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.

Jason Roberts is changing the world

I read about Jason Roberts earlier this year in Dumbo Feather magazine and was blown away by what he had achieved as an "ordinary person".  To cut a long story short, when looking to buy a house with his wife years ago, he realised they could only afford to live in an undesirable part of town. Instead of being put off by that, he made it his mission to make it a better place to live - and he achieved it.  

He's a co-founder of Better Block, which is a movement that has spread across the globe that revitalises communities.  What they do is pretty cool...look at the Dumbo Feather interview, or the Better Block website, or Jason Roberts's TED talk.

This is a guy whose day job was working in IT, not someone with a degree in town planning.  He shows that you don't have to wait to be asked, or for someone else to start...you can do it yourself.

Happier at Home

I mentioned recently that, in the midst of my house move, I re-read Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin.  Now, I'm a big fan of Gretchen Rubin's writing and became an even bigger fan when it turned out she is also a super nice lady (more on that later).  This post has taken me ages to write because Happier at Home is packed with, well, so much stuff, and I just couldn't pin down what I wanted to say.  So, in the spirit of "done is better than perfect" (a Gretchen-ism I like to remind myself of regularly), here's a collection of highlights and thoughts about the book.    

So - what's it about? Rubin describes the book as her account of the strategies that she used to feel more at home, at home.  In contrast to the messages in The Architecture of Happiness, which is all about the physical make up of buildings and their contents, Rubin doesn't really focus on this. She talks about what goes on in (and around) the home, and openly admits that she's not really interested in interior design. In fact, she said it had been a relief to her when she realised that her style of apartment didn't have to reflect any deep truths about her, and that it was enough that it be a pleasant, comfortable place to live.

Each month, Rubin picks a theme related to home (in the broadest sense) and sets herself some resolutions. She kicks off with "Possessions".  One of the most unsettling things about moving was being confronted with all our stuff - every single thing needed attention - and it made me just want to chuck it all out.  The usual comeback to a comment like this is that, yes, you should get rid of stuff, strive for simplicity, etc etc. Rubin argues we shouldn't just strive for less for the sake of having less, and assuming that less is better. She says instead we should just make sure we are engaging with our stuff - either by using it or keeping it because it has some special significance.

Next up is Marriage month.  One of the things Rubin talks about here is an attempt to rebalance who does the driving. Her husband basically does all of it, and she avoids it.  This is one of my own weaknesses too, and I read this chapter with hope, but it turns out there are no quick fixes for this.  Her sister offers the most helpful bit of wisdom here - that she'll only stop feeling anxious about driving after she has been driving every day for years.

Parenthood was the next theme, and I decided straight away to copy one of her resolutions to "under react to a problem".  Making a conscious effort to stay calm definitely makes a difference, but it takes practice.

A couple of months later Rubin focuses on Time.  She throws in a quote from Thoreau which inspired her:

"I love a broad margin to my life"

Isn't it such a luxury not to have to rush? In this chapter Rubin talks about planning her time better. She talks about everything from managing always-on technology and relentless emails, to how much she accomplished by doing something 15 minutes a day, to her kids' after school activities.  Her "15 minutes a day" task was sorting out her digital photos.  Some of her zeal for this rubbed off on me and I started tackling mine too. I also made a mental note to read Samuel Johnson, who is glowingly discussed in this chapter.

After the chapters on Body and Family is a chapter on Neighbourhood.  Here Rubin resolves to "be a tourist without leaving home" by making more effort to appreciate and enjoy what her city has to offer.  Another resolution this month was to "practice nonrandom acts of kindness".  Rubin disagrees with the notion that random acts of kindness bring happiness to the giver and the receiver (who she thinks will usually react with suspicion to a random act of kindness directed at them).  The nonrandom acts of kindness that Rubin focuses on include inviting new people to her reading and writing groups, recommending people for work and linking to other people's blogs. I smiled when I read this as this blog has been a lucky recipient of one of Rubin's nonrandom acts of kindness - she posted about this blog on twitter! - and it made my day!

