Ebook The Simpler Way Collected Writings of Ted Trainer 1St Edition Samuel Alexander Online PDF All Chapter

The Simpler Way Collected Writings of
Ted Trainer 1st Edition Samuel

Alexander
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-simpler-way-collected-writings-of-ted-trainer-1st-e
dition-samuel-alexander/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...
K Punk The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark

Fisher The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark
Fisher 2004 2016 Mark Fisher
https://ebookmeta.com/product/k-punk-the-collected-and-
unpublished-writings-of-mark-fisher-the-collected-and-
unpublished-writings-of-mark-fisher-2004-2016-mark-fisher/
Grey 1st Edition Samuel Alexander
https://ebookmeta.com/product/grey-1st-edition-samuel-alexander/
A Filthy Way to Die Collected Memories of the Vietnam

War 1st Edition Ed Linz
https://ebookmeta.com/product/a-filthy-way-to-die-collected-
memories-of-the-vietnam-war-1st-edition-ed-linz/
Disputing the Deluge Collected 21st Century Writings on

Utopia Narration and Survival 1st Edition Darko Suvin
https://ebookmeta.com/product/disputing-the-deluge-
collected-21st-century-writings-on-utopia-narration-and-
survival-1st-edition-darko-suvin/
Hermann Cohen Writings on Neo Kantianism and Jewish
Philosophy Samuel Moyn
https://ebookmeta.com/product/hermann-cohen-writings-on-neo-
kantianism-and-jewish-philosophy-samuel-moyn/
A Maturing Market The Iberian Book World in the First

Half of the Seventeenth Century 1st Edition Alexander
Samuel Wilkinson
https://ebookmeta.com/product/a-maturing-market-the-iberian-book-
world-in-the-first-half-of-the-seventeenth-century-1st-edition-
alexander-samuel-wilkinson/
Carbon Civilisation and the Energy Descent Future Life

Beyond this Brief Anomaly 1st Edition Samuel Alexander
Joshua Floyd
https://ebookmeta.com/product/carbon-civilisation-and-the-energy-
descent-future-life-beyond-this-brief-anomaly-1st-edition-samuel-
alexander-joshua-floyd/
The Art of Us Kl Hughes Ted Hughes
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-art-of-us-kl-hughes-ted-hughes/
The internet of things Samuel Greengard
https://ebookmeta.com/product/the-internet-of-things-samuel-
greengard/
The Simpler Way:
Collected writings of Ted Trainer
Edited by Samuel Alexander and Jonathan Rutherford

The Simpler Way: Collected writings of Ted Trainer
Published by the Simplicity Institute, Melbourne, 2020
www.simplicityinstitute.org
Copyright © 2020 Ted Trainer

Cover design by Andrew Doodson © 2020
Proofread by Antoinette Wilson
Layout and typesetting by Sharon France (Looking Glass Press)
Typeset in Hammersmith One and Stone Sans
All rights reserved
ISBN (paperback). 978-0-9942828-7-3
ISBN (ebook). 978-0-9942828-8-0
No part of this work may be reproduced, recorded, or transmitted in any form,
whether in print or electronically, without the express written permission of the
copyright owner.
Contents
Editors’ introduction iii
PART ONE: Overview 1

The Simpler Way: An overview 3
PART TWO: The global predicament 13

Why this economy must be scrapped 15
The ‘limits to growth’ analysis 42
The marvellous market:
The main cause of our fatal problems 78
If you want affluence, prepare for war 84
Social breakdown and quality of life 103
Third World development:
The Simpler Way critique of conventional theory and practice 128
Social responsibility:
The most important, and neglected, problem of all? 156
PART THREE: Mistaken solutions 185

But can’t technical advance solve the problems? 187
Can renewable energy power the global growth economy?
An outline of the negative case 214
PART FOUR: The Simpler Way vision 221
The alternative society: The Simpler Way 223
Your delightful day:
The benefits of life in the Simpler Way 261
‘Education’ under consumer-capitalism
and the Simpler Way alternative 276
Feminism: The Simpler Way perspective 287
The Catalan Integral Cooperative:
The Simpler Way revolution is well underway 301
PART FIVE: The Simpler Way transition strategy 315

Simpler Way transition theory 317
Friendly critical thoughts on other transition strategies 342
What should we do? Some thoughts on practical action 365
PART SIX: Challenging questions 385

A conversation with Ted Trainer 387
ii
Editors’ introduction
Samuel Alexander and Jonathan Rutherford
In the decade we’ve known him, and as editors of this volume, we

have enjoyed developing a close intellectual and personal relation-
ship with Ted Trainer. It is safe to say that our joint email exchanges,
discussing every aspect of Ted’s ‘Simpler Way’ perspective, would con-
stitute another entire book. While at times we have challenged and
disagreed with him, we have always appreciated Ted’s openness to crit-
ical feedback and his evident intellectual integrity. Beyond our mutual
friendship, we also believe his writing deserves far wider dissemination
and debate – especially among those concerned about sustainability
and social justice issues. This is our motivation for working with Ted to
bring together this anthology of some of his best essays and articles –
all of which, in one way or another, argue for what he calls ‘the Simpler
Way’. Most of these essays have been recently edited by Ted to bring
them up to date with his current thinking and the latest empirical data.
The Simpler Way is an ‘eco-anarchist’ vision of a world where self-gov-

erning communities live materially simple but sufficient lives, in
harmony with ecological limits. Central themes discussed in the fol-
lowing pages include a radical critique of consumer capitalism; the
need for fundamental system change; and a transition theory based
on building a new society from the grassroots up. Trainer also pres-
ents detailed descriptions of the Simpler Way society; explains why
frugal but sufficient material living standards are necessary to live
within planetary limits; and shows why technology alone is unable
to resolve environmental problems. He also shares strategic advice on
how to contribute positively to societal change, while also critically en-
gaging some green and left strategies. Far from involving deprivation
and hardship, Trainer argues that a Simpler Way society would enable
liberation to a much higher quality of life for all.
iii
Ted has been tirelessly putting the case for the Simpler Way since at
least the publication of his 1985 book Abandon Affluence. Before being
published, the manuscript was rejected by 60 publishers, but eventu-
ally gained some international recognition as an important statement
of the radical deep green perspective, which was emerging particular-
ly following the publication of the 1972 ‘Limits to Growth’ report and
the subsequent increase in awareness of environmental issues. Since
then, Ted has gone on to publish 12 books and a great many academic
journal and popular articles, while teaching courses on the Simpler
Way and related themes at the University of New South Wales (UNSW),
Australia. Over his career he has also been involved in a number of oth-
er more specialised academic fields. For example, he has made a major
contribution advancing the public debate around the potential limits
and costs of renewable energy, having published numerous influential
technical papers in leading energy journals. Demonstrating his wide
breadth as a thinker, Ted did his PhD in the field of moral philosophy
and has written a book on meta-ethics.
For both of us, Ted’s message is greatly enhanced by his deep personal
commitment to practising what he preaches. His bush homestead in
Sydney’s east is called ‘Pigface Point’, named after the plant that was,
for a long time, the only thing they could get to grow in the site’s poor
soils. Ted lives there along with his wife Sandra, his son Jamie and a few
on-site caretakers, and for decades they have been quietly living out the
Simpler Way philosophy. Throughout his career (he is now retired) Ted
worked four days a week at the UNSW and the rest of the time his family
has practised a rough and ready homesteader lifestyle, applying prin-
ciples of self-sufficiency, frugality and ecological restoration. Since the
1940s the family has planted hundreds of trees around a once barren
house site, creating a beautiful bush block located within 95 ha of envi-
ronmentally protected forests and wetlands. In the 1980s Ted was part
of a small community group that helped to protect this area from urban
re-zoning proposals. Almost unique among modern academics, Ted
rarely travels – he has never gone further west by land than to Bathurst
(i.e., 200 km), and has flown on aircraft only five times, and never for
leisure. This tends to baffle modern ears, given that travel is now widely
viewed in terms of the positive opportunity it provides for personal and
cultural discovery. For Ted, in a world characterised by resource scarcity
and global warming, travel by plane or car is morally problematic. Given
iv
that there is so much interesting and important work to be done in his

locality, however, Ted does not feel that giving up long-distance travel
is a hardship or sacrifice. Ted demonstrates that one can live a full and
diverse life within one’s bioregion.
Importantly, Ted has not been developing Pigface Point merely for
personal use. Rather, he has worked hard to develop the site as an educa-
tional resource designed to promote the Simpler Way philosophy. Over
the last few decades he has taken thousands of groups on free educa-
tional tours of the site, attempting to educate the public about global
problems and the need for a Simpler Way. This is another impressive illus-
tration of Ted’s willingness to live in accordance with his own creed – as
you will see, one of Ted’s core points is that it is not enough for us to live
in alternative low-consumption ways as individuals. Instead, our practical
efforts to live simply and cooperatively must become the tools we use to
educate people around us about the need to embark on a radical tran-
sition away from consumer–capitalist society and towards some kind of
simpler way. For Ted, education lies at the heart of transitional strategy.
And yet, despite these noble efforts, and perhaps unsurprisingly, Ted’s
message has struggled to find a mainstream audience. After all, he pres-
ents a bold and, in many ways, confronting case to affluent cultures
immersed in the comforts and conveniences provided by consumer
capitalism. In no uncertain terms, he condemns the ecological insani-
ty and injustice generated by consumer capitalism – a social system in
which most of us (at least in the Global North) are the material, if not
spiritual, beneficiaries. Ted insists that the overlapping global problems
we face as a species cannot be solved within capitalism because they
are being generated by the fundamental systems, structures and he-
gemonic values of this society. Instead, he challenges us to engage in a
long-term process of education and activism aimed at slowly building a
radically different system within the shell of the old. But while Ted’s mes-
sage is no doubt a difficult pill for many people to swallow, we believe
he presents strong logical and empirical grounds for its basic validity.
We invite you to carefully consider these claims as well as their implica-
tions – after all, as most people now recognise, the situation is urgent.
Importantly, Ted’s message is not just critical or negative. Much of his

writing is concerned with persuading us that the Simpler Way offers a
viable and attractive alternative which we can work on today, starting
v
now in the cities, towns and neighbourhoods where we live. In this

Ted draws partly on his own experience as a homesteader, which gives
him the confidence to know that it would be easy for us to design and
run small settlements that are highly self-sufficient, sustainable and
delightful. Aside from his own experience, Ted draws on the practices,
ideas and wisdom of a diverse range of individuals, groups and social
movements around the world who, in a variety of ways, are seeking to
build alternatives to consumer capitalism.
But readers beware! Against the grain of a post-modern and cynical

age, Ted is prepared to make unfashionably universalistic claims. He in-
sists that the Simpler Way – if not in all the specific details he describes,
then at least its basic framework – is not merely one potential pathway
among many. Rather, he argues, something like the vision he describes
is the only broadly viable alternative if humanity is to avoid catastrophic
breakdown and descend into a new dark age. For Ted, another world is
indeed possible; but it is also an urgent necessity. He challenges all of us
who are concerned about eco-justice to work hard to realise it.
In this monumental task, he offers strong strategic proposals for ac-

tivists to consider. A great merit of his work is his willingness to offer
recommendations and guidelines for action, in order to give us the
best hope of success. As you will see, his ideas on how we might suc-
cessfully transition to the Simpler Way explicitly challenge many of the
ideas which prevail within both the political Left and mainstream en-
vironmental circles today. But again, it is precisely because Ted makes
such bold and challenging arguments that we feel this volume is crit-
ically important. We encourage you to think hard about his strategic
proposals and their implications for your own activism, especially if
you agree with his basic diagnosis of our global predicament.
The material for this book derives from a range of sources, including:
peer reviewed journals, informal website articles, extracts from Ted’s
published books and the ‘Simpler Way’ website that Ted maintains (see
http://thesimplerway.info). It should be noted most of the material has
been revised and updated by Ted specifically for this publication. This
means the present anthology is best interpreted not as a collection of
Ted’s old and new writing, but rather as an up-to-date statement of
his most important ideas and arguments, especially as they relate to
vi
the Simpler Way. While claims and arguments are supported with ev-
idence, the primary purpose of this volume is not to weigh the reader
down with references and citations but to introduce the reader to a
radically new way of seeing the world and our place in it. Further evi-
dential support and more details on the vision can be accessed at the
link provided above.
We also note that there is some deliberate repetition of issues in plac-

es throughout this book. We defend such repetition on two grounds:
first, so that the essays can stand on their own, meaning that readers
can follow the essential lines of argument whichever order they read
the essays (although front to back is recommended); secondly, the
repetition of unsettling and controversial perspectives can help disrupt
conventional thoughts and assumptions, which is required in order to
understand why radical conclusions are often drawn about the global
predicament and the nature of any coherent response.
The arrangement of this anthology has been organised as follows. Part

