, and several types of herbs can all thrive in pots. Jim Merkel
Jim Merkel
Jim Merkel is an American author, volunteer, and engineer who moved from involvement in the military industry to advocating simple living...
says that a person "could sprout seeds. They are tasty, incredibly nutritious, and easy to grow... We grow them in wide mouthed mason jars with a square of nylon window screen screwed under a metal ring". One argument against gardening at home is how often people begin a garden and later stop it. Farmer Matt Moore spoke on this issue: "How does it affect the consumer to know that broccoli takes 105 days to grow a head?," [...] "The supermarket mode is one of plenty — it's always stocked. And that changes our sense of time. How long it takes to grow food — that's removed in the marketplace. They don't want you to think about how long it takes to grow, because they want you to buy right now". One way to change this viewpoint is also suggested by Mr. Moore. He placed a video installation in the produce section of a grocery store that documented the length of time it took to grow certain vegetables. This raises awareness in people of the length of time actually needed for gardens and could easily be combined with online lectures to help new gardeners.
The do it yourself ethic
DIY ethic
The DIY ethic refers to the ethic of self-sufficiency through completing tasks oneself as opposed to having others who are more experienced or able complete them for one's behalf. It promotes the idea that an ordinary person can learn to do more than he or she thought was possible...
refers to the principle of undertaking necessary tasks oneself rather than having others, who are more skilled or experienced, complete them for you.
Reconsidering technology
Although simple living is often a secular pursuit, it may still involve reconsidering personal definitions of appropriate technologyAppropriate technology
Appropriate technology is an ideological movement originally articulated as "intermediate technology" by the economist Dr...
, as Anabaptist
Anabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
groups such as the Amish
Amish
The Amish , sometimes referred to as Amish Mennonites, are a group of Christian church fellowships that form a subgroup of the Mennonite churches...
or Mennonites have done. People who eschew modern technology are often referred to as Luddite
Luddite
The Luddites were a social movement of 19th-century English textile artisans who protested – often by destroying mechanised looms – against the changes produced by the Industrial Revolution, which they felt were leaving them without work and changing their way of life...
s or Neo-Luddism
Neo-luddism
Neo-Luddism is a personal world view opposing any modern technology. Its name is based on the historical legacy of the British Luddites which were active between 1811 and 1816...
adherents.
People who practice simple living have diverse views on the role of technology. Some simple living adherents, such as Kirkpatrick Sale
Kirkpatrick Sale
Kirkpatrick Sale is an independent scholar and author who has written prolifically about political decentralism, environmentalism, luddism and technology...
, are strong critics of modern technology, while others see the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
as a key component of simple living in the future, including the reduction of an individual's carbon footprint
Carbon footprint
A carbon footprint has historically been defined as "the total set of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an organization, event, product or person.". However, calculating a carbon footprint which conforms to this definition is often impracticable due to the large amount of data required, which is...
through telecommuting
Telecommuting
Telecommuting or telework is a work arrangement in which employees enjoy flexibility in working location and hours. In other words, the daily commute to a central place of work is replaced by telecommunication links...
and less reliance on paper. Simple living may include high-tech components—indeed computers, Internet, photovoltaic arrays, wind
Wind turbine
A wind turbine is a device that converts kinetic energy from the wind into mechanical energy. If the mechanical energy is used to produce electricity, the device may be called a wind generator or wind charger. If the mechanical energy is used to drive machinery, such as for grinding grain or...
and water turbine
Water turbine
A water turbine is a rotary engine that takes energy from moving water.Water turbines were developed in the 19th century and were widely used for industrial power prior to electrical grids. Now they are mostly used for electric power generation. They harness a clean and renewable energy...
s, and a variety of other cutting-edge technologies can be used to make a simple lifestyle within mainstream culture easier and more sustainable.
Advertising
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
is criticised for encouraging a consumerist mentality. Many advocates of simple living tend to agree that cutting out, or cutting down on, television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
viewing is a key ingredient in simple living. Some see the Internet, podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
ing, community radio
Community radio
Community radio is a type of radio service, that offers a third model of radio broadcasting beyond commercial broadcasting and public broadcasting. Community stations can serve geographic communities and communities of interest...
or pirate radio
Pirate radio
Pirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...
as viable alternatives.
