Does Having Fewer Material Possessions Actually Make Life More Expensive?
Digital nomads who roam the world working on their laptops often makes an interesting claim. Yes,their wages may be much lower, but by limiting their materialistic needs (including houses, cars, excess clothing, among others common to more sedentary life), they not only can survive on less income, but also set aside enough to travel the world in the process. The basic conclusion of their tried-and-tested nomadic lifestyle is that fewer material possessions lead to a less expensive life. Over the past years of traveling the world for different jobs, the author has come to agree with such digital nomads in the basic conclusion.
But often, having certain material possessions is not just out of vanity and status symbols of success as part of a settled population. At least some material possessions that people tend to buy have real functions as sources of daily convenience, and even more, as sources of saving money in the long term. To take a simple example, the process of doing large amount of laundry is much cheaper when there are a few hangers to hang washed, wet clothes. Instead of having to shell out extra cash to use dryers (where available) or go through the inconveniences of finding dry surfaces, hangers allow clothes to be dried in the sun for free.
And using hangers for drying clothes is not just the only example. The idea of buying things in bulk and buying appliances that can be used for decades are active money-saving strategies not available for the likes of global nomads seeking to keep physical possessions extremely minimal. Nomads, instead, need to constantly pay to rent certain appliances (or go through the inconveniences of not using them as they adjust to a more "primitive" or "simple" ways of life) or buy things in smaller packages whenever they are immediately needed, paying premium prices as a result.
The conscious decision of those seeking to minimize material possessions to follow through with their way of living is more or less based on a logical fallacy that not having something is certainly cheaper than having something. Yes, it is no doubt cheaper to forego buying a product than to actually buy it, but such a comparison only looks at the point of purchase. The harsh reality is that even for the least materialistic nomads out there, being part of a certain global lifestyle (and digital nomads certainly are considering they usually come from wealthy countries with greater freedoms for international travel) means certain needs.
These needs are often hard to escape because they are perceived to concern the very social norms that make people human. The hanger example is tied, for instance, to the idea of appropriate level of personal hygiene. People simply cannot choose to stop drying their laundered clothes or forego laundry completely in their quests to minimize material possessions. Their only choices are to still do laundry, but in a more time-consuming way or pay money to speed up the process. Hence, not having the physical tools to do laundry easily just means more time or money spent to do so.
Ultimately, self-professed non-materialistic people are not materialistic not because they are really short on money or in urgent need to save money per se. Instead, theirs is a conscious decision to pursue a certain lifestyle that accords them a level of freedom not found in what they perceive as frustratingly repetitive and unexciting nature of sedentary life pursued by the averaged salaried worker anywhere in the world. The fact that these non-materialistic people have the capacity to make the conscious choice means that, essentially, their lack of money is not immediate, and their money-saving rationale is not primary.
On the contrary, there is a good chance that non-materialistic people traveling the world on the cheap is part of a cosmopolitan elite that is both highly educated (and thus capable of being open-minded enough to see the long-term benefits of traveling around the world instead of being stuck in corporate cubicles in exchange for stable salaries) and from socioeconomic backgrounds where frequent international travel is not some far-fetched ideas of pure unrealistic fantasy. In other words, they are people who are capable of making good money if they wanted to. They just chose not to.
The fact that non-materialistic people are cosmopolitan elites make their talks of ways to save money every step of the way all the more infuriating. Extreme unethical behaviors such as "beg-packing" have been undertaken as supposed personal philosophy of non-materialism, only to damage the economic well-being of people who are truly in need of every money-saving measures they can think of. In their adamant profession of non-materialistic lifestyle, they have forgotten that only people with enough socioeconomic capital can realistically choose the "nomadic" option. As a non-materialist himself, it is necessary for the author to distance himself from such irresponsible and hypocritical behaviors.
But often, having certain material possessions is not just out of vanity and status symbols of success as part of a settled population. At least some material possessions that people tend to buy have real functions as sources of daily convenience, and even more, as sources of saving money in the long term. To take a simple example, the process of doing large amount of laundry is much cheaper when there are a few hangers to hang washed, wet clothes. Instead of having to shell out extra cash to use dryers (where available) or go through the inconveniences of finding dry surfaces, hangers allow clothes to be dried in the sun for free.
And using hangers for drying clothes is not just the only example. The idea of buying things in bulk and buying appliances that can be used for decades are active money-saving strategies not available for the likes of global nomads seeking to keep physical possessions extremely minimal. Nomads, instead, need to constantly pay to rent certain appliances (or go through the inconveniences of not using them as they adjust to a more "primitive" or "simple" ways of life) or buy things in smaller packages whenever they are immediately needed, paying premium prices as a result.
The conscious decision of those seeking to minimize material possessions to follow through with their way of living is more or less based on a logical fallacy that not having something is certainly cheaper than having something. Yes, it is no doubt cheaper to forego buying a product than to actually buy it, but such a comparison only looks at the point of purchase. The harsh reality is that even for the least materialistic nomads out there, being part of a certain global lifestyle (and digital nomads certainly are considering they usually come from wealthy countries with greater freedoms for international travel) means certain needs.
These needs are often hard to escape because they are perceived to concern the very social norms that make people human. The hanger example is tied, for instance, to the idea of appropriate level of personal hygiene. People simply cannot choose to stop drying their laundered clothes or forego laundry completely in their quests to minimize material possessions. Their only choices are to still do laundry, but in a more time-consuming way or pay money to speed up the process. Hence, not having the physical tools to do laundry easily just means more time or money spent to do so.
Ultimately, self-professed non-materialistic people are not materialistic not because they are really short on money or in urgent need to save money per se. Instead, theirs is a conscious decision to pursue a certain lifestyle that accords them a level of freedom not found in what they perceive as frustratingly repetitive and unexciting nature of sedentary life pursued by the averaged salaried worker anywhere in the world. The fact that these non-materialistic people have the capacity to make the conscious choice means that, essentially, their lack of money is not immediate, and their money-saving rationale is not primary.
On the contrary, there is a good chance that non-materialistic people traveling the world on the cheap is part of a cosmopolitan elite that is both highly educated (and thus capable of being open-minded enough to see the long-term benefits of traveling around the world instead of being stuck in corporate cubicles in exchange for stable salaries) and from socioeconomic backgrounds where frequent international travel is not some far-fetched ideas of pure unrealistic fantasy. In other words, they are people who are capable of making good money if they wanted to. They just chose not to.
The fact that non-materialistic people are cosmopolitan elites make their talks of ways to save money every step of the way all the more infuriating. Extreme unethical behaviors such as "beg-packing" have been undertaken as supposed personal philosophy of non-materialism, only to damage the economic well-being of people who are truly in need of every money-saving measures they can think of. In their adamant profession of non-materialistic lifestyle, they have forgotten that only people with enough socioeconomic capital can realistically choose the "nomadic" option. As a non-materialist himself, it is necessary for the author to distance himself from such irresponsible and hypocritical behaviors.
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