One provides a short overview of the Simpler Way perspective. The
remaining essays in the book then flesh out this perspective in greater
detail. Part Two is made up of seven essays which outline the nature of
the global predicament and the major global problems being gener-
ated by consumer capitalism. Part Three consists of two critical essays
which call into question dominant ‘techno-fix’ approaches to resolving
global problems. Part Four contains five essays outlining the alterna-
tive Simpler Way societal vision which Ted proposes. Part Five contains
a selection of Ted’s writing on the question of transitional strategies
and his critical analysis of existing theories and practices of change. Fi-
nally, in Part Six, we have included an interview with Ted, in which we,
as editors, ask him some challenging questions about his perspective
that may also occur to you as you read this book.
We hope, like us, you are challenged, provoked and inspired by Ted’s
writings.
Samuel Alexander and Jonathan Rutherford

Editors
December 2019, Melbourne, Australia
vii
PART ONE
Overview
The Simpler Way: An overview
We cannot solve the alarming global problems confronting humanity

if we continue to be committed to affluent, consumer lifestyles or to
economies driven by market forces and economic growth. The case
for this conclusion has been overwhelmingly convincing for many
decades, but it has been almost impossible to get people or govern-
ments to attend to it.
There is a workable and attractive alternative society, the Simpler Way,

but it requires a huge and radical shift from consumer society. There
are two major faults built into the foundations of our existing civilisa-
tion. The first concerns unsustainability; the second concerns injustice.
This opening essay provides a short overview of these two concerns,
raising issues that will be developed throughout the book.
1. Unsustainability
The way of life we have in rich countries is grossly unsustainable. There
is no possibility of all people on Earth ever rising to rich world per
capita levels of consumption of energy, minerals, timber, water, food,
phosphorous etc. These rates of consumption are generating numer-
ous alarming global problems, now threatening our survival and the
survival of other species. Most people have no idea of the magnitude
of the overshoot – of how far we are beyond sustainable levels of re-
source use and environmental impact. If all the estimated 9.8 billion
people living on earth in 2050 were to consume resources at the pres-
ent per capita rate in rich countries, world annual resource production
rates would have to be about eight times as great as they are now.
For instance, the ‘Ecological Footprint’ analysis indicates that the

amount of productive land required to provide one person in Australia
with food, water, energy and settlement area is about 6.6 ha (Global
Footprint Network, 2019). If 9.8 billion people were to live as Australians
3
do, approximately 65 billion ha of productive land would be required.

However, the total amount of productive land available is only 12 bil-
lion ha. If we assume one third of this should be set aside for nature
(see, e.g., Baillie Yang, 2018) the amount available for humans might be
about 8 billion ha. In other words, our rich world per capita footprint is
about eight times as big as it would ever be possible for all of the world’s
people to sustainably share.
Figures for some other items indicate much worse ratios. For instance,
the top 10 nations consuming iron ore and bauxite (from which we ob-
tain aluminium and steel) have per capita use rates that are respectively
around 65 and 90 times the rates for all the other nations (Wiedmann
et al., 2015). Mineral ore grades are falling. All people could not rise to
present rich world levels of mineral use. The same case can be made
with respect to just about all other resources and ecosystem services,
such as agricultural land, forests, fisheries, water and biomass.
These simple figures clearly demonstrate the impossibility of all people

ever having the material ‘living standards’ we have taken for granted in
rich countries like Australia. We are not just a little beyond sustainable
levels of resource demand and ecological impact – we are far beyond
sustainable levels. Rich world practices, systems and ‘living standards’
are grossly unsustainable, and can never be extended to all the world’s
people. Again, few people seem to grasp the magnitude of the over-
shoot. We must face up to dramatic reductions in our present per
capita levels of production and consumption.
1.1. Now add the absurd commitment to economic growth
The main worry is not the present level of resource use and ecological
impact discussed above, it is the level we will rise to given the obsession
with constantly increasing the amount of production and consumption.
The supreme goal in all countries is to raise incomes, ‘living standards’
and GDP as much as possible, constantly and without any idea of a lim-
it. That is, the most important goal is economic growth.
Consider the implications. If we assume a) a 3% p.a. economic growth,

b) a population of 9.8 billion, c) all the world’s people rising to the living
standards we in the rich world would have in 2050 given 3% p.a. growth
4
– in that scenario, the total volume of world economic output would be

20 times as great as it is now and doubling every 23 years thereafter.
So even though the present levels of production and consumption are

grossly unsustainable, the determination to have continual increase in
income and economic output will multiply these towards absurd and
impossible levels in coming decades.
Why analyse in terms of 9.8 billion rising to rich world levels? Because
a) it is not morally acceptable to assume that they remain much poorer
than we are, and b) that’s what everyone aspires to, so we had better
think about whether it is viable.
1.2 But what about technical advance?
When confronted by global sustainability problems most people just

assume that technical advance and ‘green growth’ will solve them,
enabling us to go on living with ever-increasing levels of affluence.
They do not realise that the magnitude of the problems rules this out.
The core ‘tech-fix’ faith is that resource demand and environmental

impacts can be ‘decoupled’ from economic growth, i.e., that produc-
tion and consumption can go on increasing while resource demand
is sufficiently reduced. This is extremely implausible (see Part Three
of this anthology for more detail). How likely is it that the world’s
amount of production could be multiplied by 20 while resource use
and environmental impacts are reduced by, say, 50% – i.e., a factor 40
reduction? None of the thirty or more reports over the last 20 years
show any global reduction at all; they all show that as GDP rises so do
the impacts. The recent review essay by Hickel and Kallis (2019) pro-
vides a powerful critique of ‘green growth’ (see also Ward et al., 2016).
1.3 Global problems should be seen in terms of ‘limits to

growth’
The ‘limits to growth’ perspective (Meadows et al., 1972) is essential

if we are to understand the most serious global problems facing us:
• The environmental problem is basically due to the fact that far too much
producing and consuming is going on, taking too many resources
5
from nature and dumping too many wastes back into nature. We
are eliminating species mainly because we are taking or ruining so
much habitat. The environmental problems cannot be solved in an
economy that is geared to providing ever-rising production, con-
sumption, ‘living standards’ and GDP (see the next essay, ‘Why this
economy must be scrapped’, for more detail).
• Third World poverty and underdevelopment are inevitable if a few
living in rich countries insist on taking far more of the world’s re-
sources than all could have. The Third World can never develop to
rich world levels of consumption, because there are far too few re-
sources for that. (For more detail on this issue, see the essay ‘Third
World development’ in Part Two.)
• Conflict and war are inevitable if all aspire to rich world rates of
consumption, and if rich countries insist on limitless growth on a
planet with limited resources. Rich countries now have to support
repressive regimes willing to establish policies that enable our cor-
porations to ship out cheap resources, use Third World land for
export crops, exploit cheap labour etc. This means we must be
ready to get rid of regimes and to invade and run countries that
threaten to follow policies contrary to our First World interests.
Our rich world living standards could not be as high as they are if
a great deal of repression and violence was not taking place, and
rich countries contribute significantly to this. If we are determined
to remain affluent, we should remain heavily armed! (This issue is
developed in the essay in part Two called ‘If you want affluence,
prepare for war’.)
• Social cohesion is deteriorating and quality of life is being damaged.
This is so even in the richest nations, because the supreme goals
are raising business turnover, incomes and the GDP, not meet-
ing needs, building community and improving the quality of life.
(Some details of this decline in quality of life and the benefits of an
alternative way to live are discussed in Part Four.)
2. Injustice
We in rich countries could not have anywhere near our present ‘liv-
ing standards’ if we were not taking far more than our fair share of
6
world resources. Our per capita consumption of items such as petro-

leum is around 15 times that of the poorest half of the world’s people.
The richest one-fifth of the world’s people are consuming around
three-quarters of the resources produced. Many people get so little
that around 800 million are hungry and more than that number have
dangerously dirty water to drink. Billions live on U.S$5 per day or less
(see generally, Hickel, 2017).
This grotesque injustice is primarily due to the kind of economy we

have, that is, one which operates on market principles. In a market,
‘need’ is totally irrelevant and is ignored – things go mostly to those
who are richer, because they can offer to pay more for them. Thus, we
in rich countries get almost all the scarce oil and timber traded, while
millions of people in desperate need get none. This explains why one
third of the world’s grain is fed to animals in rich countries while hun-
dreds of millions have insufficient food. (For a more detailed critique of
the market, see the essay in Part Two called ‘The marvellous market’.)
Even more importantly, the market system is the cause of Third World
development being so inappropriate to the needs of Third World peo-
ple. What is developed is not what is needed; it is always what will
make most profit for the few people with capital to invest. Therefore,
there is development of export plantations and cosmetic factories but
not development of small farms and firms in which poor people can
produce for themselves most of the things they need. Many countries
get almost no development at all because it does not suit anyone with
capital to develop anything there, even though the land, water, talent
and labour exist to produce most of the things needed for a simple but
satisfactory quality of life.
Even when transnational corporations do invest, wages can be 15–20

cents an hour. Compare the miniscule benefit that flows to such work-
ers from conventional development with what they could be getting
from an approach to development which enabled them to put all their
labour into mostly cooperative local firms, producing the mostly simple
things they most urgently need. But development of this kind is deliber-
ately prevented, e.g., by the Structural Adjustment Packages which the
World Bank and IMF make them accept in order to get rescue loans.
These packages are now the main mechanisms forcing them to do
7
things that benefit the rich countries and their corporations and banks.
‘Assistance’ is given to indebted countries on the condition that they
de-regulate their economies, eliminate protection and subsidies assist-
ing their people, cut government spending on welfare, etc., open their
economies to more foreign investment, devalue their currencies (mak-
ing their exports cheaper for us and increasing what they must pay us
for their imports), sell off their public enterprises and increase the free-
dom for market forces to determine what happens. All this is a bonanza
for rich world corporations and for people who shop in rich world shops
and supermarkets. The corporations can buy up firms cheaply and have
greater access to cheap labour, markets, forests and land. The repay-
ment of loans to our banks is the supreme goal of the packages. Thus,
the produce of the Third World’s soils, labour, fisheries and forests flows
more readily to our supermarkets, not to Third World people.
For most Third World people the effects of ‘neoliberal’ globalisation,

which has intensified these processes, are catastrophic. Large numbers
of people lose their livelihood, access to resources is transferred from
them to the corporations and rich world consumers and the protec-
tion and assistance their governments once provided is eliminated.
These are the reasons why conventional development can be regarded

as a form of plunder. The Third World has been developed into a state
whereby its land and labour benefit the rich, not Third World people.
Rich world material ‘living standards’ could not be anywhere near as
high as they are if the global economy was just.
Similar effects occur in rich countries, where the economic system we

have mostly benefits the rich. Above all it generates obscene inequality;
in the US the richest 1% are getting most of the increase in GDP while the
wages of the workforce have seen almost no increase in 40 years. Half
of the world’s wealth is now in the hands of about ten people. These are
inevitable effects of this economy.
2.1 Conclusions on our situation
These considerations of sustainability and global economic justice show

that our predicament is totally unacceptable and cannot be solved in
consumer capitalist society. This society cannot be fixed. The problems
are caused by some of the fundamental structures and processes of this
8
society. There is no possibility of having an ecologically sustainable, just,

peaceful and morally satisfactory society if we allow market forces and
the profit motive to be the major determinant of what happens, or if we
seek economic growth and ever-higher ‘living standards’. Many people
who claim to be concerned about the fate of the planet refuse to face up
to these fundamental points.
3. The Simpler Way alternative

