NOT BUYING IT! 2015 - A consumer holiday

GreyQueen

Thank you for your compliment, poorly scammo. The only place I write is MSE, but perhaps I ought to try extending myself slightly. I was once invited to blog on our city's newspaper website by its editor, but didn't want to contribute towards their profits (they are a part of a huge national media group and I don't like their politics).

I was thinking about the concept of wage labour. It's such an intrinsic part of our culture that we think no more about it than fish presumably think about water. Assuming fish cogitate about their environs, of course.

But it's really rather strange, if you think about it. Back in the pre-modern era, a peasant in the feudal times would have had land, and duties in terms of labour to be given on his lord's land, but he wouldn't have rented out his time for cash. Labouring for money, and using it to buy the necessities, came late on the economic scene.

I've read about the lives of medieval peasants. They had a lot more leisure than we have now; every Sunday and every saint's day off. The collective sum of saints' days was a lot higher than annual leave entitlements are now. And, when wage-labouring started to come in, there was the trouble that people would sell enough labour to meet their basic needs, then not want to sell any more until those needs were unmet. The concepts of having to get more and more and more, to buy things which were not necessary, was a hard one to inculate into the population.

People like their free time - a lot.

There is also the issue that mechanisation made a lot of goods, which were once very time-consuming and expensive to produce, relatively cheap. So people would have had to work less to get the same material advantages. This was very acute in the 20th century so Something Had to Be Done, to protect the interests of the capital-owning classes and to make sure that the commonality of people didn't have spare time to think about the big issues of life.

That thing was this monster called Consumerism. And it's just getting bigger and badder and chewing more people up every year. I feel that we're like someone who has gorged on a rich meal and is bloated and on the edge of vomiting it all back up again.

Today was one of the three days in each seven in which I do not sell my time. I have gardened and harvested the fruits of earlier gardening labours. I have visited two friends in their retail establishments, for chat and a cuppa, I have chatted with another friend and with family on the phone. Life is very rich when you can potter about your own business, and are happy enough not to need compensatory spending to distract from the unhappiness of being at the beck and call of clock-time.

nursemaggie

GreyQueen your right about the peasants of the middle ages we have a long way to go before we get as many days off as they did would you believe they had 80 saints days. If they became ill or had an accident their Lord took care of them. His Lady would bring food. Someone would take car of his land. We have far less rights than feudal peasants had. I wonder why they revolted?

Mechanisation continues at a pace. More and more is produced. It is actually the people who can only afford cheap things that makes the most money. I won't go into all the sums but DS did it the other day with a luxury end BMW and any of the smallest cars that sell by the million.

I said Morrisons cutting right back on savers things and not stocking their £3 frozen chicken had made it impossible to manage on £150 a week. I can't stretch it to feed us every day. It cost £4.05p for a much smaller chicken that only did 3 days this week instead of five. I am very annoyed with Morrisons then DS said but it is really bad business it is the little things that sell the most.

Consumerism started in early Victorian times when they began to make the population think they need something. Sell the idea to them and by the time you actually produce it people are clambering for it.

They studied psychology and invented the whole concept of marketing. I'm sure the whole industry of marketing and advertising knows more about the workings of the human mind than the whole of psychiatry put together.

I don't know if governments know much about the future but within the next 20 years only 45% of us will be employed. The rest of the jobs will go to robots. This time it will be the office worker that goes first. Soon computer will not need human operators They will be able to do all the administration on their own. GPs will go too because people will be very happy to consult a virtual Dr who can go through millions of different symptoms and not struggle to remember it all is bound to better than your average GP. He can work 24/7 and see a dozen patients at once. We will not even have to go out to keep an appointment with the Dr.

They are going to have to sort out they will have to do with us. There will be no choice but an entitlement to a living allowance well above the poverty level so that we can still buy buy buy. Most of it will just have to be recycled. No government can stay in power with half the population starving they will have to change their ideas.

Here we are at the beginning of a new age. I like the idea of just buying the ingredients. I stated in August when I decided to knit every ones Christmas Presents. The kids have got hats scarfs and gloves the adults just scarves they will get their hats and gloves next year to match this years scarf. I already have all the wool. I can't leave it until next year. The right shades may not be around.

Caterina

GreyQueen, what a fantastic piece of writing, every word resonated completely with my feelings about this matter, but you put it just so much more eloquently!

BTW, that Diogenes sunbathed a lot, didn't he? Good for him!

Bathory

I would like to join, although I am frugal I still make some mistakes and I'm hoping to bring this down to the absolute minimum.

I knew a woman once who had a good paying full time job, who did not seem satisfied unless she was buying stuff in her lunch breaks. Being in a city centre there was so much temptation and the main stuff being bought would be clothes, wine, high end cosmetics and creams that claimed to make her look 21 again. Basic brands of anything would not get a look in - she could be quite snobby. The thrill of the purchase was so addictive (although it also wore off quickly) that round and round in circles she went - this woman was me.

I could seriously kick myself forever up the *** looking back at what I temporarily turned into. I never use to be like that having grown up extremely frugally. Redundancy, slowing down and thinking of what really matters in life made me realise this. Today I am happier in a part time job with a good work/life balance and although money is tight I would not wish to swap it. Infact I was in the city centre today to meet a few friends and it was heaving, could not get on/off the trams cos of crowds, was forever dodging bags and boxes and some folk looked like they were struggling to stand upright with all the shopping they had to carry - I could not wait to get home.

Thanks Slowdown for a great thread.

GreyQueen

nursemaggie wrote: »

GreyQueen your right about the peasants of the middle ages we have a long way to go before we get as many days off as they did would you believe they had 80 saints days. If they became ill or had an accident their Lord took care of them. His Lady would bring food. Someone would take car of his land. We have far less rights than feudal peasants had. I wonder why they revolted?.

