A Handmade Life by Coperthwaite

#species/literature #status/seedling

Citation

Coperthwaite, William, et al. A Handmade Life: In Search of Simplicity. Illustrated edition, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007.

Quotes

Collations

Literature notes

I read this book years ago when I was delving into simple living and was volunteering at HEAL. I wanted to have my own estate and be a writer farmer like Ben Hewitt. I don't know if I still want this life. But having my own estate still appeals to me.

Work / Bread Labor

Work is the productive and creative activity that makes human life possible. When the necessary work of the world is shared by all of its people, there need be no painful toil.

Bread Labor - The basic work that is necessary for subsistence.

It is drudgery that needs eliminating, not work.

Work is an interesting and tremendously exciting learning tool when undertaken voluntarily and in ways that do not cripple the spirit.

During college I wrestled with the problem of what constituted valid life work. I wanted no part in the common prostitution whereby muscle, brains, or talent are sold for the wherewithal to pursue personal goals in spare time.

People Bill admired had:

Three people Bill admired

  1. Morris Mitchell
  2. Walter Clark
  3. Scott Nearing

All three:

Bill’s Ideal Work

The ideal work will develop and utilize—rather than fragment—the whole person. The work I was seeking needed to:

Alas, I was not overwhelmed with offers for employment. And yet approaching a career by way of these principles enabled me to examine various occupations, which made the search more interesting.

What Bill learned from his job search

Where can one look to see work and play united? Where people disdain retirement? Where vacation, recreation, and hobby are ugly words made necessary by a social disease—forced work.

Bread labor is a primary activity of life, equal to or above these other pursuits in importance.

What if work, including the meeting of mundane needs, were to be recognized as an essential tool in understanding ourselves and our world? What if we were to see that creativity, to be valuable and not merely dilettante, must be rooted in work?

Without labor, our way of life would not exist.

FAIR SHARES

The Morality of Bread Labor

When work is spread out evenly among the whole populace no one need suffer from overwork, and all have the benefits of feeling that they are doing their share to make society function.

Gandhi’s Bread Labor

If we want to have a classless society where all are equal, then the freest, the wealthiest, the strongest, the wisest, and the most respected should voluntarily take up the most despised work. This would help to remove class prejudice and raise work to being celebrated instead of despised.

We must find a way to develop a society of people who refuse to live at the expense of others, be they nearby or on the far side of the globe.

VOLUNTARY SLAVERY

If this is not work that you feel good about doing—work that you do only for the pay and the benefits—it remains prostitution.

The first step is to recognize the extent to which we prostitute ourselves.

We can have a shorter workday anytime we choose when we decide to live with less “goods.”

One of many reasons for living simply is that instead of earning money to buy superfluities we work to provide for primary needs, which means fewer hours total need to be spent in hired employment.

If all able-bodied people in our society would contribute their share of effort, the hours required of everyone would be reduced dramatically, and the necessity of selling oneself would be greatly reduced. When we consider as well the desire of many to do more of their own home-centered labor—building a house, growing food, doing mechanical maintenance and repairs, sewing—this further reduces the number of hours people are obligated to contribute to a collective labor pool.

Scott Nearing reasoned that if every able-bodied adult would contribute four hours a day of bread labor, the world’s work could get done. Four hours seemed to him a generous amount of time. Gandhi thought that two hours a day would be enough to supply all basic needs. Modern tools have increased productivity considerably since these estimates were made.

A NEW WORLD OF WORK

Imagine if instead of being so preoccupied with our “hourly wage” we were all to set aside a piece of time each day to contribute to the world’s labor pool. Imagine a world in which nobody is for hire—where nobody works for pay, nearly all work being done for the enjoyment, for the feeling of being useful, or for the desire to learn. Everyone would be required to do his or her own work, or else convince others to trade labor.

If no one would work for another, what would be

the effect—morally, economically, and socially?

Once we move in the direction of neither bossing

nor being bossed, we either take a big loss in income

or we find in ourselves a growing commitment

to simplicity, self-reliance, knowledge, and skill;

to the extent that something is simple and easy

to make, it becomes easier to have

and therefore more available.

NO MORE BOSSES

One should work for the love of it, the joy of it, the excitement of it—to be of service—to be of use—to learn. Why must there be such a close relationship between work and income? Imagine if people would work for satisfaction and not merely for pay. And if no one would work for another for hire, or no one would do certain tasks, many people would have to start taking care of themselves.

If everyone refused to work for those who are wealthy, their money would become useless and they too would have to work for themselves. By this means a class society based entirely on economics would disappear. We usually think of redistribution of wealth as needing to come about by taxation or by militant uprising. Yet imagine social change coming about thanks to an educated, responsible, self-reliant population that refuses to work for the rich—a democratic and nonviolent social revolution.

The ultimate power lies with us: we, the people. . . . Only our lack of awareness limits us.. If we refuse to buy the pollutants and the junk, they would not make them.

Rest is necessary, and a change of pace and activity

is stimulating, relaxing, and productive. Yet I object

to the idea that it is a natural human need to have

hobbies, take vacations, and retire. If we are doing work that we believe in, that we enjoy, that engages us

fully, we do not need diversions and relief. We can get

the rest we need or a change of pace by shifting

to another facet of our work or by visiting friends

who share our interests and teach us about their own

pursuits. Those who feel “the need to get away”

with vacations and retirement have not had the joy

of finding the right job. Productive leisure is

more satisfying than non-productive leisure.

PRODUCTIVE VERSUS POINTLESS WORK

I see injustice in my playing while many suffer from war, malnutrition, overwork, poor health, and inadequate shelter and clothing. (There is a long list, and you probably have your own.) I am not asking that we live a joyless life of misery and guilt; I ask only that we become aware of this suffering and design our lives so that we help rather than hinder the world’s progress toward equality and justice. That does not mean an austere life with no fun. Pleasure can be found in many ways. With some practice, it can even be found in relieving suffering.

I’m very troubled by the amount of vicarious living we do, the time we spend watching someone else play ball or have adventures.

Take a brilliant person working on weapons design

at a high salary. This is negative work, no matter how

high the quality. You, on the other hand, in making

a garden have contributed more toward building

a better world, even though that contribution may be unrecognized.

I look ahead to a time when young people will demand useful and necessary work to do. This will not be a result of laws and regulations saying who can and who cannot work, but rather will be a time of recognition by everyone that productive, creative work is a birthright.

Prompts