If the foregoing analysis of our situation is valid, we must move to
lifestyles and systems that allow us to live on a small fraction of present
resource consumption and ecological impact. The argument in this
book is that there is an alternative way that would solve the major
global problems, would work well and would be attractive and enjoy-
able (see Part Four for more detail). The basic principles must be:
• Far simpler material living standards, which does not mean

accepting hardship or deprivation.
• High levels of self-sufficiency at household, national and especially
neighbourhood and town levels, with relatively little travel, trans-
port or trade. There must be mostly small scale, local economies
in which most of the things we need are produced by local labour
from local resources.
• Basically, cooperative and participatory systems, enabling people
in small communities to take control of their own development.
• A quite different economic system, one not driven by market forces
and profit, and in which there is far less work, production and
consumption, and a large cashless sector, including many free
goods from local commons. There must be no economic growth
at all. Indeed, there must be large-scale degrowth of materials and
energy, which will mean far lower GDP. The basic economic deci-
sions must be made cooperatively by local communities, not left
to market forces. However, most production could be via privately
owned small firms and farms.
• Most problematic, a radically different culture is required, in which
competitive and acquisitive individualism is replaced by frugal,
self-sufficient collectivism.
9
Key elements within the Simpler Way include:

• mostly small and highly self-sufficient local economies with many
little firms, farms, forests, ponds, animals throughout settlements
• participatory democracy via town assemblies and committees
• neighbourhood workshops
• many roads dug up and planted with ‘edible landscapes’ provid-
ing free fruit and nuts
• being able to get to decentralised workplaces by bicycle or on foot
• voluntary community working bees
• town meetings making the important development and adminis-
tration decisions
• many productive commons in the town (fruit, timber, bamboo,
herbs etc.)
• having to work for money only one or two days a week
• no unemployment because we make sure everyone has a livelihood
• living among many artists and crafts people
• strong and supportive, caring communities.
Simple traditional alternative technologies will be quite sufficient for

many purposes, especially for producing houses, furniture, food, pot-
tery and much of our clothing. Much production will take place via
hobbies and crafts, hand tools, small farms and family enterprises. How-
ever, many useful modern/high technologies can be used extensively
where appropriate, including IT. The Simpler Way will free many more
resources for socially useful purposes like medical research than are de-
voted to these at present, by phasing out many wasteful, unnecessary
and luxurious industries and reallocating some of these resources.
There could be many small private firms, and market forces could have
a role, but the economy must be under firm social control, via local
participatory processes. Local town meetings would make the import-
ant economic decisions in terms of what’s best for the town and its
people and environment. We would not allow market forces to bank-
rupt any firm or dump anyone into unemployment. We would make
sure everyone had a livelihood. If problems arose the town would have
to work out how to adjust its economy in the best interests of all.
10
Because we will be highly dependent on our local ecosystems and on

our social cohesion, e.g., for most water and food, and for effective
committees and working bees, all will have a very strong incentive
to focus on what is best for the town, rather than on what is best for
themselves as competing individuals. Cooperation and conscientious-
ness will therefore tend to be automatically rewarded, whereas in
consumer society competitive individualism is required and rewarded.
The crucial importance of integration of functions and systems must

be stressed. ‘Wastes’ from one operation can become inputs to an-
other close by, with no transport energy cost. This includes social and
psychological functions. If facilities for care of aged and unwell people
are in the middle of town beside the main community garden, the
people in them will be able to interact and observe and be involved,
reducing the need for professional ‘carers’ while improving their expe-
rience, and the gardeners, in turn, will benefit from their ideas.
Advocates of the Simpler Way have no doubt that its many benefits
and sources of satisfaction would provide a much higher quality of life
than most people experience in consumer society (see the essay ‘Your
delightful day’ in Part Four).
At this point in time the chances of achieving such a huge and radical
transition would seem to be quite remote, but the crucial question is,
given our situation, can a sustainable and just society be conceived
other than as some form of Simpler Way? The argument of this book
is that, in view of the limits and overshoot outlined above, there is no
alternative.
4. Transition strategy
Over the past twenty years many small groups throughout the world
have begun working to build settlements and systems more or less of
the kind required, many of them explicitly as examples intended to
persuade the mainstream that there is an alternative that is sustain-
able, just and attractive (for detail on one such experiment, see the
essay in Part Four called ‘The Catalan Integral Cooperative’). The fate
of the planet will depend on how effective these movements become
in the next two decades. When these alternative, local systems become
11
recognised as the key to solving global problems of sustainability and

justice, people will develop the capacity and demand to put control
over the national economy and the state into the hands of the people,
via thoroughly participatory arrangements. (For more detail on transi-
tion strategy, see the essays in Part Five.)
Those who wish to contribute to the transition to the Simpler Way

should firstly work hard at getting this perspective onto the agenda
of public discussion. Most important, however, is helping to establish
aspects of the Simpler Way here and now in the suburbs and towns
where we live – ventures such as community gardens and workshops,
local cooperatives and community supported small farms and busi-
nesses. Our goal must be to eventually develop these towards being
the new cooperative, self-sufficient local economies that people can
come to join when the mainstream runs into increasingly serious
problems, such as petroleum scarcity or financial crisis. However, just
creating more community gardens etc. is not enough; we must do this
in order to raise consciousness regarding the need to scrap consum-
er–capitalist society and build a very different one along the lines of
the Simpler Way.
References
Baillie, J. and Zhang, Y-P. 2018. ‘Space for Nature’, Science 361(6407): 1051. DOI: 10.1126/
science.aau1397
Global Footprint Network, 2018. ‘National Footprint Accounts 2018’. Available at:
http://data.footprintnetwork.org/#/ (10 February 2019).
Hickel, J. 2017. The Great Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions.
London: William Heinemann.
Hickel, J. and Kallis, G. 2019. ‘Is Green Growth Possible?’ New Political Economy.
Published online 17 April 2019: https://doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2019.1598964
Meadows. D., et al. 1972. Limits to Growth. New York: Signet.
Ward, J., et al. 2016. ‘Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?’
PLOS One 11(10): e0164733. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0164733
Wiedmann, T., Schandl, H. and Moran, D. 2015. ‘The Footprint of Using Metals: New
Metrics of Consumption and Productivity’, Environmental Economics and Policy
Studies 17(3): 369–388.
12
PART TWO
The global predicament

Why this economy must be scrapped
Most of the planet’s extremely serious problems are directly due to the
kind of economic system we have. It is fundamentally flawed; it cannot
be reformed to avoid generating the problems. They are being caused
by the normal working of the system.
Many very different kinds of economic system can be imagined and

have existed. It is important to realise that the one we have is not the
only possibility or inevitable or ‘natural’; we could choose another kind.
1. What should be the purpose of an economy?

Most people would agree that the purpose of an economic system
should be to organise production, distribution, exchange and devel-
opment to enable a society to provide itself with the things it needs
for a satisfactory quality of life for all. This should be done with a min-
imum of work, resource use, waste, stress etc., and in ecologically
sustainable ways. In a satisfactory economy we would tackle the main
decisions in a cooperative and rational way, with control in the hands
of society as a whole, so that we could all discuss and work out what
seemed to be the priorities and best arrangements.
But the economic system we have is nothing like this. What it does is:
• Allow a few very rich people to own most of the productive capac-
ity in our society – the factories, mines, farms and corporations.
• Allow these owners of the productive capacity to decide what is to
be produced simply in terms of what will maximise their profits. In
other words, we do not say, ‘What do we need?’, ‘What should be
produced?’, ‘Let us organise our productive capacity to produce
those things.’
15
There is a vast difference between gearing production to meet needs

and organising it to make as much profit as possible for the few who
own capital. When you let profit determine what is produced many
needs remain ignored, especially the most urgent needs that are ex-
perienced by the poorest people, and the needs of ecosystems. This
is because the best profits are never made by producing what poor
people need, or what the environment needs, or what is necessary
for social cohesion. You always make the best profits producing what
middle and high-income earners want and are willing to pay for.
2. The market
In other words, we have an economy which allows the market to be
the major determinant of what is produced and who gets it. People are
free to decide whether to produce or buy, and at what prices. This is
claimed to be the most efficient way; the market is supposed to make
the best economic allocations.
But the market actually makes the most appallingly bad allocations
and investment decisions! The market does some things well and in a
satisfactory economy there might be a large role for it. But if it is the
major determinant, it will never allocate a fair share of output or scarce
resources to those in most need. Nor will it protect the environment
and do what is best for social cohesion. This is because in a market,
things go to those who can pay most for them. As a result, the rich get
most of the valuable resources and goods. For example, one third of
the world’s grain production is fed to animals in rich countries every
year, while 800 million people are hungry. Why? Simply because that
is the most profitable thing to do with the grain.
Even more importantly the development that results from market forc-
es is inappropriate; the market develops the wrong things. Investment
will not go into what is most needed by poor majorities, or by the en-
vironment. It is always much more profitable to develop the factories
and infrastructures that will produce to meet the demand of richer
people, especially those in rich countries.
These fundamental faults cannot be overcome without a great deal of

regulation. A sensible economy would have to be under social control;
16
i.e., the society as a whole would have to be able to decide how pro-
duction, distribution and development were to be carried out. The best
way to do this is of course problematic. Few of us would want it done
by a big centralised state bureaucracy. However, it could be done in
ways that were quite democratic and participatory, in the mostly small
localised economies of the Simpler Way. (For more detail on this alterna-
tive vision, see Part Four of this volume.) Such an economy might have
many goods produced by private firms and for markets, so long as these
operated within guidelines and rules set by society.
The market economy enables and legitimises the process by which

richer people take things the weak need, and in many cases take from
them things they once had. For instance, people in rich countries take
scarce resources poor Third World people need, including the land and
forests they used to have, simply by being able to pay more for them
in the global market. Corporations can take the sales or markets little
firms had, just because they can produce more cheaply and therefore
whole industries and regions can be devastated when some foreign
corporation comes in and undercuts their production costs. Wall-Mart
routinely destroys the economies of many small US towns, by under-
cutting the prices they have to charge and driving them bankrupt
– that’s alright in this economy. Yes Wall-Mart can sell at lower prices
but that should not be the only factor determining what happens. In
a satisfactory economy we would prioritise making sure everyone has
a livelihood, that is, the opportunity to produce and contribute some-
thing valuable, even if that would not minimise prices.
This economy makes the individual’s fate depend on competing in the

market. Some who are energetic or talented or who work hard (or
who have great wealth) can be big winners. But many who are not
are dumped into unemployment and poverty. A good society must be
primarily collectivist; i.e., concerned with the public good and making
sure all are provided for.
3. Growth
The growth paradigm is the biggest fault of all. To conventional econo-
mists, growth is unquestionably good – indeed, the supreme goal. There
is never enough producing, selling, investing, trading and consuming go-
17
ing on! The goal in all nations is to keep the GDP growing for ever. But
continual economic growth is not just absurd, it is now suicidal. We are
depleting world resources and destroying the environment because we
are already producing and consuming far too much. There is now a vast
‘limits to growth’ literature showing that the world is far beyond levels of
resource use and production that could be sustained (see the essay ‘The
limits to growth analysis’ in this volume). The degrowth movement is
working to get people to realise that a sustainable economy must have per
capita levels of resource use far lower than they are in rich countries today.
But growth is crucial for a capitalist economy. Those with capital invest
it to maximise their profits, so at the end of the year they have more
capital than at the start, and then they want to invest it all in order to
make as much money as they can next year. This can’t happen un-
less there is constant increase in the amount of producing and selling
going on. Capitalism’s biggest problem is to find more investment
outlets for all the capital that is constantly accumulating. This force led
to neoliberal globalisation; i.e., the elimination of the protective and
regulatory barriers that previously restricted corporate access to many
markets and resources.
Consider the absurdity of pursuing growth when we in the richest

