 The essence of radical simplicity, of the gift/generosity economy, of
natural community, and of natural entrepreneurship, I think, is needing
less. Needing less makes us, as individuals, members of enterprises,
communities and societies, more self-sufficient, and more resilient,
and allows us to give more with the 'excess' time, energy and money
that we have by virtue of needing less. Meanwhile, the industrial
economy is utterly dependent on consumers needing (or thinking they
need) more and more. Need creates scarcity, and scarcity increases neediness. Without ever-increasing need there can be no
growth, and without continuous growth, the industrial economy
collapses. By contrast, the natural economy is sustainable indefinitely
requiring only generosity, resilience and innovation.
It
is increasingly obvious that our world can no longer afford the
industrial economy, and the manufactured needs that perpetuate it. As
co-dependents of the ruinous corpocracy desolating the Earth to fill
these needs, we have become addicts to the endless satisfaction of
these needs -- by virtue of how we work and what we work at, our
helplessness, and our boredom, borne from poverty of imagination.
In order to need less, we do not have to become ascetics or martyrs, nor do we have to sacrifice. What we do have to do:
- Rethink where and how we work:
Of course face-to-face meetings and working in constant physical
proximity with co-workers and customers is preferable. It is also,
today, an extravagance. The resources we squander simply to be
physically closer together are obscene. We must quickly and
dramatically simplify and improve the technologies for Simple Virtual
Presence, and then make them ubiquitous and mandatory. We should then
make commuting a social sin, unless you job actually requires you to
touch 'hard' products -- products that cannot be captured in bits and
transmitted electronically. I would guess that that would reduce the
need for (a) office buildings, (b) cars and airplanes, (c)
gasoline, (d) business attire and travel accessories, and (e) high
salaries and long work-hours to pay for these things, and would save a
ton of time that in turn would reduce other needs that are currently a
direct result of spending most of our waking hours either in cars or
away from home.
- Think and buy longer-term, and learn to make, do and fix things ourselves: Much
of what we 'need' to buy is replacements for the shoddy crap that clogs
the malls and supermarkets, and fills our sloppily-constructed homes.
We should make the manufacturers of everything take back and recycle,
reuse or (if necessary) pay for disposal of everything we buy when it
breaks or wears out, at their cost. Then the cost of poor quality,
throw-away junk will be pushed back to the manufacturers, driving most
of them out of business. What will be left will be durable, well-made
and, yes, more expensive. It will also mostly be locally-made, because
Chinese manufacturers will have to pay to take back the crap they sell
us, and they won't be able to afford to. We can help by learning to
make and do and fix things ourselves, as a hobby, and also as a means
of self-liberation from dependency on others who, usually, can't be
depended on.
- Learn to entertain ourselves, in community:
A huge amount of money is spent on so-called entertainment and
recreation 'products', mostly junky, overpriced, and dominated by
oligopolies. This industry of schlockmeisters preys on our imaginative
poverty, our isolation from others (even in our own physical
communities), and on our exhaustion (much of it from energy-wasting
commuting, shopping and other avoidable activities). If we did (1) and
(2) above, and got together with others in our communities, we would be
able to create our own music, theatre, films, games and other
entertainments. This would exercise our creativity and imaginations, be
more satisfying, and re-engage us socially with people other than
family and work colleagues, all of which have benefits that extend far
beyond just reducing our needs.
- Do things together:
Reintegration into physical communities would also allow us to realize
the benefits of collaboration, reducing the need for us to hire
outsiders to do things for us, and the need to buy stuff 'self-ishly'
just for our household, even though it is rarely used and all our
neighbours have the same stuff sitting rarely-used in their houses. We
could also learn new skills from this collaboration, further reducing
our need to buy goods and services from others.
So much for most of our financial and physical needs. What about our emotional neediness
-- the need for the other stuff in Maslow's hierarchy -- security, love
and attention and appreciation, self-esteem and meaning and
self-actualization? I would argue that (3) and (4) above would also
increase the amount of security and attention and appreciation we get,
and (2) and (4) above would increase our self-esteem, by increasing our
competencies and self-sufficiency.
But how else can we reduce
our emotional neediness? I think one way is through generosity -- by
looking out for others, loving them, paying attention to
them, appreciating them, genuinely complimenting them, showing and
teaching and helping them, we reduce their emotional neediness. We turn
scarcity of love, attention, appreciation and self-esteem into
abundance. How do we know this generosity will be repaid in kind?
We don't. But it might. And it doesn't cost us anything, except a bit
of time and effort (which (1)-(4) above can give us more of) to be
generous with these gifts.
Give more... Need less.
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MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
