more for less

Thanks to Sharon Astyk for pointing out that Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, is seeing things much as we are . Scott writes:

Cheapatopia is a hypothetical city, designed from scratch to be an absurdly cheap place to live with a ridiculously high quality of life... the era of ridiculous consumption is over ... If we want universal healthcare, and a decent standard of living for the exploding population of seniors, the average household will have to learn how to make do with less. But in doing so, there is no reason we can't be happier at the same time, so long as we do it right... Cheapatopia puts a big emphasis on entertainment and social interaction. If you have that, plus health, safety, and financial security, you might be willing to give up the over-consumption and needless complexity of your old life... I believe the next big change in society will involve simplifying our lives, getting rid of the waste and inconvenience that we drifted into, and finding meaning through more social involvement... Cheapatopians work at home or within the city, so commuting is minimal.

This brings to mind the refrains of James Howard Kunstler about the death of suburbia: he foresees the "end of happy motoring" whereby every aspect of our lives that is predicated on private motoring will fail, as oil becomes unaffordable for increasingly impoverished western populations. He sees city centres regenerating into places where people live and shop and walk to work. Anywhere urban that does not have public transport within walking distance will become a ghetto. Where there is not efficient rail transport, we will be left with only rural villages, based around smaller scale farming, and compact urban centres, where people can transport themselves by foot. These are the living environments that provide the highest quality of life: frequent social interaction with neighbors and fellow citizens, a palpable community spirit, and no tedious commuting. Suburbia will become ghost-towns and ghettos.

Dmitri Orlov sees water transport becoming more important, and home grown food. Having witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union first hand he knows what happens when a political and economic system collapses: people become dependent on what they can do for themselves and for each other on a local level. This means growing our own food, even in city apartments, on balconies, window ledges, indoors. When the system collapsed in Cuba, they started growing food on road verges and anywhere they could: Cuba now leads the way in organic agriculture, and this happened through necessity, as they couldn't afford chemicals.

Sharon Astyk herself concentrates mainly on food and family: how to make do and mend, growing and storing our own food, organizing our lives so we are not dependent on the electric grid or on supermarkets, making the most of what we have through reuse and ingenuity.

All these writers emphasize that the quality of our lives is not dependent on money, income, or consumer goods. Fulfillment comes through our social interactions, through doing productive and useful work that benefits ourselves and our communities directly, through living in harmony with nature, through the robust health that comes from eating a healthy and natural diet, and so on. By rearranging the way we live and work, we can be much happier with much less.