countries already work much longer hours than needed. If we designed
a sensible economy, we would do far less producing, resource con-
suming and work. Yet we have an economy in which the top goal is to
constantly increase the amount of producing going on, with no limit
ever. Obviously, the damage being done to the ecosystems of the planet
is due to the amount of producing and consuming going on. The claim
that technical advance will enable these amounts to grow while the
damage is eliminated is contradicted by a large literature (see Part Three
in this volume for more detail). And now economic growth is being
accompanied by a falling quality of life, as measured by various scales
such as the Genuine Progress Indicator. As Herman Daly (2011) has been
pointing out, growth is adding more costs than benefits.
4. Inequality
Inequality is extreme and becoming worse. One-fifth of the world’s
people are getting more than 85% of world income while the poorest
18
one-fifth are getting only 1.3% of it. Oxfam (2017) recently estimated
that a mere nine people now possess about half the world’s wealth. A
great deal of critical literature shows how the neoliberal triumph has
been responsible for the greatest wealth transfer in history, prompting
enormous conflict and social breakdown in regions it has devastated
(e.g Chossudovsky,1997).
This economy inevitably makes inequality worse. It is an economy

which attends mostly to the rich, and further enriches them, for in-
stance because the market mostly produces and sells what richer
people want. Investment obviously goes where profits can be maxi-
mised, so little or none of the available capital goes into the poorest
regions most in need of development. Over time the rich get more
influence over the political process – for example, they can contribute
to parties likely to adopt the policies the rich want. They get to own
the main media and can reinforce the ideas they want people to hold.
4.1 Trickle down
A key assumption underlying the economy is that if there is growth

then the increased wealth will in time ‘trickle down’ to enrich all. The
claim is that the best way to solve problems such as poverty and unem-
ployment is simply to encourage more business turnover, as distinct
from taking deliberate action to redistribute wealth and jobs.
There are a number of reasons why this claim is offensive. Firstly, there
is usually very little trickle down, and often just the reverse. This is
most obvious in the Third World, where there is often rapid growth
resulting in accumulation of much wealth by the rich while the poor-
est people actually get poorer. It is also evident in rich countries like
the US, where tax cuts for the rich have often been put through on a
trickle-down rationale and result in little or no benefit to anyone but
the rich. Over the last 40 years US GDP has more than doubled but the
income of almost all workers has not increased at all.
Even if it did work, trickle down would be an extremely inefficient way

to meet needs. Worldwide, we urgently need more cheap housing and
more hospitals, but instead our economy allows those with capital to de-
vote it to whatever will maximise their profits, on the pretext that this will
generate more jobs and incomes, enabling the government to collect
19
more tax to devote to important tasks – when all of the available capital
could have gone directly and immediately into meeting urgent needs.
Then there is the fact that if trickle down worked it would take a very
long time to make a difference. Anthropologist Jason Hickel has shown
(Hickel, 2017) that at present growth rates it would take at least 100
years for the average Third World income to reach the present rich
world average – and by then rich world living standards would be lit-
erally more than 50 times as high as they are now, and the ecosystems
of the planet would have long since disintegrated.
Finally, it is obviously morally unacceptable that the rich are allowed to

develop whatever further enriches them while very large numbers of
people suffer deprivation. The trickle-down rationale is no more than
a myth perpetrated to legitimise a system that allows the owners of
capital to gear the economy to their interests.
5. Globalisation
Conventional economists are happy to see movement towards one in-
tegrated global economy and the passing of the era in which national
economies were largely independent and in control of their own affairs.
Now the fate of any country or town depends on whether it can survive
in competition with all others in the world, finding something it can
export more cheaply than any other, in order to be able to pay for the
crucial imports from the global economy it is now dependent on. The
supreme and sacred neoliberal principle is that there must be minimal
interference with the freedom of enterprise, investment and trade. Cor-
porations must be free to invest in whatever will maximise their profits,
and to close their factories and move somewhere else if it suits them.
The most powerful corporations are free to come in and take over (buy
up) a country’s firms, markets and resources, and a country is not able
to ensure that its own productive capacity can be put into meeting its
people’s needs. Corporations are free to put that capacity into produc-
ing for exporting into the global market. One consequence is that some
of the hungriest people live in countries that are huge food exporters.
Critics of conventional economics argue that the top priority now is

to turn against globalisation and develop small-scale localised and
20
self-sufficient economies which enable people to provide for them-

selves most of the basic things they need, using local resources and
labour. This frees a country from having to devote its resources to ex-
porting frantically in order to have the money to import everything it
needs. Above all it enables a country to take control over its own fate,
and to directly apply its land and labour to producing what people
most need. Hickel (2017) is among the many who point out how for
centuries the rich countries have fiercely opposed and prevented such
‘nationalist’ development. They oppose regulation and insist on ‘free-
dom’ of trade and investment, because they want resources, labour
and markets everywhere to be accessible to them.
6. Labour
Conventional economists treat labour as just another commodity or
‘factor of production’ that can be used or ignored in order to maxi-
mise profits. However, labour should not be treated as just another
commodity or input into production. Labour is people. It is alright to
leave a brick idle or to scrap it. It is not alright to leave a person unem-
ployed and without a reasonable income. Often, we should plan to
keep people in jobs even though this would be ‘inefficient’ in conven-
tional terms. In the present economy, whether or not people have jobs
is determined by whether the few with capital want more labour in
their factories. It is wrong to let profit maximisation determine whether
people are unemployed.
Unemployment is unnecessary, morally intolerable and easily elimi-

nated. We could simply develop arrangements whereby no one was
unemployed. If only a limited amount of work is necessary to produce
simple but comfortable lifestyles for all then we should just share that
work between all who need work.
Unemployment provides a good illustration of how the rules of this

economic system suit the owners of capital far more than they suit the
rest of us. And the fact that unemployment is taken for granted and
accepted as normal illustrates the dominance of capitalist ideology –
which conventional economic theory reinforces.
In this economy there is constant effort to create jobs, and all must
constantly strive to find work to do. However, the core limits-to-growth
21
point is that there is already far more work and producing taking place
than is desirable. We should be trying to move to an economy in
which we have dramatically reduced production and work. Similarly, it
is wrong that people must all constantly search desperately for some-
thing to sell, when this is difficult because technology makes it easier
all the time for a few factories to produce what people want to buy.
7. Automation: The robots are coming

There is now much concern that robots will cause huge problems by
taking over tasks workers perform at present. In a satisfactory econo-
my, robots would be an unmixed blessing as they would reduce the
work we all need to do. But in our current economy their arrival is in-
deed a major problem. Why? Simply because it is a capitalist economy.
Automating tasks delivers benefits to the owner of the factory who no
longer has to pay wages, but it inflicts damage on workers who no
longer have incomes.
This is a good illustration of two crucial principles to which Marx

drew attention. Firstly, a capitalist economy has deep contradictions
built into it. The biggest contradiction in the system is that produc-
tion to meet needs contradicts production to make profits. Secondly
Marx argued that these contradictions will eventually bring about the
self-destruction of capitalism. For instance, as we move towards the
situation where all the factories are automated there will be fewer
workers earning income enabling them to buy the factory’s products.
That is, the system will strangle itself.
8. Booms and slumps

There is something seriously wrong with an economic system in
which booms and slumps occur. They occur when those with capi-
tal see lucrative profit-making opportunities and rush in but end up
over-investing in them, often speculating wildly and borrowing heav-
ily to do so (e.g., causing housing price bubbles). At some point the
opportunities fade out and activity can collapse, causing recession,
unemployment, bankruptcy of firms, waste of resources, loss of jobs
and immense damage to communities.
22
In a sustainable economy we would make sure booms and slumps

didn’t occur, mainly by controlling capital flows, i.e., by limiting invest-
ment and production to what is necessary, and handling any fall-off in
demand in ways that prevent unemployment and bankruptcy. Again,
this cannot be done without much social control over the freedom of
the owners of capital to chase maximum profit.
9. Money, interest, banking and debt

It is not widely understood how important the finance sector is in caus-
ing many of our difficulties. It is the major determinant of the purposes
that receive investment funds, because it is the banks who decide what
ventures to lend to, and in a market economy loans go to the firms most
likely to maximise profits. As a result, vast amounts flow into producing
trivial things that will sell well and little or no money is lent to many
projects intended to do socially necessary things. A major determinant
throughout history has been the power to decide what purposes are to
receive funding. The Duke of Wellington, for example, might have lost
the battle of Waterloo had not the Rothschilds lent money to equip him.
Fifty years ago, the finance industry was a relatively minor part of
the economy, confined to routinely assisting the likes of industry and
home buyers. But in recent years it has become enormous – in the US
making over 40% of corporate profits (Sinn, undated). As wealth has
accumulated the quest to invest it all profitably has intensified and led
to wild speculation, causing numerous crises and melt-downs, nota-
bly the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2007–08.
Obviously, the more money that is borrowed or lent the more debt there
is and the debt levels in just about all countries are very high and rising
fast. Total global debt is now enormous, around three times global GDP
(Turak, 2018). Why is it so large? It mainly represents the astronomical
amount of wealth that the rich have accumulated and are seeking fran-
tically to invest profitably somewhere, anywhere. The Marxist analysis
by Baran and Sweezy (1966) stressed the problem of ‘surplus’ for cap-
italism; the need to find investment outlets for the ever-accumulating
volume of capital. There is not much scope now to make good profits
setting up another fridge factory or potato farm, so great effort has to
go into searching for opportunities to lend and they are having to resort
23
increasingly to speculative and risky possibilities. For instance, the GFC

was partly caused by lending for ‘sub-prime’ housing mortgages.
It is widely recognised that the existence of the huge debt problem

shows that the economy is deteriorating and is going to result in an-
other crash before long. But the (poor) economic growth that has
been achieved in recent years would have been far worse had it not
been for all this borrowing; for every dollar increase in GDP, debt has
increased from $3 to $5 (derived from Cochrane, 2019).
Debt is a marvellous device for enriching the rich, because it means

they can siphon wealth from borrowers. All firms must borrow capital
at some stage and add this to the cost of their products, so the lenders
receive money from all of us. Interest on debt increases the amount
we pay for everything. Margrit Kennedy estimated that 40% of the
amount we pay for things is due to interest charges compounding up
the production chain (Kennedy, 1995). For instance, if you borrow a
sum from a bank to build a house you will probably pay back more
than twice as much.
Interest is also the means whereby the rich get richer by acquiring the
assets of borrowers who can’t meet the repayments. Banks force in-
debted house owners and farmers to sell up, at low prices, and can
then resell these assets.
The same process traps whole nations. When a country can’t meet its
debt repayments the banks can force them to sell national assets, such
as airlines and ports, to the banks or to corporations eager to get the
business. Thus, big European banks have taken possession of many
firms and public institutions in Greece.
The most notorious practices of this kind are the Structural Adjust-
ment Packages (SAPs) of the World Bank. Poor countries unable to
pay off their debts are given more loans on condition that they imple-
ment neoliberal policies such as opening their economies to foreign
investors, reducing regulation, protection and subsidies, diverting
spending away from social necessities into paying off their debts to
rich world banks, developing the infrastructures foreign investors
want, putting national resources into exporting to rich countries and
devaluing (which decreases the price we must pay for their exports
24
while increasing the price they must pay for imports from us). This ba-
sically just means increasing opportunities for corporations and banks
to do ‘good’ business. There is a huge literature on the fact that these
policies are a delight to the corporations and consumers in rich coun-
tries while having devastating effects in poor countries (Shah, 2013).
Debt has been a menace throughout history. Hudson (2015) explains

