The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [113]
Source: R. Layard, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science (2006).
Indeed, Americans now work harder than the citizens of nearly any other industrialized country.50 We’re caught in what I call the work-watch-spend treadmill: exhausting ourselves at work, then decompressing in front of the TV, which blares commercials telling us we need to go shopping, which we do, only to find we need to work even harder to pay for it all, and so the cycle continues. And what do we have to show for it? Monster houses, bigger cars, and a growing lack of physical, mental, and environmental health (not to mention a ton of trash and CO2).
As a result, nearly everyone reports an increasing sense of anxiety. I was recently at a public lecture on food issues. One of the speakers was Mollie Katzen, author of our college kitchen bible, the Moosewood Cookbook. She explained that she’s been writing recipes and sharing cooking advice for more than twenty five years, and she has witnessed a huge change in our relationship to food preparation. Years ago, she said, she received fascinating questions about what to do with particular spices or unusual vegetables. Nowadays, she said, the most frequent request she gets is for quick and easy meals that require few ingredients and take as little time as possible. That’s what we get—stress and fast food—in return for working like dogs?
A growing movement of people in the United States and internationally have chosen to opt out of the relentless treadmill. This approach—known variously as downshifting, enough-ism, or voluntary simplicity—involves embracing a shift toward working and spending less. Sometimes it happens voluntarily, other times after someone loses a job but decides to make it the start of a new relationship to work. Downshifters choose to prioritize leisure, community building, self-development, and health over accumulating more Stuff. Some make slight adjustments such as buying used clothes, growing some of their own food, and biking instead of driving to work. Others take greater steps, such as adjusting spending patterns to live well on far less money so they can work part-time. Some share housing, cars, and other big-ticket items with other people. The focus is not on doing without, but on enhancing nonmaterial aspects of their lives, which they believe—and evidence supports—are greater sources of happiness and security anyway. As Duane Elgin, author of Voluntary Simplicity, explains, “The objective is not dogmatically to live with less, but it is a more demanding intention of living with balance in order to find a life of greater purpose, fulfillment and satisfaction.”51
Downshifters are sometimes criticized for lacking awareness about the role of privilege in their big life change: they tend to have more education (often at the graduate level), connections, and confidence in their ability to navigate the system, all of which sets them apart from the poor, who involuntarily live with less. After “escaping” the system, many downshifters fail to engage politically. I would argue, as Professor Michael Maniates does in Confronting Consumption, that a portion of the hours downshifters win from working fewer hours should be dedicated to the “collective struggle aimed at transforming institutions that drive consumerism and overconsumption.”52 Some of the policy battles to be fought in the name of creating a wholly downshifted society (and thus, one that has a smaller environmental footprint and, as important, is happier) include benefits for parttime work, limits on extremely high compensation of corporate leaders (with the money saved going to increases in low-end wages), a shorter work week, and reinvestment in the social commons: parks, libraries, public transportation, and other public facilities that can provide people access to things they