Home > Voluntary simplicity

1 Overview

People who practise voluntary simplicity act consciously to reduce their need for purchased services or goods and, by extension, their need to sell their time for money. Quite often, this means that people who practise this lifestyle must do many things for themselves, such as gardening and cooking, sewing, and constructing or maintaining a home.

There are some North Americans who have successfully applied voluntary simplicity techniques to allow them to live on an income of only a few thousand dollars a year. However, it is important to note that money is not the major reason to practise this lifestyle. Most do it to improve their quality of life in one of many dimensions: financial, spirituality, interpersonal relationships, family, etc.

2 Roots

Monks in the middle ages were possibly the earliest practitioners of organized lifestyles of voluntary poverty, though the use of fasts of short duration are common in many cultures throughout history.

The Luddites, a group of English weavers who smashed automated looms during the industrial revolution, held similar views. There are eco-anarchist groups in the United States and Canada today promoting lifestyles of simplicity.

In North America, religious groups including the Shakers, Mennonites, Amish, and some Quakers have for centuries practiced lifestyles where some forms of wealth or technologyTechnology ( Gr. tau;εχνολογια < τεχνη "craftsmanship" + λογος "word, reckoning" + the suffix ια) has more than one definition. are excluded for religious or philosophical reasons.

The modern version of Voluntary Simplicity was named by the seminal book of the same title by Duane ElginDuane Elgin is an author, speaker, educator, consultant, and media activist. For more than three decades, he has researched and written about the personal and collective dimensions of the human journey. His name is especially linked to the topic of volunt.

3 Advocacy by GreensGreens are people who support some or all of goals of a Green Party without necessarily working with or voting for that or any party. Most of them consider themselves to be part at least of a global Green movement. A potential basis of unity for Greens co

The Green Parties have been much influenced by the above groups and often advocate voluntary simplicity as a consequence of their four pillarsThe worldwide green parties are committed to the following Four Pillars # Ecology (sometimes "Ecological Wisdom") # Social Justice # Grassroots Democracy # Non-Violence In German, it is known as Die Grunen: okologisch, sozial, basisdemokratisch, gewaltfre or Ten Key Values. This includes in policy terms rejection of genetic modification and nuclear weaponmushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 lifted nuclear fallout some 60,000 feet (18 km) above the epicenter. A nuclear weapon is a weapon that derives its energy from nuclear reactions and has enormous destructive power a single ns and other potentially hazardous technologies beyond human control.

Many with similar views avoid involvement even with green politics as compromising simplicity, however, and advocate forms of green anarchism that attempt to implement these principles at smaller scale than modern nations, e.g.the ecovillage.