how in the ancient world it was realised that debt would lead to the
ruin of a kingdom or a country if not dealt with, so after several years
the common practice was to write off debts (Hudson, 2015). Otherwise
the kingdom would find itself without workers or farmers or soldiers
as all would have been taken into slavery by the few rich lenders, as
payment for their debts. Thus, Hudson stresses that interest and debt
are powerfully destructive, and that this explains much about our situ-
ation today. Increasingly things that were once free, such as university
education in Australia, are being turned into commodities that must
be purchased, and people must borrow to be able to pay for them,
setting up lucrative income strands for lenders and siphoning wealth
from lower income people to the rich. Overall the interest system en-
riches the rich, because they don’t need to borrow much, and they do
the lending that impoverishes the poor because they have to borrow
more and have little capacity to be lenders. Hudson explains the sig-
nificance today of the relentless push to get control of assets that then
continually yield interest payments.
The fact that interest must be paid means debt must increase. When a
new loan is made to a firm it creates that amount of money and adds
it to the amount in circulation, but it does not create the additional
money that the firm will need to pay back the loan plus interest. The
interest can only be paid if more money is lent into the system some-
where later, enabling the firm to get/earn from the economy a sum
equal to the loan plus interest. Thus, interest and growth are connect-
ed; if interest is to be paid the economy must grow over time, and in
the zero-growth economy we must shift to there can be no interest
(more on this below).
A slight complication is that in a zero-growth economy it would be

possible for some to own capital and lend it for interest and then spend
all this income back into the economy, thus paying for their lifestyle
25
by hiring out capital. That economy would not grow as the interest
would be a rent drawn from the economy and wholly spent back into
it; there would be no accumulation of wealth by the lender. However,
no sensible society would tolerate this when the public banks could be
holding all savings and lending for a minute administrative fee.
Anyway, why should anyone receive interest payments? The question

is never asked. If I lend you my surfboard how many should I expect
to get back? If I borrow a book from a library, I am only expected to
give one back. Why is it that when someone lends money it is taken for
granted that they should be given back more than they lent? Various
societies in the past have banned interest as immoral (including the
Catholic Church in Medieval times).
The conventional view is that interest (and profit) are the rewards to
those with capital for risking their capital investing to set up businesses
and create jobs. Yes, people who invest capital do take a risk; but what
exactly is the risk they are taking? They are risking losing their capital
and then having to work for an income like the rest of us!
In a zero-growth economy, to which we must move, there can be no

interest payments. As Marx and many others have insisted, money
should not be able to earn money.
Another highly unsatisfactory issue is to do with money creation. It

is not widely understood that in the present economy private banks
are allowed to create the money that continually goes into circulation.
When trading banks (not savings banks) lend to a firm they do not first
have to get the money from anywhere; they simply write numbers into
the borrower’s account. Later they get all this paid back with interest.
There is no problem about money being created out of nothing; the

amount needed to enable economic activity continually grows so
has to be created somehow. The problem is that the government (or,
better still, community-owned banks) should be doing this and bene-
fitting from any interest received, not private banks.
This is one of the most absurd and incomprehensible faults in the pres-
ent economy. Vast amounts of wealth are allowed to flow to private
banks as interest on money lent when it could be going to society’s own
banks. The most ridiculous consequence is that governments go to the
26
banks to borrow and then have to pay them billions of dollars every year
in interest, when they could be ‘borrowing’ from government-owned
banks at no interest. Australians pay out more than $15 billion every year
this way as interest on the Federal debt to banks and individual lenders
in the country (and much more is paid to foreign lenders). Many mone-
tary reform groups emphasise all this, but little notice is taken.
Another highly unsatisfactory aspect of the banking situation is the

‘fractional reserve’ system. A dollar deposited in a bank can in effect be
lent many times at once, yielding interest from each lending. Let’s say
you deposit $100 with a bank. If the bank is legally required to keep at
least 10% of deposits to cover any sudden increase in withdrawals (i.e.,
must retain only a 10% fraction of reserves), then it can immediately
lend out $90 to someone else. Let’s say that person spends it and the
recipient puts the $90 in a bank. That bank can immediately lend out
$81. This process can go on until the original deposit of $100 has actu-
ally led to the lending of about 10 times as much money by the banks
as a whole. In effect the deposited money has been lent 10 times, with
the banks getting interest on each lending.
A similar ‘money printing’ process is involved where the US gets an

enormous unearned/free amount of the world’s wealth because the
US dollar is the unit of currency used for most trading, especially
paying for oil. As trade increases there is a need for more dollars in
circulation. The US meets the need by ‘printing’ more dollars – and
then spending them to pay for imports! In this way the US gets a huge
volume of the world’s wealth, without paying for it.
Many groups are now working for a totally different monetary sys-
tem. However, few realise that in the new economy of the Simpler Way
most of their concerns would not even arise because the zero-growth
economy would only need a fixed amount of money circulating, so
there would be no money-creation and fractional-reserve problems,
and there would be no interest paid.
10. The environment

Because the present economy is about maximising production and
consumption it inevitably causes extreme and increasing damage to
the ecosystems of the planet. We are taking far too many resources
27
from nature and turning them into waste and pollution to be dumped
back into nature (for more detail, see the essay ‘The limits to growth
analysis’ in this volume). Technical advance cannot reduce these im-
pacts to tolerable levels (for more detail, see Part Three in this volume).
Too many green people do not realise that the environmental problem
cannot be solved unless there is dramatic de-growth to a zero-growth
economy in which there are far lower levels of production and con-
sumption. Obviously, this cannot be done in a capitalist economy
where any slowing of growth results in recession.
11. The accelerating social breakdown

Indices of social cohesion, ‘Genuine Progress’ and social breakdown
are deteriorating. There is rapidly increasing discontent, evident in
the Trump and Brexit phenomena. The numbers of homeless people
on the streets is rising. More and more things are turned into com-
modities. Many people have little or no experience of community
or solidarity or pride in their society. There are high levels of obesity,
domestic violence and large numbers turn to alcohol, cigarettes and
drug abuse. It is no surprise that the biggest health problem now is
probably depression, or that the UK has a Minister for Loneliness.
The causal connections with the economy are not difficult to see. This
economy forces everyone to behave as a competitive self-interested
and isolated individual. All must focus on struggling to beat others to
scarce jobs or to sell something. This economy stresses almost every-
one, forcing many to worry about high living costs, debt, boring work,
insecurity, unemployment, poverty, aged care and homelessness. Most
people have to work at least twice as long as they would in a sane soci-
ety. Many neighbourhoods are little more than dormitories for isolated
families who have nothing to do with their neighbours. The economy
needs workers fed and rested up ready for the factory, not thriving com-
munities. They must also be able to move to new factories and mines,
so they are nuclear families, unhindered by grandmas and aunts. So the
extended family and all the support it can provide fades away.
A sensible economic system would devote resources to establishing

the cooperative and caring arrangements that ensured that such
28
problems did not arise. This economy cannot do that; it must prioritise
cranking up more and more production for sale, or recession and de-
pression will occur. Budgets focus on building the infrastructures and
assisting the industries the economy needs. Big tax breaks and subsi-
dies go into purposes likely to boost the GDP. But try finding a budget
line detailing spending to build cohesive communities or improve the
quality of life.
Social cohesion depends primarily on non-monetary factors such as

cooperation, mutual assistance and support, familiarity and friend-
liness, feelings of gratitude and debt and obligation to reciprocate,
generosity and giving, trust, reputation and admiration and good
citizenship, helping, reliability, concern for the other and the public
good, and pride and admiration for one’s community (for more detail,
see the essay ‘Social cohesion and the quality of life’ in this volume).
None of these has any monetary value and when the priority is merely
boosting the amount of production for sale these socially bonding fac-
tors are damaged and driven out.
Most disturbing is the culture the economy has produced. Nasty and
brutal dispositions become normalised, taken for granted and seen as
acceptable. It’s acceptable for Walmart to come into a town and take
all the business opportunities and thus destroy livelihoods and com-
munity. It is acceptable to drive rivals into bankruptcy, to pounce on
a fire sale, to see the rich as having earned their privileges and to take
advantage of the misfortunes of others. Seeking to maximise one’s
wealth is admired; it’s not being greedy. Luxury and the lifestyles of
the rich sell magazines. The constant dishonesty in advertising is not
offensive. Unemployment is natural and to be accepted, as are the los-
ers left to beg on the street…
The basic cause of the situation is the market system (for more detail
on the critique, see the essay ‘The marvellous market’ in this volume).
Marx and Polanyi are among those who have analysed the damaging
contradictions between society and the economy. Polanyi’s influential
The Great Transition (1944) explained that no economy prior to ours has
ever allowed the market to be a major determinant of what happens,
and that the transition to our system marked an extremely important
and undesirable step. Previously the economy was a minor component
29
of society. Economic activity was controlled by the moral, customary

and religious rules governing all behaviour in society. Market forces
were either not allowed to determine what happened or were subject
to strict social control by the general moral code. Gain and profit were
either not involved or, if so, they were not important. What mattered
was sufficiency, subsistence or producing for use to meet needs. Po-
lanyi’s core theme is that by allowing the market to become separate
and free from social control our society has made a serious mistake. It
allowed the economy to be regarded as an arena in which those gen-
eral rules no longer applied – rules such as care for others, don’t take
advantage of others, make sure no one gets more from an exchange
than the other, and charging interest is immoral – and instead the only
consideration is maximising gain for the individual. Limitless self-inter-
est becomes the driver and little or no attention need be given to the
welfare of others or the public good. Polanyi argued (see Trainer, 2011)
that if not carefully controlled and limited, in time the market will de-
stroy society and its environment. These themes are highly relevant in
understanding what’s happening in our society today.
Clearly, a satisfactory economy is not achievable unless it is possible

for all relevant considerations to be considered when economic deci-
sions are being made. Polanyi’s core point is that the present economy
enables everything to be ignored except monetary costs and benefits.
In the Simpler Way, town assemblies will make the main decisions,
not corporations and banks operating in the market, and therefore all
considerations bearing on town welfare will be taken into account.
12. Third World ‘development’

As has been emphasised, in this economy development is determined
by whatever will maximise the profits of those with capital to invest.
Need is irrelevant and ignored. Your country will get investment in
factories or plantations only if some corporation thinks that will make
more money than investing in anything else anywhere else in the
world. One consequence is that investment never flows into devel-
oping what is most needed. It goes mostly into producing things to
export to consumers in rich countries, or to sell to elites in the poor
country.
30
Conventional economics cannot envisage any alternative to this ‘trick-

le down someday’ approach, which inevitably results in development
mostly for the benefit of the rich, i.e., those who own corporations and
those who shop in rich world supermarkets. Meanwhile about 5 billion
people live in poverty although they have around them most of the
resources they need to produce for themselves thriving communities
and a high quality of life (for more detail, see the essay ‘Third World
development’ in this volume). But the conventional economist insists
that the only way to raise their ‘living standards’ is to produce more
to sell into the global market economy so they can earn more income,
then purchase goods from that economy, and accumulate the capital
needed for developing the power stations, freeways, ports, houses etc.
to enable the kind of industries and lifestyles the rich world has.
The Simper Way shows that this entire world view is not just totally
mistaken; it masks the plunder that conventional development in-
volves. Conventional theory is an ideology endorsing practices that
enrich the rich by enabling mostly the kinds of development the cor-
porations want, transferring to the world’s rich the resources the poor
used to have, while asserting that this is the only way to satisfactory
development. Highly satisfactory Simpler Way communities could be
developed quickly, by ordinary people and with very little need for
capital (see Part Four of this volume). The amount of resources that
would need to be imported to build the necessary infrastructures is
quite small and could easily be afforded if that was what national gov-
ernments prioritised.
The conventional view mistakenly and unwittingly makes the ‘uni-di-

mensional’ assumption, i.e., that countries vary only along one line
sloping up from low GDP to rich world levels, and development is a
process of moving up the slope; all good things become more avail-
able as they do this. That model fails to grasp the possibility that some
countries might prioritise developing towards other goals (Bhutan
seeks to maximise the Gross National Happiness not GDP); it fails to see
that often increasing GDP reduces desirable development (as when
land is transferred from peasants to corporate export plantations), and
it ignores the fact that many desirable goals are independent of GDP
(Cuba has a far lower GDP per capita than the US but has far better
performance on health, environment, equity and ecological footprint
31
measures). A definition of development solely in terms of GDP growth

is, of course, precisely what the owners of capital want us to accept.
The Simpler Way alternative development is no good for global cor-

porations and banks or local elites; they prosper most when people
have no alternative but to work in corporations for wages, which they
then have to spend purchasing necessities from corporations. It is no
good to corporations if people grow their own carrots rather than buy
them from supermarkets. Conventional capitalist development maxi-
mises the amount of business for people with capital to invest. Simpler
Way communal self-sufficient development is a mortal threat to that.
Hence it gets no attention from the development industry (or, indeed,
the left, who also think only in terms of rising to rich world industriali-
sation and ‘living standards’).
13. This economy inevitably generates armed conflict

