The Enough Movement

"I have enough. I will keep striving, because to strive is an essential part of being human, but I am not going to strive for more."

I've been thinking and blogging (not necessarily in that order) about economics, distributism and related topics for a while now. In the back of my mind a crazy little idea has been taking shape, influenced by guys like E.F. Schumacher and G.K. Chesterton. I'm calling it "The Enough Movement," and in the relatively near future I'm hoping to put it together in some sort of coherent, comprehensive-ish form. Maybe a manifesto on ChangeThis. For now, I'll just post a few bits and pieces here and there.

This Enough idea is fundamentally about three things: contentment, gratitude and generosity. It's about doing what you can, producing a manageable amount - enough for me/my family and some to share, either by selling at a fair price or giving it away, so that others can have enough too. It's about having good priorities.

As I previously mentioned, I don't want to be rich - I want to be happy, and from what I've seen, riches tend to decrease happiness, not increase it.

The funny thing is, I'm not sure I'd really want to be part of this "Enough Movement." On some level, I still associate more with better, more with happier. Previous posts notwithstanding, I sort of do want to be rich. Also, I've got a family to provide for, and I still think they'll be happier if I can give them more (and I'll be happier too). So I'm still working this out, in my own head and my own life. I think I'd like to take some sort of vow of poverty, if I could do so without subjecting my family to it... but maybe that's just a convenient excuse for not doing it. Who knows?

Schumacher wrote "The aim should be to obtain the maximum well being with the minimum consumption." I suspect the link between well being and consumption is indeed inversely proportional (after a point).

He also wrote "the essence of civilization [is] not in a multiplication of wants but in the purification of character," and he bemoans the way "our fathers luxuries become our necessities."

So, I'm wondering - what am I going to do about it. We'll see.

G.K. Chesterton & Imperfectionism (Distributism, Part The Next)

A follow-up thought to Andrew Keen's recent critique of the distributist Web 2.0 phenomenon, from none other than the 20th century's greatest rotund British journalist, writer and thinker, G.K. Chesterton (and an echo of my own commitment to imperfectionism)

"It is a good sign in a nation when things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on." (from Patriotism and Sport, in All Things Considered)

And now for an interesting counterpoint, also from Chesterton. During Prohibition, GKC was so impressed by the quality of American homebrew (and it's superiority over the then-outlawed mass produced, big name factory beer) that he made a tongue-in-cheek proposal to outlaw commercial production of bread and clothing as a means of improving the quality of both (because people would then make their own).

Have you ever made your own bread or brewed your own beer? Have you ever put homemade bread next to a slice of Wonderbread(tm)? Or homebrew next to a Bud? Or one of French Toast Girl's artprints next to the mass-produced "art" available at your local Walmart?

Q.E.D.

As Chesterton explained, distributism doesn't mean we should all be chicken farmers... just that most of us should have a few chickens. We don't all need to be artists, brewers or bakers, but we should each occasionally do some painting, brewing and baking. And yes, that means for every wonderfully talented French Toast Girl, there will be dozens of moderately talented artists like myself trying to put color on paper. So be it.

With all this production, some of us will undoubtedly do it badly. But even when we do it badly, we will have done it - and there's something beautiful about that.

Let's Get Small!

A while back, I wrote an article titled FIST, Part 5, which explored the fourth piece of the FIST acronym, Tiny (the others being Fast, Inexpensive and Simple). I really, really, really believe small is beautiful, particularly in economics. My favorite economic model is distributism, and I think this whole Web 2.0 thing just might help bring about a distributism revolution, if for no other reason than it has a better name. This is the first in a planned series of posts on this topic.

I love the fact that French Toast Girl is selling prints of her wonderful original artwork, with a little help from her kids. I received my order earlier this week and was really moved by how beautiful the paintings are. She's producing, printing and shipping them right from her house. Very distributist.

I love things like Lulu and ChangeThis, which are proving that you don't need to be a big publishing company to produce good quality books, particularly for small communities of readers. This is very distributist too.

The latest issue of Gilbert Magazine had a great quote from Chesterton on the beauty and excellence of small things:

"I have never been convinced that a giraffe is a better fireside playmate than a kitten. I cannot be got to see that a hippopotamus is certain to win a race against a grayhound. An invincible prejudice prevents me from admitting that whales served on toast are more appetizing than sardines.

"Nay, I cannot even persuade myself that the larger sort of sharks, are, as drawing-room ornaments, necessarily improvements upon goldfish. I cannot think that the gesture of pulling up a palm-tree is always easier or more graceful than that of picking a flower; or that it is always more enjoyable to die of thirst in the Sahara than to drink wine from a small vineyard or water from a village well.

In short, I am lamentably lacking in that reverence for largeness, or for things on a Big Scale, which is apparently the religion of the age of Big Business."