Simple Socialist

For years, I’ve wanted to explore how little money would be required for me to live decently, comfortably. How many dollars would it take, I ask myself, to have not just a tolerable, but a comfortable life without all the unnecessary luxuries that I treat as necessities? When one constitutes one-half of a couple, one does not impose such wishes on the other half. I’m relatively certain the other half of my couple has no interest in exploring the fringes of asceticism, though, so it’s not something I’m going to push. That notwithstanding, I still wonder how little cash would be required for me to live comfortably?

It’s not just curiosity. It’s a genuine interest in knowing whether our modern society in the USA and the world at large has deceived us into thinking we must have money to acquire comfort. I tend to think we’ve done more than a little self-training that’s led us to conclude we cannot get by without loads of money and all it can buy. And we’ve trained ourselves to believe we must depend on strangers to supply us with what we need in return for cash. What if, I ask myself, groups of people formed collectives which shared responsibilities for growing and preparing food, building and maintaining housing, etc.? Communes, I think they’re called. I know, it’s been tried. Some say communal living constitutes a failed experiment. But looking at the history of many peoples, I would argue against that’s not true. We’ve simply deceived ourselves into thinking individual self-sufficiency is preferable to collectivism. In my heart of hearts, I think I’m a socialist.