It didn't take long for someone to ask me what the effects would be on the economy if everyone behaved like a minimalist. I believe his words were, "Wouldn't minimalism destroy the economy?", or something like that. It gave me pause. Because if we're not spending we're not driving the economy, and if you listen to the news radio religiously, like I do, this concern goes right to the heart of everything we care about. We don't want to ruin everyone's lives, right? So I started reading up on various minimalists positions on worldly economic views. Many minimalists are life hackers, tackling closets, and kitchen organizers, and other things like that, and while they are brilliant and motivational, they don't directly provide helpful information on this topic.
However, by pure happenstance, I was already reading a book by a former engineer, and world traveler, named Jim Merkel, called "Radical Simplicity". In one section he talks about the time he spent in Kerala, which is near the Himalaya. The way he describes their community economy; the efficiency, the basic need fulfillment, the transparency, the security, the flexibility of it all, and the detail he goes into, makes you want to go there and see it for yourself. Its idyllic. Its almost like a dream, but while reading I continued reminding myself that he's talking about a real place, and real people, and real events. His view of Kerala becomes what I imagine American colonists could have accomplished had it not been for expansion, firepower, or our overall greed, empowering us to achieve more than the next person in our neighborhood. I'm not going to go into all his details, because you can read it for yourself if your so inclined. Just know that living simply has been done successfully before, and by more than one culture. Kerala was just his living example, and they were not at all flea bitten savages, in need of something more, that only a gigantic economy could provide. They were content, healthy, and even more than that. They were happy.
When it comes to economics the minimalist I'd trust the most with federal budget concerns is Mr. Money Mustache. He doesn't trust journalists the way he trusts authors, and I completely agree. Benoit Mandelbrot's theories on fractal geometry and non-linear equations helped shape market predictions, and he wasn't even a money guy. He was a well studied mathematician who inspired chaos theory, and he's an author, a scholar, not a journalist. The authors Money Mustache has read trend toward market misconceptions, and that scholars correct the new journalists who "tell you that consumers are not the engine of economic growth. They are actually the caboose." He goes on to discuss imports and exports and productivity, and in a general sense describes every potential problem that minimalism could have on the economy would actually be a good thing. Now, I too, like to be optimistic on this topic, and the reason why is that Wall Street is a flexible money sowing, harvesting, and devouring monster. It wants to make money, and it doesn't care what is driving its profits. When the housing market is going up or is strong, wall street bets on homeowners, and as we saw in housing bubble at the turn of the millennium, wall street also got rich betting against homeowners when housing was collapsing. So you see, our economy always finds a way to invest on the interests of our 320 million worker bees, no matter what we're doing.
But a big hustle and bustle American economy already exists here, requiring perpetual growth and vitality, so: Can minimalism and a thriving economy co-exist? That is what we really need to answer, at this point. This re-questioning, is a minor edit to the original question 'would it destroy the economy'. This little phrasing change, to me, is nothing more than how my mind solves a riddle with given clues. Rather than look at it from an unknown disaster (ruined economy) as a starting point, moving backwards toward today, it seems more sensible to look at from what we know we have now, and attempt to predict what might come ahead, given some minimalists' changes.
As Joshua Becker points out, "those who argue they are incompatible fail to miss the bigger picture on two significant fronts: the flexibility of our capitalist system and the misunderstanding that minimalism represents zero spending."
I'd like to reiterate how he closes this sentence. It is a misunderstanding if you've assumed that Living Minimalism means zero spending. It does not. It might mean spending a little less, but mostly it means spending smarter. Living Minimalism is about tailoring your spending to better focus your daily actions toward your long term goals. Living Minimalism is about funding your passion with as little waste as possible, so that you can achieve your dreams at a younger age. Its about getting there with less clutter, which means less work, less stress, and fewer obstacles to overcome. Minimalism isn't about downsizing to nothing. Its about downsizing the wasteful junk we don't truly need so that we have more room to focus on what really matters. This is the most crucial effort of any minimalist.
I've shared the optimist's view, and the realist's view. Now, allow me to cut out the studious pleasantries and share my own view. Let's look at this question on its surface, with all the assumptions about minimalism back in place. Minimalists don't buy anything. If everyone stops spending, economic doomsday will ensue and all my loved ones will be gasping for air underneath the collapse of wall street (again) and it will all be minimalists to blame for not contributing to our great society. I mean that's really what we're asking about here, am I right?
6 main reasons why I don't worry about an economic doomsday scenario:
1. The question itself sounds scary because it forces us to think about everyone changing all at once. We're not. A few handfuls of really smart people trickle into Living Minimalism, and when they do, their own life changes are slow as well. My grandpa is the oldest one I know of. He started in the 1960's, closing out his life accomplishment, with a book on how to build a Scandinavian log home.
2. The question considers what if everyone did this, when we know dang well that all 320 million of us won't. There will always be a lot of people who desire lots of stuff.
3. The misconception that consumers drive the market, when really some argue the opposite. In reality; its probably more like a symbiotic relationship. Wall Street is nothing without us, while we are only supplemented by it as a tool for our peaceful trading. In fact, if venture capitalists were investing less in buyer debt of depreciating possessions, and more in the business plans for peoples' hopes and dreams, we'd likely end up with new business models for interesting employment opportunities.
4. The misconception that minimalists don't spend anything at all, when we actually do spend. We just make ongoing conscious efforts to spend smarter than we did before.
5. Stock markets are fluid, and flexible, and they thrive on transfer of wealth moving from one area to another. So, if we choose smarter choices, as an example, we are only transferring our contributions from that fast food place over there to this local CSA farmer over here.
6. As part of my Living Minimalism efforts, I have spent the past 15 years teaching myself to not worry about things I cannot do anything about. And neither should you.
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