It wasn't all beer and skittles. Medieval society was divided into three classes; those who fought, those who prayed, and those who laboured.

In other words, the nobility (and never forget that the nobs were descended from a warlord and his henchmen and our country was divvied-up between them as spoils of war), the clergy (major landholders with a divine mandate and psychological claws into the minds of all) and Joe and Joesephine Ordinary, who had to graft to keep two large classes of parasites.

And keep them to a much higher standard than they could keep themselves. And each landmark of a peasant's life had to be paid for. You die? Great, your heirs owe a mortuary beast to the church. Your best cow or sheep. Your Dad dies, and you are to inherit his small-holding? You have to pay an 'entry fine' to the lord for the right to enter into your inheritance - oh, and that will be another beast, and only the best beast will do. Called a 'heriot'.

You want to marry? You'll need the lord's permission, and have to pay a fine. You want to brew and sell beer from your cottage? Another tariff due to the lord of the land. You could barely turn around without owing somebody, a lord temporal or a lord spiritual, or even both, a fine (a fee, in modern parlance).

So, when the Black Death had left the country on its knees, when the cost of living was going sky-high, and there was huge increases in taxation, the Peasants Revolt was inevitable (there were several, I'm talking now about the one of 1381). The flashpoint was 30.05.1381 when a royal official, John Bampton, attempted to collect unpaid poll tax in Brentwood, Essex. The violent confrontation triggered spread all across south-east England, up into East Anglia, up the east coast to Yorkshire, and as far west as Somerset.

I used to smile wryly back in the 1980s when That Woman and her crowd were trying to sick another poll tax on us. Poll taxes have never gone down well in Blighty; taxing people merely for having the cheek to be alive..............! If she'd've studied history instead of chemistry and law, she would've known that.

maria3104

Loving reading this thread. Thank you everyone.

K9sandFelines

Bobarella wrote: »

Awesome Lillian. If you on twitter let me know your user name so I can cheer you on

Ive just been on Twitter having a nosey at the #minsgame participants and reading up on The Minimalists, and came across a blog similar in theme to this thread ...thought you might be able to gleen tips from it as the blogger has done it before


Oneemptyshelf.com

I will be following this thread for tips on cutting down and decluttering. I stockpile and hoard too much in the hope it will come in useful at a later date. Not necessarily consumerism but along the same lines. About to click subscribe.


Good luck all

ellie-g

Those who have achieved some level of contentment are fortuneate indeed. For most, buying, consuming, emulating others and so on are methods of distraction for the emptiness they feel inside. Acquiring stuff gives temporary relief from that empty void but does not last. The real search needs to be about finding things which truly fufil us and facing up to the fact that we cannot anchor ourselves to the planet by owning lots of possessions and that ultimately we all face the challenges of ageing and death both for ourselves and our loved ones. I continue to search for things which will challenge and develop me as a person but like everyone I also look for distractions to avoid looking too deeply at life. The human condition is tricky!

[Deleted User]

We were chatting about this subject as an aside yesterday afternoon at History club.It seems that retail therapy (or Shopping to normal folk) has become more than big business.You cannot escape from the retail industry trying to part you from your cash at every place you go. Be it an airport,railway station you will see shopsa trying to sell you stuff that if your honest you don't need or want

e.g. going to fly away on holiday ? get to Gatwick or Heathrow and any airport and your greeted with shops selling you Clothes,Chocolate,toys, alchoholic drinks and for some peculiar reason Ties.If you are going away to lie on some sandy beach in the sun why on earth would you need to buy a Tie ???

Has the world gone completely mad, or is it just I have grown old and somewhat cynical.I have closed my purse now for a couple of weeks and by the New Year its likely to stay even more closed as I am opting out of buying uselss junk .

My purchases ,apart from neccessary food, will be zilch I hope and if I get the urge to buy something I will come on here and remind myself that I really DON'T NEED or WANT IT.
2015 is going to be a case of far less waste in buying junk and more a case of enjoying my housefull of the stuff I already have

GreyQueen

:T Well said, ellie-g.

I have a grandmother who is constantly in and out of hospital, at 91.5 years, very frail, not long for this world, and parents in their seventies, and am starting to see subtle changes in their vitality in these last couple of years. Plus having hit the big five-oh myself two months ago.

Lots of thoughts about mortality at this stage of my life, and the ultimate futility of Stuff in the grand scheme of things. But yes, I like my distractions as much as the next person, my fiction books and some purely frivilous past-times. Hell, archery as a skill has been obsolete for centuries, I just do it because it's fun.

I suppose our challenge as human beings is that, unlike other animals, we always know we're going to die, the whole time we're alive, once past early childhood. And that a lot of what we do can be seen as a kind of hands-over-ears reflex, trying to drown out this knowledge, to submerge it in the clatter of everyday life.

It's Ooooh - look! Shiny things! I know people who live like this all of the time, and people who live like it some of the time, such as myself and my friends. In life, we have to sail between the shoals of morbidness and the shallows of triviality, trying not to get stuck in either place.

It is a bright and sunny day in my city, highs of about 5 c, and the shopping streets are buzzy with life, colour, music both live and recorded. Charities are collecting, the Sally Army are performing, buskers are busking and people are shopping.

Some of the things they buy will make them happy, and some will make them bored. Some will end up clutter and some are so useless that their mere existance is an affront to all sense and a diabolical waste of finite resources.

Today I will divest myself of some things (chazzer donations, punnets back to the greenrocer) and acquire some other things (spools of sewing thread, some for use later today). There will be a decrease in volume and an increase in utitlity among my personal inventory, and some money will change hands, but I'm comfortable with that. Not all shopping is purposeless.