Towards the end of the book, I highlighted this - which sounds so simple but is so insightful:

"...my quest perfectly illustrated one of my Secrets of Adulthood: I do best what comes naturally. When I pursue a goal that's right for me, my progress comes quickly and easily; when I pursue a goal that's wrong for me, my progress feels blocked. Now I try not to fight that sense of paralysis, but rather see it as a helpful clue to self-knowledge."

And, speaking of her Secrets of Adulthood (of which there are many) - this is one of my new favourites:

"It's the task that's never started that's the most wearisome"  

The final chapter, Now, brings it all together as Rubin reflects on her months of resolutions.  I won't spoil the ending except to say that it's happy and quite lovely.

You can find out more about Gretchen Rubin and her books and read her blog at www.gretchenrubin.com

The Architecture of Happiness

The last few weeks have been spent trying to adjust to life in a new home. For the last 3  years we lived in a lovely 2 bedroom apartment within walking distance of everything we needed to get to.  We were complimented on it often and I guess we felt quite house proud - not least because it was the first home we ever owned.  But with 2 small kids we'd grown out of it and desperately needed some more (especially outdoor) space.

We've moved about one mile away to the suburbs (where nothing is within walking distance) to an unrenovated 1950s house with a dodgy green carpet and a big back garden for the kids.  We're renting this place so we just have to accept it as it is.  This whole experience has made me wonder about how much our sense of identity is wrapped up in where we live - both what our homes are like and where they are.

The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton gave me some insight into that.  Early on in the book he says,

"Belief in the significance of architecture is premised on the notion that we are, for better or worse, different people in different places - and on the conviction that it is architecture's task to render vivid to us who we might ideally be."

Instead of proudly showing people around, as we did in our old place, my husband and I have been the first to make jokes about the decor and apologise for the horrible bathroom. It's like we're saying - this isn't really us! Don't judge us! But of course our friends couldn't care less about these things. Now that we've been here for a while though I don't care about them either.

The Architecture of Happiness is quite wide ranging in the topics it covers, and although I generally love most of what Alain de Botton writes I find I have to be in the mood for it. This book felt a bit too dense to be tackling in the middle of this busy patch - however, there was a great chapter on "Ideals of Home" which I paid close attention to.  One of my favourite passages was about the meaning of home:

"To speak of home in relation to a building is simply to recognise its harmony with our own prized internal song...We need our rooms to align us to desirable versions of ourselves and to keep alive the important, evanescent sides of us." 

I also liked this passage, which highlights the idea of home as a sanctuary where we can be our true selves (although his comments about work are very amusingly cynical).

"Our working routines may be frantic and compromised, dense with meetings, insincere handshakes, small-talk and bureaucracy. We may say things we don't believe in to win over our colleagues and feel ourselves becoming envious and excited in relation to goals we don't essentially care for.  

But finally, on our own, looking out of the hall window into the garden and the gathering darkness, we can slowly resume contact with a more authentic self, who was there waiting in the wings for us to end our performance."

In this same chapter on the Ideals of Home, de Botton also talks about what's in our homes.  He makes some interesting arguments about what drives our taste in art, furniture and interior design, and why our tastes change or, as he asks,  "Why do we change our minds about what we find beautiful?"

He argues that "a given stylistic choice will tell us as much about what its advocates lack as about what they like".  He says that in the late 18th Century in the West, there was an increase in popularity of "the natural" in all major art forms and he explains "They were falling in love with the natural in their art precisely because they were losing touch with the natural in their own lives".

On why our tastes change, he says:

"As the ways in which we are unbalanced alters, so our attention will continue to be drawn to new parts of the spectrum of taste, to new styles which we will declare beautiful on the basis that they embody in a concentrated form what now lies in shadow within us."

As I look around our new home and see all our treasured possessions in new places, our pieces of furniture in new rooms, our art and photos on the walls, I think about how much we love all this stuff. I've never thought about why I love the things I love in my home, or why we chose the things we did, but maybe he's right and these choices reveal some deep truths about what's lacking somewhere in life? I wonder...