Mark Boyle (2021 [2019, 2010]) The Moneyless Man. A year of freeconomic living.

‘Freeconomic’ is a made-up word. We get it. Although few of us buy into it. Mark Boyle’s goal was quite simple. He outlines it in the Prologue. I wasn’t aware there was a ‘Buy Nothing Day’. Most of the days of my week are buy nothing days. But I’d be stretching it a bit to manage 365 days.

Mark Boyle on Buy Nothing Day, 28^th November 2008, decided he wouldn’t spend a penny for a year. Ironically, he provoked a media feeding frenzy.

‘Be the change you want to see in the world,’ Gandhi.

First up, he needed somewhere to live.  A large chunk of most employment goes to paying rent or mortgage. A guy pitched a tent for a couple of years off the canal path near me. I never met him, but I understand he was ex-army. Boyle was luckier than that. He got a caravan. A woman was giving it away.

Her caravan had nothing wrong with it. But it was over ten-years old. That meant those that own caravan parks no longer allow such caravans onsite. They are quite happy to sell the caravan holder a new caravan. The old needs to go. I’m sure there’s a metaphor there.

Boyle had a caravan, but he needed somewhere to put it that wouldn’t cost ground fees. I think it’s called feu rent in Scotland.  All over the world, those that owned the land own then people on the land. It has changed little. At the time of writing, 13 million Britons existed in poverty, which is roughly the same number of dog owners. Perhaps hot dogs should be more literal. Eaten more often.

Boyle cut a deal with a local farming co-op and agreed to two days unpaid work to pay for his non-paying lifestyle based on barter, rather than cash.

He depended heavily on his bike for transport. Sod’s law, he had a puncture on his first night or non-money day.

Money as debt. 2010. 70 million credit cards. That’s more than the population. ‘Flexible friends’? The average household debt is over £18 000.

Boyle argues that barter connects. Money disconnects as we always chase something we don’t have or, in most cases, need.   

Food is grown and foraged, often from shops that go to extreme measures to sabotage the millions of tons of food waste.  

The Pope (can’t remember his name, even though I’m Catholic) suggested that climate deniers were committing a sin. Sin is simple selfishness.

‘Drill baby, drill’ is the moron’s moron, Trump’s mantra.  As Boyle reiterates, most insurance companies will go bust sooner rather than later as ‘acts of God’ become common, or as the author rephrases it in a way that make common sense, ‘acts of humanity’.

I’m a believer in global warning. Like many others, apocalyptic scenarios seem more likely for those that come after us. For oil and gas companies, ‘pay it forward’ becomes a fuck-you to non-shareholders and your children’s children.

He quotes Kallie Lan (2009)

‘We got rich by violating one of the central tenets of economics thou shall not sell off your capital and call it income. And yet over the last 40 years we have clear-cut the forests, fished rivers and oceans to the brink of extinction and siphoned oil from earth as if it possessed an infinite supply. We sold off our planet’s natural capital and called it income. And now the Earth, like the economy, is stripped.’

No fossil fuels is a given in Boyle’s existence. He was already a vegan. But he had to generate his own electricity from solar panels. Hard to do in midwinter England. The good news is renewables, with China at the forefront and solar leading the way, has this year outstripped fossil-fuel use.

Boyle’s tribe is those that forage in dumpsters or the wild. A minority go the full way and live off-grid. He mentioned others that lived without money for much longer than he hoped to. Respect for himself and others was a big part of his everyday existence.  He vowed, for example, never to fly again. Not that he could have afforded to. When travelling back to Mum and Dad’s for Christmas, he hitchhiked. He also managed to fit in a number of music festivals.

Stripping the planet might make sense, he argues, if it made us joyful. But it makes us more miserable. He quotes an economist from the University of South California as evidence. We know the score. Man’s needs are limited. Greed unlimited (and hidden away in tax havens).

Boyle faces the problem of preaching to the converted (like me). There is no real value in things. Value comes from relationships. Try telling that to Trump or his British toady, Nigel Farage. People are a means to an end, and that end is enriching themselves. The Moneyless man is an aberration.

Money is the only thing that counts? Or it isn’t. You decide. What do you stand for?   Read on.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CVBVVGD6