This is an economy that must ceaselessly and fiercely go after more
markets to sell into and thus more resources to put into producing
goods to sell. This means a great deal of effort goes into trying to
pressure countries to let corporations in to mine, buy up land, set up
factories and sell. When this is resisted, rich countries often provide
money and arms to rebel factions and organise coups to install re-
gimes willing to adopt the policies we favour. Increasing the scope for
trade and investment is the basic concern in foreign policy and often
this involves the exercise of force, sometimes subtle and sometimes
brutal. Much of the armed conflict in the world today can be under-
stood in terms of the determination to maintain and expand ‘spheres
of influence’. The take-home message is, if you want to remain far
more affluent than all people can ever be, then you would be wise
to remain heavily armed. (For more detail, see the essay ‘If you want
affluence, prepare for war’ in this volume.)
14. Contradictions leading to self-destruction

Marx saw that major contradictions were built into the foundations of
capitalism. For instance, workers’ interests contradict those of the cap-
italist class – it is in the interests of the factory owner to automate, but
32
that means fewer workers getting pay packets and therefore less ca-
pacity within the economy to buy the factory’s products. In addition,
many socially valuable investments are not made because they are not
profitable, and there is a head-on clash between boosting production
for sale and saving the environment. Marx argued that in time these
contradictions would lead to the self-destruction of capitalism.
The economy’s difficulties are increasing. Long-term growth rates are

falling and global debt has risen to enormous levels. It can be argued
that a process of self-destruction is gathering velocity. The neoliberal
onslaught that has triumphed since the 1970s can be seen as a high-
ly successful push by capital to break down the barriers to profitable
investment opportunities. Globalisation involved the sweeping away
of much of the regulation that was hindering their access to resources
and markets. Investors got into the many operations like power sup-
ply that governments sold off. Governments eagerly worked to free
trade and capital flows. All this was a bonanza for the owners of cap-
ital, but not for ordinary people even in the richest countries. As has
been noted the super-rich rose to obscene levels of wealth but there
was no significant increase in the real incomes of US workers. Levels
of inequality are rising, ordinary people are having more trouble get-
ting by, and discontent is increasing, evident in support for Trump and
Brexit, and the French ‘yellow vest’ and European neo-fascist move-
ments. Two effects are undermining the system: firstly, the reduced
capacity of the majority to purchase is driving the economy towards
recession and secondly it is fuelling discontent and disenchantment
with existing economic and political institutions.
In the longer run there are much more powerfully destructive forces
tightening the noose, most obviously to do with increasing resource and
energy scarcity and cost and increasing ecological costs. These factors
are also reducing the capacity to afford goods. The system is holding up
mainly because the huge and accelerating debt is putting purchasing
power into the economy. Gail Tverberg argues that because demand is
repressed, primarily due to low and stagnant wages (while profits and
1% wealth soar) the demand for and price of energy has been low. There
is a strong case that oil from ‘fracking’ will soon peak, with sudden and
seriously destructive effects (Hughes, 2016).
33
Collins (2018) points out that the economy has shifted into a ‘cata-
bolic’ or ‘cannibalistic’ phase. As the capacity to do good business
producing useful things deteriorates, investors turn to activities that
plunder the economy. It’s like a hardware firm selling its own roofing
iron. The illicit drug industry and the Mafia are similar; rather than pro-
ducing new wealth, effort goes into extracting previously produced
wealth. Much financial activity is of this nature, such as ‘short selling’
and ‘asset stripping’. Before the GFC a lot of money was lent to home
buyers incapable of meeting the payments, because investors could
not find less risky outlets. When the borrowers could not pay, their
houses were repossessed by the banks and sold off.
Similarly, in the US some of the money in the worker’s pay packet

is put into a pension fund to be paid out on retirement, but many
corporations have taken these funds to invest, and ‘lost’ them. Many
smart operators in the financial sector swoop in to speculate with the
funds and siphon out fees. Sometimes they use the money to buy
weak firms, arrange for them to borrow too much and thus drive them
into bankruptcy, and then sell them off, and as the pension money
has become an asset of the firm it goes to the lenders and is lost to
the workers who set it aside. So, accumulation and profit-making are
being kept up by activities which enrich big and smart investors (lend-
ers) by getting hold of the wealth of little/dumb investors (borrowers),
through granting them loans they cannot repay.
Another common mechanism is simply commercialising activities that

the state once carried out without charge. For example, students must
now pay for college and university education, meaning large loans must
be taken out, meaning large interest payments flow to lenders from the
earnings of parents and students. Again, the process does not involve
lending to produce anything, it just enables wealth previously produced
to be acquired by lenders. Collins and others see this process accelerating
as the ever-increasing volumes of accumulated capital find it increasingly
difficult to find investment outlets to produce anything of value.
15. Merits?
Over recent centuries this economy has been remarkably effective in
increasing production, raising living standards and driving innovation
34
and increasing efficiency. It also largely self-regulates – that is, it au-

tomatically determines what is to be produced and what firms are to
exist or be phased out, avoiding what would be very difficult problems
if they had to be handled by rational social decision making. Above all
it has lifted most people in rich countries to very high material living
standards. It is therefore not surprising that most people would say
that despite some faults it is the best kind of system we could have
and there is no good reason to scrap it. However, there are two major
arguments against this view.
First, the few in rich countries could not have such good conditions
if they were not getting far more than their fair share of the world’s
resources, and they get them because of the grossly unjust way the
present economic system works. Second, the system is unsustainable
for resource and ecological reasons; it cannot go on like this for long
and is likely to crash catastrophically within decades.
16. Economic theory

It should be said again that there are many different kinds of economy.
Some do not use any money. Some do not have a market. In some New
Guinea economies, not all food is produced to eat; the first yams of the
season might have to be given to one’s uncle’s wife to meet traditional
tribal obligations. Pigs are produced and given away or accumulated as
signs of prestige. The food ends up being eaten but that is incidental. Con-
ventional economic theory can tell us nothing about such economies,
because it only deals in terms of monetary values and market processes. It
is important to see it as no more than a theory about the workings of the
economy we have, rather than the theory of economics in general.
If we define economics as about production, distribution, consumption

and development it is obvious that all factors relevant to these processes
need to be considered. As the above discussion of Polanyi shows, this
includes things like the anxiety an unemployed worker experiences, the
noise the airport inflicts, the loss of carbon from the newly ploughed
field. Because conventional economic theory leaves out all but monetary
costs and benefits it is extremely narrow, warped and misleading, and
cannot be a good framework for thinking about economic issues.
35
But it’s worse than that; it provides powerful ideological support for
the present economy. It gets people to take for granted an econo-
my in which the market mechanism is central, capital is owned by a
few – who are free to produce not what is needed but only what will
make most profit for them – corporations are given great freedom
to do what they want while impacting heavily on the lives of billions
of people and on the environment, and the top priority is endlessly
increasing sales when this is not improving the quality of life and is
incompatible with ecological sustainability.
The narrowness must be stressed; it is a theory and practice which

considers only one factor, the monetary value of goods or actions.
For instance, it allows the decision to build a factory to be decided
by referring only to what its monetary costs and its monetary returns
would be when there are many other considerations that ought to be
taken into account, including: is the product important or a frivolous
waste of scarce resources? Will the factory be noisy, ugly or pollut-
ing? Will the work conditions be enjoyable? What will be the social
costs and benefits to the region? The few seeking to invest their capital
don’t want to have to take these kinds of costs into account, and con-
ventional economic theory and practices allows them to be ignored.
Therefore, the costs have to be paid by society, not the investor. (The
political process often takes up these issues, but in a society believing
in freedom for market forces, governments typically do not make suf-
ficient effort to get firms to pay such costs.)
This relates to the way the theory allows firms to define many real but
non-monetary costs such as environmental damage as ‘externalities’,
and thus to avoid having to deal with them. The term implies that
these costs are not really part of the economic calculus. When Walmart
sets up in a town and takes most of the business the little shops pre-
viously had and thereby destroys the town it doesn’t have to pay or
even think about any of the devastating social costs. Yes, it produces
cheaper goods, and yes, the locals choose to buy them, but that does
not mean the decision-making calculus was satisfactory.
As noted above, economics should be defined in terms of all the factors

involved in production, distribution, exchange and development, in-
cluding especially the psychological, social, ecological and quality-of-life
36
costs and benefits. Those who own capital are delighted that economic
decisions can be made via a theory which ignores everything but max-
imising their profits and minimising their dollar costs. By contrast the
discipline ‘Political Economy’ is based on the recognition that ‘econom-
ic’ decisions involve power and politics and deliberations about a range
of considerations including morality, environmental impact and social
justice, and if you attend only to monetary costs and benefits you will
not represent the situation satisfactorily and you will not make the right
decisions.
This narrowness means conventional economic theory is like a the-

ory of art that deals only with paint thickness; precise measures and
equations would be possible, but it would not deal with the important
questions and decisions about the art itself.
Thus, economic theory rationalises and legitimises an economic system

that is massively unjust, causing thousands of avoidable deaths every
day, destroying social structure and cohesion, leading us to ecological
destruction, and lowering the quality of life, even in the richest societ-
ies – all the while rapidly increasing the wealth of the obscenely rich.
Conventional theory, and the economics profession, help to reinforce
acceptance of the situation by insisting that the free market works best
for all, never suggesting that unemployment is morally unacceptable
and easily eliminated, never questioning the power of private capital
to be the overwhelming determinant of what’s produced or devel-
oped, never questioning the acceptability of private banks creating
money, never questioning the acceptability of interest, and above all
by asserting growth to be the supreme value.
It is also remarkable that the theory normalises and legitimises and

never questions the right this economic system gives a few to receive
vast incomes, without having to do any work at all. In a satisfactory
society this would not be tolerated.
Conventional economists fail to recognise that they ignore and cannot

handle the biggest sector of the present economy, the sphere in which
most production and work takes place. This is the household economy.
In the household economy people share jobs, distribute benefits accord-
ing to need, cooperatively produce what is best for all, prevent inequality
from occurring, focus on the welfare of the collective, are not motivated
37
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
With a general impulse of energy, we started this morning at a
very early hour,—twenty minutes past two o’clock in the morning—in
order to get out of the sands, and to arrive in “the Wady.” After seven
hours’ constant march, we at length got a fine view of the steep cliffs
which enclose the Wady on the south side, and which contrasted
marvellously with the white sand-hills in the foreground; for,
stretching out in a horizontal dark line which faded away at each
end, they exhibited an illusive picture of a lake spread out before us
in the remote distance. The cool east wind, which had blown in the
morning, and promised a fine day, changed, as is very common in
these regions, towards noon into a hot south wind, and made us very
uncomfortable and susceptible of the fatigue of a long march,
particularly as the distance proved much greater than we had
expected. Indeed it was not till nearly two o’clock in the afternoon,
that Mr. Richardson and I, who were much in advance of the
caravan, reached the border of the Wady, and shortly afterwards the
well Moghrás, at the foot of two tall palm-trees, where we found a
woman with two neatly dressed children. They belonged to the
Azkár-Tuarek, who, leaving their miserable abodes, migrate to these
more fertile districts, where they build themselves light cottages of
palm-branches, and indulge in a patriarchal life, breeding camels
and rearing sheep. Near almost every village in the Wady, outside
the palm-grove, in the bare naked bottom of the valley, these poor
people form a sort of suburb of frail huts; but nevertheless they keep
up family ties with their brethren near Chát, and respect in some
degree the authority of the chief Nakhnúkhen. That this state of
things might become very unfavourable to Fezzán in an outbreak of
hostilities between the Turks and the Tuarek, is obvious; I shall have
occasion to say more on this subject further on. A belt of saline
incrustation, of more than half a mile in breadth, runs through the
middle of the valley, forming a line of demarcation between the
separate palm-groups and the continuous grove.
On reaching this grove we soon caught sight of the famous village
Ugréfe, the residence of our camel-drivers, which was to them the
grand point of attraction, and in truth the only cause of our taking this
westerly route. It consisted of about thirty light and low dwellings
made of clay and palm-branches, and lay near an open space where
we were desired to encamp: but longing for shade, we went a little
further on, and encamped near two splendid ethel-trees (Tamarix
orientalis), the largest I ever saw before I reached Égeri. When the
camels came up and the tents were pitched, the encampment
proved most agreeable.
Early next morning I was again in motion, roving over the