Simplifying diet
Another practice is the adoption of a simplified dietDiet (nutrition)
In nutrition, diet is the sum of food consumed by a person or other organism. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual or culture makes when choosing what foods to eat. With the word diet, it is often implied the use of specific intake of nutrition for health or weight-management...
. Diets that may simplify domestic food production and consumption include vegan diets
Veganism
Veganism is the practice of eliminating the use of animal products. Ethical vegans reject the commodity status of animals and the use of animal products for any purpose, while dietary vegans or strict vegetarians eliminate them from their diet only...
and the Gandhi diet. In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the Movement for Compassionate Living
Movement for Compassionate Living
The Movement for Compassionate Living is a UK based organisation promoting veganism and sustainable living. Membership is informal, based on subscription to the group's journal New Leaves, with subscribers in many countries....
was formed by Kathleen and Jack Jannaway in 1984, to spread the vegan message and promote simple living and self-reliance as a remedy against the exploitation
Exploitation
This article discusses the term exploitation in the meaning of using something in an unjust or cruel manner.- As unjust benefit :In political economy, economics, and sociology, exploitation involves a persistent social relationship in which certain persons are being mistreated or unfairly used for...
of humans, animals, and the Earth.
Politics
Many Green PartiesWorldwide green parties
A Green party or ecologist party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of Green politics. These principles usually include social justice, reliance on grassroots democracy, nonviolence, and an emphasis on environmentalism...
often advocate simple living as a consequence of their "four pillars
Four Pillars of the Green Party
The Four Pillars of the Green Party are a foundational statement of Green politics and form the basis of many worldwide Green parties. The Four Pillars are:* Ecological wisdom* Social justice* Grassroots democracy* Nonviolence...
" or the "Ten Key Values" of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Green Party
Green Party (United States)
The Green Party of the United States is a nationally recognized political party which officially formed in 1991. It is a voluntary association of state green parties. Prior to national formation, many state affiliates had already formed and were recognized by other state parties...
. This includes, in policy terms, their rejection of genetic modification and nuclear power
Nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of sustained nuclear fission to generate heat and electricity. Nuclear power plants provide about 6% of the world's energy and 13–14% of the world's electricity, with the U.S., France, and Japan together accounting for about 50% of nuclear generated electricity...
and other technologies they consider to be hazardous. The Greens
Green Movement
The Green Movement refers to a series of actions after the 2009 Iranian presidential election, in which protesters demanded the removal of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office...
' support for simplicity is based on the reduction in natural resource usage and environmental impact. This concept is expressed in Ernest Callenbach
Ernest Callenbach
Ernest Callenbach is an American writer. Life & Work =Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, he attended the University of Chicago, where he was drawn into the then 'new wave' of serious attention to film as an art form...
's "green triangle" of ecology, frugality
Frugality
Frugality is the quality of being frugal, sparing, thrifty, prudent or economical in the use of consumable resources such as food, time or money, and avoiding waste, lavishness or extravagance....
and health.
Many with similar views avoid involvement even with green politics
Green politics
Green politics is a political ideology that aims for the creation of an ecologically sustainable society rooted in environmentalism, social liberalism, and grassroots democracy...
as compromising simplicity, however, and advocate forms of green anarchism
Green anarchism
Green anarchism, or ecoanarchism, is a school of thought within anarchism which puts a particular emphasis on environmental issues. An important early influence was the thought of the American anarchist Henry David Thoreau and his book Walden...
that attempt to implement these principles at a smaller scale, e.g. the ecovillage
Ecovillage
Ecovillages are intentional communities with the goal of becoming more socially, economically and ecologically sustainable. Some aim for a population of 50–150 individuals. Larger ecovillages of up to 2,000 individuals exist as networks of smaller subcommunities to create an ecovillage model that...
.
The alleged relationship between economic growth
Economic growth
In economics, economic growth is defined as the increasing capacity of the economy to satisfy the wants of goods and services of the members of society. Economic growth is enabled by increases in productivity, which lowers the inputs for a given amount of output. Lowered costs increase demand...
and war
War
War is a state of organized, armed, and often prolonged conflict carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political...
