There is this notion among many liberty minded people that life was better in the past. This is often expressed through romantic notions of simplicity, self sufficiency and community. However, if anyone were to try living like the post card notion of the past, they would quickly find that it doesn't work.
This is not to say that things aren't in fact deteriorating. Many were better off a generation or two ago. But the reason for our decline in life quality isn't because of new technology.
The problem we're facing is that the benefits of new technology have been offset by a corresponding burden put upon us by the current system. For every advancement, we're hit by a corresponding burden that diverts resources away from us and into the hands of a small group of well connected people.
This small group of individuals would like nothing more than to see liberty minded people turn off their internet and move into cottages in the country. It would signal defeat on our side, and it would allow these people to continue their pilfering.
On the other hand, the elite would hate to see an honest investigation into what's happening. They don't want us to stop and think for ourselves. Above all, they would hate to see people come up with solutions to their continuous pilfering of everything that makes life good and meaningful.
What we need is not some reactionary withdrawal from society, but a proactive move in which we safeguard what we value. Our first action should therefore be to come up with an honest vision of how we would like to live.
I live in Porto, and I like it a lot. I value the cafés. I love going for walks around town. I enjoy reading things on the internet. I've learned a lot thanks to this. I've written a little thesis on physics, and I've come to understand politics and economy a lot better. I'd hate to see the internet gone.
I like to sit down for meals with my family, and I love my balcony with flowers and the compost bin that produces earth from kitchen refuse. It would be nice to have a cottage of my own out in the country, but we can't afford it at the moment, and I don't have the energy for it either. The balcony is the cheap and reliable alternative.
An honest vision is not merely a dream. It's a realistic and attainable goal, and in my case, I'm pretty much living it. There are very few things I would like to see different, so I've managed to go from wishing to live like I do today, to actually living it. My vision from the past is my current reality.
It should be noted that my goal was realized by cutting down on needless consumption, and by a systematic effort to avoid taxation. Selling my house in Norway was a painful but necessary part of this. Focusing on making my wife's modest apartment in Porto as comfortable as possible was another important step. Avoiding banks by getting out of debt and into gold rather than cash savings was a good move too.
Modest living frees up time for things I value highly by reducing the need to spend time earning money. Modest living reduces fixed costs, it reduces taxation, and it reduces the need for bank loans. Taken together, there're a lot of savings just there. Additionally, I moved from high cost Norway to low cost Portugal. Not only do we have a better climate here in Porto, but it's a lot cheaper as well.
The key to good living isn't some unworkable move back in time but the realization that what's valuable is rarely very expensive, and that no-one can be happy and relaxed living financially on the edge. We have to live well within our means, and we need to avoid external meddling in our finances by the state and its associated banks. Finding ways to avoid taxation, inflation and debt is key, because those are the ways the elite use to pilfer us into poverty.
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| Café de Flore |
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