plantation, and was very much pleased with its general character.
The corn, which was a fine crop, was just ripe and about to be
harvested; and close to our camping-ground two negro slaves were
employed in cutting it, while three or four negresses carried it away
to the stores. The negroes were powerful young fellows; the women
were rather ugly, excepting one, who had a very handsome figure,
and by coquettish demeanour tried to make herself more attractive.
All of them accompanied their work with singing and wanton
movements, and gave distinct manifestations of the customs of this
district, which is notorious for the familiarity of its female inhabitants
with the large caravans of pilgrims who annually pass through the
Wady on their way to or from Mekka. The fields are watered from
large holes or wells, which are sunk through layers of variegated
marl.
Being anxious to visit Old Jerma, and to convince myself of its
identity with the Garama of the Romans, I hired a miserable little
donkey, and, accompanied by the stupid young son of Sbaeda, set
out on an exploring expedition into the eastern part of the valley.
Keeping in general along the southern border of the plantation, and
having on my right the precipitous rocky cliff, of from 300 to 400 feet
elevation, I went on slowly till I reached the south-west corner of
Jerma kadím, fortified with a quadrangular tower built of clay, and
exhibiting a very curious arrangement in its interior. The whole
circumference of the town, which was deserted long ago, is about
5,000 paces. Here, near the town, there are no Roman ruins
whatever, but the remains of several large and strong towers built of
clay are to be seen a little further on; and being unable to make out
the sepulchre described by Dr. Oudney, I was obliged to go to
Tawásh, the village inhabited by the Merabetín. It is divided into
three distinct parts, a Tarki village, consisting of huts of palm-
branches, an outer suburb of scattered dwellings built of clay, and a
small quadrangular place of very regular shape, surrounded by
earthen walls, and furnished with two gates, one on the east, and the
other on the west side, and regular streets crossing at right angles.
Having here obtained a guide from Háj Mohammed Sʿaídi, a wealthy
man and the owner of almost all our camels, I started for the Roman
monument, situated in a wide opening of the southern recess. I
found it in tolerably good preservation, and without delay made a
sketch of it, as it seemed to me to be an object of special interest as
the southernmost relic of the Roman dominion. It is a remarkable
fact, that several years before the beginning of our era the Romans
should have penetrated as far as this place; and that their dominion
here was not of a merely transitory nature, this monument seems
clearly to show. It is only one story high, and seems never to have
been loftier. This is evidently characteristic of the age in which it was
built; and I am persuaded that it is not later than the time of
Augustus. Those high steeple-tombs which I have described above,
seem not to have come into fashion before the middle of the second
century after Christ. The base measures 7 ft. 9½ in. on the west and
east sides, and at least 7 ft. 4 in. on the other two sides, including a
spacious sepulchral chamber or burial-room; but while the base
forms almost a quadrangle, the sides of the principal structure are of
very different dimensions, measuring not more than 5 ft. 8½ in. on
the north and south, and 7 ft. on the west and east sides. It is
adorned with pilasters of the Corinthian order. The whole monument
is covered with Tefínagh or Berber writing, which was not only
intelligible to me, but also to our young camel-driver ʿAli Carámra,
whose family lives in this part of the wady, in a homely little dwelling
of palm-leaves. However, as the writing was very careless, and my
time was fully taken up with sketching the more important subjects, I
did not copy the inscriptions, which indeed are only names; but of
course even names might contribute something towards elucidating
the history of the country.
By a direct path I returned from this place to our encampment, and
felt rather fatigued, having been in motion during all the heat of the
day. The south wind still increased in the evening; and we could
distinctly see that it was raining towards the longed-for region
whither we were going, while we had nothing from it but clouds of
sand. Overweg, meanwhile, had ascended in the morning the
highest cliff of the sandstone rocks forming the southern border of
the valley, and had found it to be 1,605 feet high or 413 feet above
the ground at our encampment.
Having heard, the day before, in the village of Merabetín, that Háj
Mohammed, the owner of our camels, ordered the boy who was with
me to tell Sbaeda, his father, that they should not start before this
evening, I was not surprised at our camel-drivers not bringing the
camels in the morning. It was almost four o’clock in the afternoon
when Overweg and I at length pushed on, entering the extensive
grove of New Jerma,—a miserable place, which being entirely shut
in by the palm-grove, is almost deserted. The grove, however,
exhibited a very interesting aspect, all the trees being furnished with
a thick cluster of palm-bush at their roots, while the old dry leaves
were left hanging down underneath the young fresh crown, and even
lower down the stem, not being cut off so short as is customary near
the coast. But picturesque as the state of the trees was, it did not
argue much in favour of the industry of the inhabitants; for it is well
known to Eastern travellers that the palm-tree is most picturesque in
its wildest state. Beyond the town the grove becomes thinner, and
the ethel-tree predominates over the palm-tree; but there is much
palm-bush.
We entered another grove, which stretches far northward into the
valley, its produce being, according to our camel-drivers, entirely
reserved for the poor. Having passed Tawásh, with its little grove, we
entered the fine plantation of Brék, enlivened by the bleating of
sheep and goats. Here, in the small fields where corn is cultivated,
the ground is thickly encrusted with salt and soda. We at length
encamped near the grove of Tewíwa, close to the village of the same
name, and to the north side of the Merábet Sidi eʾ Salám.
The next morning, while the camels were loading, I visited the
interior of the village. The walls have given way in several places,
and the whole made the impression of a half-deserted place; but the
little kasbah, which is never wanting in any of these towns, was in
tolerable condition. One of the inhabitants, on being asked why the
village was so much decayed, told me that a torrent had destroyed a
great portion of it nine years ago, in consequence of which the
greater part of its population had dispersed abroad, only about
twenty families now remaining. But this is the condition of nearly all
the places in Fezzán; and it can be partially accounted for only by
supposing that many of the male inhabitants go off to Negroland, to
avoid being made soldiers. A very extensive grove belongs to
Tewíwa; but the plain between the village and the rocks is rather
open, only a few patches of corn-field being scattered thereabouts.
Three vast and detached buttresses, which jut out from the cliffs into
the plain, give a very picturesque appearance to the groves and
villages which we passed on our route. We were just proceeding in
the best manner, when a halt was ordered, from very insufficient
reasons, a little south from the village Tekertíba, where we were to
pass the heat. Meanwhile I ascended a ridge of rocks which, a little
further down, crossed the valley from the southern border. The ridge
was a narrow, steep, wall-like cliff, which afforded a very interesting
view of the end, or rather beginning, of the fertile Wady, which was
close at hand.
From the highest point of the ridge I descended northwards,
crossing a small defile, which is formed between the two rocky
buttresses to the north and south, the latter being the more
considerable. Along it runs a path, connecting the two valleys. Here I
obtained a view of the fresh green valley on the one side, and the
destructive sand-hills on the other, and directed my steps to the
plantation, where young people were busily engaged in drawing
water from the large pond-like wells. The beams, by means of which
the water is drawn up, require to be strongly constructed, the whole
of the khattár having the height of from sixty to eighty feet. These
draw-wells are always placed in pairs; and a couple of miserable
asses, partners in suffering, do all the work. The young male
labourers all wore straw hats, and had an energetic appearance.
The northern border of the plantation is now menaced by the
approach of the sand-hills, which have already overwhelmed the last
range of palm-trees. There is a curious tradition in Tekertíba, that
from the highest peak of the cliffs bordering the valley on the south
side, a rivulet or brook, issuing from a spring, runs down into the
valley underground. There were, it is related, originally several
canals or stream-works leading down to this subterranean aqueduct;
but they have been all filled up. The village itself, on the south border
of the plantation, is tolerably large, but is inhabited by only forty
families at the utmost, though it is the most populous place in the
valley next to Ubári.
By the exertion of much energy, I at length succeeded in the
afternoon in getting our little caravan again under way; and we left
the Great Wady through the defile, which appears to have been once
defended by walls, and, having crossed some irregular depressed
plains, encamped at seven o’clock in the evening in a wady with a
moderate supply of herbage. Starting on the following morning, at an
early hour, we soon emerged into a more open level, beautifully
adorned with fine talha-trees, and having with difficulty dragged on
our camel-drivers, who shortly afterwards wanted to encamp in
Wady Resán, we entered a dreary wilderness, from which we did not
emerge till we arrived at the plantation of Aghár, where we
encamped.
All the people were eager to reach to-day the first great station of
our journey; but owing to the straying of some of the camels, we
were unable to start quite as early as we wished. The country in
general was very sterile, presenting only a few small date-groves,
which we passed at greater or less distance, and at length, when we
reached the plantation of Múrzuk itself, we were far from finding in it
that picturesque and refreshing character which we had admired in
the palm-groves of the Wady. These had formed a dense beautiful
shade and fine groups; while the plantation of Múrzuk was scattered
about in thin growth, so that it was scarcely possible to determine
exactly where it began or where it ended. Thus we reached the wall
of the town, built of a sort of clay glittering with saline incrustations;
and going round the whole western and northern sides, which have
no gate wide enough for a caravan, we halted on the eastern side of
the town, not far from the camp of the pilgrims who were returning
from Egypt to Marocco and Tawát, till Mr. Gagliuffi came out of the
town, and brought us in. Mr. Richardson had arrived about an hour
before us. I was lodged in a cool and airy room on the north-east
corner of Mr. Gagliuffi’s house, which had within the court a very
pleasant half-covered hall. Mr. Gagliuffi treated us with all possible
hospitality, and did all in his power to render our stay in the town
agreeable.
MURZUK.
CHAPTER VII.
RESIDENCE IN MURZUK.
Unfortunately our stay in Múrzuk seemed likely to become a very