, when fought for control and exploitation of natural and human resources, is considered a good reason for promoting a simple living lifestyle. Avoiding the perpetuation of the resource curse
Resource curse
The resource curse refers to the paradox that countries and regions with an abundance of natural resources, specifically point-source non-renewable resources like minerals and fuels, tend to have less economic growth and worse development outcomes than countries with fewer natural resources...
is a similar objective of many simple living adherents. Opposition to war has led some to a form of tax resistance
Tax resistance
Tax resistance is the refusal to pay tax because of opposition to the government that is imposing the tax or to government policy.Tax resistance is a form of civil disobedience and direct action...
in which they reduce their tax liability by taking up a simple living lifestyle.
Economics
A new economics movement has been building since the UN conference on the environment in 1972, and the publication that year of Only One Earth, The Limits to Growth, and Blueprint For Survival, followed in 1973 by Small Is BeautifulSmall Is Beautiful
Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered is a collection of essays by British economist E. F. Schumacher. The phrase "Small Is Beautiful" came from a phrase by his teacher Leopold Kohr...
: Economics As If People Mattered.
Recently, David Wann has introduced the idea of “simple prosperity” as it applies to a sustainable lifestyle. From his point of view, and as a point of departure for what he calls real sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
, “it is important to ask ourselves three fundamental questions: what is the point of all our commuting and consuming? What is the economy for? And, finally, why do we seem to be unhappier now than when we began our initial pursuit for rich abundance?” In this context, simple living is the opposite of our modern quest for affluence and, as a result, it becomes less preoccupied with quantity and more concerned about the preservation of cities, traditions and nature.
A reference point for this new economics can be found in James Robertson
James Robertson (activist)
James Robertson , a British-born political and economic thinker and activist, became an independent writer and speaker in 1974 after an early career as a British civil servant....
's A New Economics of Sustainable Development, and the work of thinkers and activists, who participate in his Working for a Sane Alternative network and program. According to Robertson, the shift to sustainability is likely to require a widespread shift of emphasis from raising incomes to reducing costs.
The principles of the new economics, as set out by Robertson, are the following:
- systematic empowermentEmpowermentEmpowerment refers to increasing the spiritual, political, social, racial, educational, gender or economic strength of individuals and communities...
of people (as opposed to making and keeping them dependent), as the basis for people-centred development - systematic conservation of resources and the environmentEnvironment (biophysical)The biophysical environment is the combined modeling of the physical environment and the biological life forms within the environment, and includes all variables, parameters as well as conditions and modes inside the Earth's biosphere. The biophysical environment can be divided into two categories:...
, as the basis for environmentally sustainable development - evolution from a “wealth of nations” model of economic life to a one-world model, and from today's inter-national economy to an ecologically sustainable, decentralising, multi-level one-world economic system
- restoration of political and ethical factors to a central place in economic life and thought
- respect for qualitative values, not just quantitative values
Further reading
- Scott and Helen NearingScott NearingScott Nearing was an American radical economist, educator, writer, political activist, and advocate of simple living.-The early years:...
(1970) The Good Life: Helen and Scott Nearing's Sixty Years of Self-Sufficient Living, Schocken - Vernard Eller (1973) The Simple Life, ISBN 0-8028-1537-5
- Dolly Freed (1978) Possum Living: How to Live Well Without a Job and with (Almost) No Money 2010 edition ISBN 0-9820539-3-2
- Charles Long (1986) How to Survive Without a Salary: Living the Conserver Lifestyle. 1996 edition ISBN 1-894622-37-5
- Wendell BerryWendell BerryWendell Berry is an American man of letters, academic, cultural and economic critic, and farmer. He is a prolific author of novels, short stories, poems, and essays...
(1990) What Are People For?, North Point Press, ISBN 0-86547-437-0 - Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin (1992) Your Money or Your Life, Viking.
- Vicki Robin with Monique Tilford and and contributor Mark Zaifman Your Money or Your Life: Revised and Updated for the 21st Century, published by Penguin BooksPenguin BooksPenguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
in December 2008. - Edward Romney (1992) Living Well on Practically Nothing 2001 edition ISBN 1-58160-282-0
- Janet Luhrs (1997) The Simple Living Guide: A Sourcebook for Less Stressful, More Joyful Living, ISBN 0-553-06796-6
- Amy Dacyzyn (1998) The Complete Tightwad Gazette: Promoting Thrift as a Viable Alternative Lifestyle., ISBN 0-375-75225-0
- John de Graaf, David Wann and Thomas H. Naylor (2002) Affluenza, ISBN 1-57675-199-6