On Sun, 22 Jun 2003 21:03:52 -0700 (PDT) I wrote to PF: "Poverty (2 definitions) and Wealth: NZ and USA" {at: http://www.topica.com/lists/positive-futures@igc.topica.com/read/message.html?mid=806696623&sort=d&start=17877 }: ~ I've just sent this to another list*, but Positive Futures people could be interested too. {*: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LessIsMore/message/10449 & follow-up: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LessIsMore/message/10451 } ~ The rest is below these quotes/questions. D.M. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - At 07:28 AM 2003-06-23 +1200, I wrote to the other list, with title: "Why and how D.M. lives on little" :- >~ When I was growing up (in the 1940s and 50s in Canada and New Zealand) we had _very_ little money, "growing up poor" I call it, and I highly-valued a shilling. I would save the half-crowns I got for mowing lawns until I had enough to buy a component for the valve/tube-radios I built. > ... I learned to shoot accurately by using my air-gun (.177 bee-bees) to kill cicadas (from 30 ft); they'd fall and our chooks would show great delight in running to snap them up. > >~ My favourite activity was reading; ... I taught myself all I needed about my hobby, radio, by reading. And became self-sufficient, expecting to be able to rely on myself and the natural world, to satisfy my needs, with minimal involvement from other people ... >[in 1970] my wife and I had returned from two years in West Africa (Ghana) with CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas), wanting to create our mutual life by using little, as we'd seen the locals in Ghana doing. > ... Camping holidays. >~ In 1988 I took a year off teaching to visit (with my family) India and Thailand ... > [I was intent on] finding what is the absolute minimum cost of living while buying all the necessities. ... NZ$1,800 ... to get it as low as that you have to (1) share accommodation costs with 3-5 others, and (2) buy no clothes, use no car (and few bus trips) and eat a healthy diet of the cheapest foods seasonally available - my choice is based on cabbage, carrots, bread and peanuts, with fruit the others would throw out. > ... >~ I point out the age factor, because Diane's and my daughter's generation (with actual or potential bringing-up-kids costs), couldn't subsist on the roughly-US$1000 per person that I can. ... >[$5,500 p.p in USA] is on the basis that you've nearly finished paying-off your house mortgage, not renting. But it does mean only rare or emergency use of a car, if any. Which may require doing what Diane and Ann have done, living in a small (and maybe old) house close to almost all your destin- ations. >~ I am certain [my wife and I] can live quite easily on the NZ Government pension ("NZ Superannuation") of NZ$188.69/wk, $9,603/yr per person. ... It's taken us years to get to where we're living so lightly on the earth that our resource use is virtually unnoticeable. > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - At 09:46 AM 2003-06-23 +1200, Christiaan B. wrote to a Greens-NZ list GV: [D's being able to shoot accurately] might come in handy when the [US] imperial forces finally make it to our part of the world, David. Back to topic though, how do your experiences mould your view of poverty and how it is defined? Can you just post some general thoughts on poverty, say, in regard to NZ and in regard to the U.S. (the richest nation on earth), in relationship to your experiences living on little? Christiaan - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - At 11:07 AM 2003-06-23 +1200, Steve W. wrote to GV: I'll second Christiaan's query, David. I used to live on very little......but now I fear I live on quite a bit.... My spouse and I were discussing the problem of being owned by one's possessions. ... I think I could live in a one-room flat with a bed, a chair, a small table, a lamp, a bookshelf, a laptop and a radio.....plus whatever I'm wearing and a change of clothes in a cardboard box under the table. I used to live like that.....for several years......then I got married. :-) -- Steve - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ~ Note re below. What I write is off the top of my head; I don't know really. The question: - "how do your experiences mould your view of poverty and how it is defined? Can you just post some general thoughts on poverty, say, in regard to NZ and in regard to the U.S. (the richest nation on earth), in relationship to your experiences living on little?" - - "poverty and how it is defined" - ~ There are two parts to my answer to this question: (1) Your own attitude to "being poor" (see most of what I quoted from mine above) (2) Your opinion of yourself as influenced by your neighbours/acquaintances view of what you're doing. ~ As Steve and I have pointed out, men (at least) often don't want/need much in the way of living space or even possessions. _If_ they're satisfied-with (or respect) themselves. I do know a few women whose opinion of themself is more important than their friends/relatives opinion; I can't say how general that is though. ~ At a rough guess, the more intellectually-able a person is, the less they depend for self-respect on others' opinions. - How poverty is defined? - The operational definition depends on the cost of staying healthy and able to contribute to your local community (gaining mana/prestige/respect thereby), which will depend on the money cost of food in that area (i.e. it's seasonal) plus the money cost of sufficiently-good accommodation that you can stay mentally-and-physically-healthy. The Market doesn't handle this well; i.e. the usual measure (market rent) nearly ignores methods people use when actually poor: state housing (in its original form in NZ), multi-family and row houses (returning to NZ), and communal-accommodation/boarding-houses, or the recent trend of "returning to your own hapu" - I don't know what that actually implies, but I'm sure it's cheaper than renting in town. ~ The political/social definition I know less about, but since the function of law and other social arrangements is to keep the general populace from being sufficiently dissatisfied to start agitating to overthrow their rulers I would guess this definition would depend on whether the ordinary person (and family) sees most other people (and families) as in similar straits to themselves. In the 1940s/50s, most people in Canada and New Zealand knew they weren't as rich as Americans, but were reasonably satisfied since their neighbours were living at a similar level (& under the same restrictions) as themselves. So this version of the definition of poverty depends on the visibility (including via TV) of large numbers of the rich, in your own country. Creating dissatisfaction with one's current life is an explicit goal of the current consumerist culture/economy; the owners of factories and other big businesses want _lots_ of people to buy their product/service so these owners (including the shareholders) can get rich on the profits so created. This political/social definition of poverty must be rather "fuzzy", therefore, being lower in countries where most people are generally satis- fied with their life and higher where the consumerist culture has had the biggest effect on how people see themselves. - "some general thoughts on poverty, sayy, in regard to NZ and in regard to the U.S. (the richest nation on earth)" - ~ Above I've implied that NZ is doing not-too-badly in being only a little affected by the "I'm better than you!" (by owning more) consumerist culture that has brainwashed most Americans. And that the operational definition allows a significantly lower figure in NZ because of its climate and (still) generally more communal/community-oriented way of life. ~ That's not to say there aren't major faults (e.g. more diabetes, emphysema, joblessness etc. in the poorer parts), but the current Labour government in NZ is at least moving in the right direction on such social problems, even if it has nearly lost its original people-focus, and I'm sure it won't "solve" them. ~ In contrast, the USA is retracing many of the steps in the Fall of the Roman Republic (mid first-century BC). There the rulers (*optimates* - the old patricians) ran the country almost totally for their own benefit and arranged things so they could (from middle-age onwards) gain access via political (and sometimes military) means to the power and wealth they craved. People don't change; any time there's visible riches, men will "move heaven and earth" to grab them for themselves. ~ I don't see that the problem is poverty; it's wealth, too much wealth. David. (David MacClement) - Civis Mundi d1v9d @ bigfoot.com ZL1ASX http://www.geocities.com/davd.geo/index.html