Don't Buy These Myths

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MYTH #2 VOLUNTARY SIMPLICITY WORKS

The current back-to-basics movement, launched in 1981 with the publication of Duane Elgin's Voluntary Simplicity, is probably more popular than its predecessors have been. It has spawned 'simplicity circles' in Seattle and other enlightened cities, a national conference held in Washington, D.C., in 1997, and enough books to fill whole new sections in bookstores. To the extent that it provides respite to reformed shoppers, transformation to values-shifting seekers, and overall reduced consumption, it does work. For a select few.

As Harvard economist Juliet Schor explains in The Overspent American (Basic Books, 1998), the voluntary simplicity movement engages a small group that does not represent the population at large. Simple-livers, as they're called, tend to be white, single, without small children, older?and not poor. They can survive on less, writes Schor, 'because they are rich in cultural capital and in human capital. Some started with hefty bank accounts or homes of their own. Because they tend to be at least middle-class and well-educated, they can manage the world around them. They have social and personal confidence, know how to work the system, and have connections to powerful people and institutions. Unlike the traditional poor, they have options?including the option of jumping back into mainstream culture.'

Meanwhile, 'simplicity' is involuntarily imposed on millions of Americans who still associate consumption with social identity, and personal worth with car model and house size. Schor's surveys found that 12 percent of the population involuntarily lost income in the '90s; many will bear permanent scars, she says. Even for the 19 percent who voluntarily downshifted within the past five years, results were uneven: Of those who said they were happy about the change, 35 percent missed the extra income, and 19 percent found losing it a real hardship. Fifteen percent of the voluntary downshifters were downright unhappy. And almost half considered their lifestyle change temporary.

For those willing, as Schor puts it, to 'struggle against the dominant cultural assumptions about consumption, continually chipping away at the symbolic meanings of consumer objects,' voluntary simplicity offers ample rewards. But for society at large, she cautions, 'just dropping down doesn't work.'

MYTH #3 KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES IS A CHOICE

If you could choose between making $100,000 a year or $110,000, you'd choose the higher amount, right? Economists, who base their behavior models on the assumption that consumers are logical, rational beings unswayed by emotion, would say of course. But evolutionary psychologists know better. The choice, they would argue, would be based not on absolute values, but on relative ones.

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