The Cost of Living


Thoreau pointed out that modern man pays vastly more for his dwelling (if he owns it at all) than the primitive. Indeed home ownership in poorer european countries is upwards of 90% whereas in Switzerland it is it has just dipped below 50%. Another indicator is location within a country: city folk rent and only the very wealthy afford a purchase. Italy even offers €1 houses in dying villages - a stunning reminder of how far our dash into cities has taken us!

Being a tenant however is, I have discovered, not all bad. It is more expensive in general but one has the freedom to move out inside a few months without much effort. One apparent burden may be the obligation to pay rent and thus earn constantly but houses incur costs too even if fully paid off. 

Thoreau’s point however, was that our demand for luxury has a high price and we may pay up to 40% or even 50% of our wages for the privilege of living way above our basic needs. So-called “savages”, living in a wigwam, pay almost nothing. Tellingly, though he prays them, Thoreau does not himself choose a tent or cave as his own abode. Nevertheless, his argument for minimalism - 170 years before the trend existed - is however convincing we strive and stress and tears to buy shit we don’t need.

[man] is endeavouring to solve the problem of a livelihood by a formula more complicated than the problem itself. To get his shoestrings he speculates in herd of cattle. With consummate skill he has set the trap with a hairspring to catch comfort and independence and then as he turned away, got his own leg into it.
This is the reason he is poor and for a similar reason we are all poor in respect to [primitive] comforts though surrounded by luxuries…
And when the [man] has got his house he may not be the richer but the poor for it, and it may be that the house has got him.

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