The more goods and services you consume, the more labour you must exchange in the form of money. Money in your possession amounts to tokens of labour performed. This means that for everything you buy, you (or someone connected to you) must be enslaved to pay for it.
The lower your costs, the less you have to be economically enslaved. If you can limit your costs to the bare essentials (food, water, hygiene, energy, accommodation) and then minimise them, you will not have to economically enslave yourself at all if you have sufficient savings or a consistent source of income.
The desire for unnecessary material objects become chains that bind us, even more so because accruing too many possessions consumes space, creates (awkward and dangerous) clutter to tidy up and requires significant maintenance, makes it more likely that we will lose important possessions (including through theft) and exerts a psychological toll on us, both in the discomfort of untidiness and the feeling of being bound to obsolete items. Some of these possessions can also make us weaker and more dependent.
“The things you own end up owning you.”
The lower your costs, the less you have to be economically enslaved. If you can limit your costs to the bare essentials (food, water, hygiene, energy, accommodation) and then minimise them, you will not have to economically enslave yourself at all if you have sufficient savings or a consistent source of income.
The desire for unnecessary material objects become chains that bind us, even more so because accruing too many possessions consumes space, creates (awkward and dangerous) clutter to tidy up and requires significant maintenance, makes it more likely that we will lose important possessions (including through theft) and exerts a psychological toll on us, both in the discomfort of untidiness and the feeling of being bound to obsolete items. Some of these possessions can also make us weaker and more dependent.
“The things you own end up owning you.”
