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Buy Nothing New Thoughts

December 21st, 2006 at 05:46 pm

Bookie replied to my post on Buy Nothing New and brought up a very good point. She said she didn't see the point of the exercise and that we need to understand the poiint of our frugality.

As I see it there are two reasons to be frugal one is practical the other is more complex. The first one is simple to save money. "To Live Better with Less"

However there is another reason why I am frugal and that is a social justice matter. In the United States we consume per person more than any country in the World. Most of us here know this. However what we may not realize is that we consume at others expense. Because we eat steak others go hungry. (Yes I am a carnivore) Yet this is a very very conplex problem. Simply stopping the consumption won't work. To make matters worse there is a great deal of waste in the economy.

The question that I would like to explore is it possible for an indivdual to withdraw from a segment of the marketplace. For an individual to live on the waste that is generated by this economy. I want to try. That in essence is my question regarding the "services" question. In order to do this a person needs to be as "wasteless" as possible and many services are exploitive.

I also realize that in many ways this argument is illogical. A person such as myseolf with a middle class income who is choosing to "Buy Nothing New" continues to benefit indirectly from the American Consumer Society. After all if the society did not produce the waste this option would not be possible.




3 Responses to “Buy Nothing New Thoughts”

  1. fern Says:
    1166731747

    For me, the other major reason i am frugal has to do with Planet Earth. Being a big consumer of all sorts of products means we're fueling the production and manufacture of many items whose creation and distribution to our local widget store takea toll on the environment.

    The earth's natural resources are not all renewable. Even the most basic things that we have all taken for granted....clean air, clean water, and now, more critically, livable temperatures... is now in jeopardy.

    Don't mean to get on a soapbox but i would love to see more people make the connection between their everyday consumer habits, actions and lifestyles and the long-term ramifications.

  2. Bookie Says:
    1166742562

    "She" be he.

    Smile

  3. princessperky Says:
    1166753274

    I think it is a wonderful idea

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