Plenitude: the new economics of true wealth

After Homeward Bound I read "Plenitude: the new economics of true wealth" by Juliet Schor. I had read another of her books, The Overworked American, at university so her name was familiar when I saw this book referenced in Homeward Bound.  I hadn't read an economics book since university but it was quite an easy read and was pretty inspiring.

The book sets out why the "business as usual economy" is incompatible with the current environmental challenges we face.  Schor points out that the blinkered pursuit of economic growth is contributing to excess consumption, waste, intense resource use and long working hours.  She puts forward a new way - the Plenitude model - which is based on four principles:

1. reduced hours of market work
2. high productivity self provisioning
3. "true materialism" - an environmentally aware approach to consumption
4. revitalisation of community and social connection

All sounds lovely doesn't it? Initially I felt a little cynical about these ideas and thought they were only really the choices that people can make when they are wealthy enough to have that luxury. But Schor hasn't written this book to convince the rich to change their ways, she has ideas for everyone.

The appeal of fewer hours of market work is obvious, but the downside is having less money. The book covers both of these dynamics, and I really liked this quote:

"...income is positional but leisure time is not. The benefits of more vacation days or shorter hours are durable, remaining even when others gain free time."

In other words if you had a 5% pay rise but everyone else got 10%, you'd probably feel hard done by even though you have extra money. But if you have more leisure time you'll enjoy what you have even if others have even more.  

On the productivity point, I wondered how we are meant to achieve this if we are doing everything ourselves? Homeward Bound talks about the downside of spending all your time in the garden or in the kitchen...Schor instead focuses on innovations to maximise output so time is freed up for other things. One such innovation that she talks about is the vertical garden.  Highly productive, they have been used on tower blocks, they can reduce energy consumption by insulating a building to keep it cool in summer and warm in winter, purify the air and look beautiful...wow.  I looked up the French landscaper Patrick Blanc, who invented the Vertical Garden and the results are amazing...as you can see here.

The concept of "true materialism" is about caring about the things we have and what we buy, not over buying and throwing away.  There is a great section in the book on fast fashion, i.e. buying cheap, low quality stuff and throwing it away as soon as fashion changes (or it falls apart).  Schor doesn't think we should be living in homemade hessian sacks, she'd rather we buy special things we'll love and keep for as long as possible.  I have to say...this did put me off shopping in the January sales (well, not completely).

The last principle is about community and social connections. If you're spending less time at work then of course you will have more time to spend with other people.  One of the other things Schor talks about is how self provisioning can bring you closer to your neighbours, and I know this to be true based on our own early endeavours in back yard growing. After a glut of green beans we ended up distributing them to the neighbours and it was always a nice excuse for a chat.

All in all a powerful book that made me think about what we spend our money on, whether we really need that stuff, and what we throw away.

Homeward Bound

Happy New Year!

A busy run up to Christmas means I have a backlog of books I've been meaning to write about, and with my new year enthusiasm, I've promised myself I'll get on with it before I forget all about them...

First up for 2014 is Homeward Bound: Why Women are Embracing the New Domesticity by Emily Matchar.  It's an interesting book that is really an examination of the rise in popularity of "domesticity" (in the broadest sense of the word) in American culture. What the book does well is to bring together lots of mini trends into one large narrative, which is the rise of "do-it-yourself" in all aspects of life.  It was so current in its observations I was basically ticking things off the list that I / my friends do...

Food - growing your own veggies, rearing backyard chickens, cooking food from scratch, scrutiny over what you're feeding your kids.  We used to grow herbs in the car park of our old apartment block and some former neighbours came over the other day with a jar of pickled chillies that were grown in that same car park!  Now that we've moved to a house with a backyard we have got a little veggie patch (tomatoes, watermelon, green beans) and a lot more herbs and it's all pretty lovely really.  

Crafting and creativity - yep, everyone's at this now. I have an amazing friend who self published a cook book in her spare time (while working full time as a hair stylist).  I went through a brief phase of knitting toys for my friends' newborn babies, and got some lovely handmade things as gifts when we had our two kids.  Whenever we were given anything handmade for our babies, these were the things I cherished the most and find very hard to part with. Other friends have upholstered armchairs, reconditioned dining tables, set up photography businesses, made short movies and given art they've done themselves as presents. My husband's writing music.  Everyone's getting creative.

Parenting - yikes, this one's a can of worms. Matchar thinks attachment parenting fits into this DIY trend.  This is the intensive, extended breastfeeding, co sleeping, ultra responsive (to minimise crying) style of parenting that's very popular now with certain types.  Matchar thinks this also extends to the rising trends for unschooling and homeschooling we're now seeing.  Attachment parenting is not compatible with working in an office where you can't take the baby with you - so Matchar explores the implications for the women who devote themselves completely to parenting.

Work - lots of people are stepping out of (or have been pushed, due to the recession) the traditional, corporate workforce to concentrate on these things. There is a really good section  about Lisa Belkin's famous article "The Opt-Out Revolution" and the author airs her concerns about the dangers of women's short term outlook when dropping out of paid work.  She also makes the case that most of the people selling stuff on Etsy only earn pocket money and that being self sufficient foodwise (backyard chickens, preserving fruits, growing veggies) is time consuming and tiring. So she argues it's a nice idea to think you'll earn a living from selling handmade cushions on Etsy and produce all your own food but unlikely in reality - and if you do, it'll be hard and probably not that fun.

The author points out that these DIY trends have been driven in part by a growing lack of faith in collective solutions (because of food scandals, worries about public hospitals and schools), but in this quest for self sufficiency and all things "natural" the author argues that we risk developing a culture of hyper individualism where the focus is on ourselves, our immediate families and our own children.  Matchar worries that this means there are fewer people who are engaging in finding communal solutions to communal problems - for example, if you don't think your local school is any good, you can either pull out your child to home school or unschool them, or you could take action to change that school so the other kids in your community benefit as well as your own child.  Matchar thinks the growing trend for the former is concerning for society as a whole.
 
This book also made me see the link between all the TV shows either I or my husband have been watching lately...Moonshiners, Mountain Men, Wheeler Dealers (about fixing up cars to sell on), Kevin McCloud's Man Made Home, Kirstie's Homemade Home, River Cottage...they're all about making, growing or fixing things. That's just what we're all into at the moment isn't it?

By the end of the book I'd lost my romantic notions of the warm, fuzzy loveliness of the new domesticity (the food and creativity bits anyway, the attachment parenting thing's not my style) as Homeward Bound is pretty upfront about the risks and the downsides of this movement.  My enthusiasm came back, however, when I read the next book, Plenitude: the New Economics of True Wealth by Juliet Schor, which I was alerted to in Homeward Bound. Stay tuned.