long one, as the chiefs from Ghát, who were to take us under their
protection, were not yet sent for; the courier with our letters, to which
was added a missive from the acting governor, promising perfect
security to the chiefs, did not set out till the 8th of May. No doubt, in
order to visit Aïr, a country never before trodden by European foot,
with any degree of safety, we wanted some powerful protection; but
it was very questionable whether any of the chiefs of Ghát could
afford us such, while the sending for them expressly to come to
Múrzuk to fetch us would, of course, raise their pretensions very
high, and in the same degree those of other chiefs whose territory
we should enter hereafter. Be this as it may, this mode of procedure
having been once adopted, the question arose, whether all three of
us should proceed to Ghát; and it was decided, the very next day
after our arrival, that the director of the expedition alone (Mr.
Richardson) should touch at that place, in order to make, if possible,
a treaty with the chiefs in that quarter, while Mr. Overweg and I were
to proceed with the caravan by the southern route directly to the well
Arikím, and there to await Mr. Richardson.
Providentially, a man had been sent to act as mediator between us
and the countries to which we were about to direct our steps. He had
been recommended to us in the very strongest terms by Hassan
Bashá, the former governor of Fezzán, whom we had frequently
seen in Tripoli, and who knew something about the men of influence
and authority in Negroland. This man was Mohammed Bóro, who,
with the title Serki-n-turáwa, “Lord of the Whites,” resided generally
in Ágades, but had also a house and many connections in Sókoto,
and at present was on his home-journey from a pilgrimage to Mekka.
Mohammed Bóro called upon us on the 8th of May at Gagliuffi’s
house. He was an elderly, respectable-looking man, wearing a green
bernús over white under-clothes. He could speak but little Arabic, but
received Mr. Gagliuffi’s empty and rather ironical assurances, that
the whole welfare and success of the expedition were placed in his
(Mohammed Bóro’s) hands, with a continual strain of “el hamdu
lilláhi”s. In his company were his eldest son and another man of
Asben. He afterwards sent us some gúro, or kola-nuts, of which he
seemed to have a great stock, and which he also sold in the market.
Gagliuffi sent him, as an acknowledgment, a very lean sheep, which,
with a small loaf of sugar, was all he got from us in Múrzuk. Instead
of gaining his friendship, this treatment served only to irritate him,
and was productive of some very bad consequences for us. This
interesting person will appear in his true character and importance in
the course of this narrative.
The appearance of Múrzuk is rather picturesque; but its extreme
aridity is felt at once; and this feeling grows stronger on a prolonged
residence. Even in the plantation which surrounds it there are only a
few favoured spots where, under the protection of a deeper shade of
the date-trees, a few fruit-trees can be cultivated, such as
pomegranates, figs, and peaches. Culinary vegetables, including
onions, are extremely scarce; milk, except a little from the goats, is
of course quite out of the question.
The town lies in a flat hollow, “Hófrah,” which is the appropriate
native name of the district, but nevertheless at the considerable
elevation of 1,495 ft., surrounded by ridges of sand; and in this
hollow lies scattered the plantation, without the least symmetry of
arrangement or mark of order. In some places it forms a long narrow
strip extending to a great distance, in others a detached grove, while
on the south-east side of the town the desert approaches close to
the walls in a deep inlet. Towards the east a little grove apart forms
as it were an advanced post. The densest and finest part of the
grove is towards the north, where also are the greatest number of
gardens and fields in which wheat, barley, gédheb (or rather
kédheb), and a few vegetables, are cultivated with much labour. In
the same quarter also the greatest number of cottages are to be
found, including huts (large and small) made of palm-branches,—the
former consisting of several apartments and a small courtyard, the
latter having generally only one room of very narrow dimensions.
In the midst of this plantation lies Múrzuk. It is situated so as not to
face the cardinal points, but with a deviation from them of thirty
degrees, the north side running N. 30° E., S. 30° W., and so on: it is
less than two miles in circumference. The walls, built of clay with
round and pointed bastions, but partly in bad repair, have, two gates,
the largest on the east, and the other on the west side. There is only
a very small gate on the north side, and there is none towards the
south. This quarter of the town has been greatly contracted by ʿAbd
el Jelíl, as the remains of the old wall of the time of Mukni clearly
show; but the town is still much too large for its scanty population,
which is said now to amount to 2,800, and the greatest part of it,
especially in the quarters most distant from the bazar, is thinly
inhabited and half in ruins. The characteristic feature of the town,
which shows that it has more points of relation with Negroland than
with the lands of the Arabs, is the spacious road or “dendal”
stretching out from the eastern gate as far as the castle, and making
the principal part of the town more airy, but also infinitely more
exposed to the heat.
The bazar, of course, is the most frequented part of the town. It
lies nearly halfway between the east and west gates, but a little
nearer to the former, and affords, with its halls of palm-stems, a very
comfortable place for the sellers and buyers. The watch-house at the
east end of the bazar, and almost opposite Mr. Gagliuffi’s house
(from the terrace of which a view was taken), is ornamented with a
portico of six columns; which adds to the neat appearance of this
quarter of the town. The kásbah is the same as in Captain Lyon’s
time, with its immense walls and small apartments; but the outer
court has been much improved by the building of a barrack or
kishlah, which now forms its northern portion. It is a large
quadrangular building, with a spacious esplanade in the interior,
around which are arranged the principal apartments. The building is
said to be capable of containing two thousand men, though at
present there are but four hundred in the garrison, who are well
lodged and fed.
The accompanying sketch of a ground-plan will give a tolerably
exact idea of the whole character of the town.
1, Custom-house; 2, Guard-house; 3, Watch-house; 4, Mr. Gagluiuffi’s house; 5,

Garden; 6, House of the agent of Bórnu; 7, Mosque; 8, First courtyard of kásbah;
9, Kishlah; 10, Staircase leading to the upper apartments.
With regard to commerce, the condition of Múrzuk is very different

from that of Ghadámes. The latter is the residence of wealthy
merchants, who embark all their capital in commercial enterprises,
and bring home their own merchandise. But Múrzuk is rather the
thoroughfare than the seat of a considerable commerce, the whole
annual value of imports and exports amounting, in a round sum, to
100,000 Spanish dollars; and the place, therefore, is usually in great
want of money, the foreign merchants, when they have sold their
merchandise, carrying away its price in specie,—the Mejábera to
Jálo, the Tébu to Bílma and Bórnu, the people of Tawát and
Ghadámes to their respective homes. Few of the principal merchants
of Múrzuk are natives of the place. The western or Sudán route is
more favourable to commerce than the route to Bórnu. On the latter
the Tuarek are always ready to furnish any number of camels to
carry merchandise, and to guarantee their safety, while the road to
Bórnu, which is the nearest for Múrzuk, is in such a precarious state,
that the merchant who selects it must convey his merchandise on his
own camels and at his own risk. As for the routes through Fezzán,
the Hotmán, the Zwáya, and the Megésha are the general carriers of
the merchandise; while, on the route to Sudán, the conveyance at
present is wholly in the hands of the Tinýlkum.
As soon as Gagliuffi learned distinctly the plan of our expedition,
he made an agreement with these people to take our things as far as
Selúfiet; and they were anxious to be off. After much procrastination,
they fixed upon the 6th of June for taking away the merchandise with
which we had been provided here. We were to follow on the 12th;
but the luggage not being ready at an early hour, our final departure
was fixed for the 13th.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE DESERT.—TASÁWA.—EXACTIONS OF THE
ESCORT.—DELAY AT ELÁWEN.
Accompanied by Mr. Gagliuffi, the Greek doctor, and the Bin-

básha, we left Múrzuk by the western gate. My parting from Mr.
Gagliuffi was cordial. He had received us and treated us hospitably,
and had shown an earnest desire to further our proceedings, and to
secure if possible the success of our expedition; and, if in his
commercial transactions with the mission he did not neglect his own
advantage, we could not complain, though it would have been
infinitely better for us if we had been provided with a more useful sort
of merchandise.
In leaving the town we kept, in general, along the same path by
which we had first entered it, and encamped during the hot hours of
the day in the scanty shade afforded by the trees of Zerghán, the
well close by affording us delicious draughts of cool water, not at all
of that brackish insipid taste which is common to the water of
Fezzán. We had started in the belief that we should find our luggage
in Óm el hammám; but in this place we learned from the poor ragged
people who come occasionally hither to take care of the trees, that it
was gone on to Tigger-urtín. Not knowing, however, the road to the
latter place, we took the path to Óm el hammám, and encamped
about seven o’clock in the afternoon a little north of it.
Om el hammám is a half-decayed and deserted village, built of
clay, which is strongly incrusted with salt, the inhabitants at present
living entirely in huts made of palm-branches. The plantation being
intermixed with a large number of ethel-trees (Tamarix orientalis),
and interspersed with gardens, exhibited a more varied aspect than
is generally the case with these groves; and having pitched our tent
near a large ethel-bush, we felt very comfortable, especially as we
had the good luck to obtain a few eggs, which, fried with plenty of
onions, made a very palatable supper.
Next morning we directed our course to Tigger-urtín, making
almost a right angle towards the north, and crossing a desolate plain
incrusted with salt, after we had left the fine plantation of Óm el
hammám. Having reached the village of our camel-drivers, which
consists entirely of huts of palm-branches, we looked long in vain for
a tolerable camping-ground, as the strong wind filled the whole air
with sand. At length we pitched our tents a few paces south from the
well. It was an extremely sultry and oppressive day, and the wind
anything but refreshing. In the afternoon we went to pay our
compliments to Mohammed Bóro, who had left Múrzuk several days
before us. He informed us that he had consumed all his provisions,
and that he would have left to-day for Tasáwa, in order to replenish
his stores, if he had not seen us coming. We consoled him with the
intimation that we hoped our whole party would be soon ready for
starting, and sent him a quantity of dates and corn. The next day I
went roving through the valley, which a little further to the north-west
was much prettier, and had several fine clusters of palm-trees; but
the most picturesque object was the old village, built of clay, now
entirely in decay, but surrounded by a dense group of fine date-trees.
Subjoined is a sketch of it.
At the south-west end of the grove also is a little village, likewise
deserted. Here I met a Felláta or Pullo slave, a full-grown man, who,
when a young lad, had been carried away from his native home,
somewhere about Kazaure, and since then had been moiling and
toiling here in this half-deserted valley, which had become his
second home. He told me that fever had driven away the old
inhabitants of the village long ago, after which the Tinýlkum seem to
have taken entire possession of it, though it is remarkable that its
name seems rather to belong to the Berber language, its original
form being Tigger-odén (ŏdē means the valley), which has been
changed into the more general form Tigger-urtín. The whole valley,
which makes a turn towards the south-west, is full of ethel-bush, and
affords shelter to a number of doves. Groups of palm-trees are
scattered about.
In the morning I took a walk round the village of the Tinýlkum,
which exhibited some lively and interesting scenes. All the men were
saying their prayers together upon a sand-hill on the north side of the
principal cluster of cottages, while the women were busy in getting
ready the provisions for the long journey about to be undertaken by
their husbands, and the children were playing among them. About
fifty or sixty huts were lying hereabouts, most of them formed into
groups; others more detached. Some of them had pointed roofs,
while others were flat-roofed; but all of them had a neat and orderly
appearance. Besides camels, which constitute their principal wealth,
as by means of them they are enabled to undertake those long
annual journeys to Sudán, they possess a good many sheep. Two of
our camel-drivers, Ibrahím and Slimán, whom I shall have occasion
to mention repeatedly, together with their mother and sister, were in
possession of a flock of about two hundred head, which they were
sending to the fine pasture-grounds of Terhén in Wady Berjúsh.
Besides the latter valley, the Tinýlkum also use the valley Táderart
as their chief pasture-grounds.
On the east-north-east side of the village rose a hill about one
hundred feet high, and affording a fine view over the valley-plain.
From its highest summit, where a niche for prayers has been laid out
with stones on the ground, it stretches from east to west, and forms
a kind of separation in the flat valley, limiting the ethel-tree to its
western part, all the sand-hills in the eastern prolongation being
covered with palm-bushes, which, from a distance, have the
appearance of a thick grove. Descending from this hill northwards, I
came to the handsomely decorated sepulchre of Háj Sálemi, the
brother of the sheikh, who resides in Múrzuk, and further on met a
party of Tinýlkum en route for the wady, where numbers of them are
residing. Another division dwells about Sebhha; but the whole body
of the tribe comprises from 350 to 400 families, which are united by
the closest bonds, and act as one body—“like meal” (to use their
own expression) “falling through the numerous holes of a sieve into
one pot.” About noon arrived the pilgrim-caravan of the Tawáti, which
had been long encamped near Múrzuk, on their way home; it had
been this year only 114 persons strong, with 70 muskets, while
sometimes it musters as many as 500 persons. Their chief, or sheikh
el rákeb, was an intelligent person of the name of ʿAbd el Káder, a
native of Timímun, who had been leader of the caravan several
times. They encamped at no great distance from us on the open
ground.
Being obliged to buy another camel for myself (in order to be able
to mount our servant Mohammed el Túnsi on a camel of our own,
the Tinýlkum being very particular about their beasts, and not liking
to see a man often mounting them), I bought, in the afternoon, a fine
tall méheri from Háj Mohammed, for 69 Fezzán riyals or 55 Spanish
dollars. I made a longer excursion along the eastern part of the
wady, which here, where it is lower and collects more humidity, is
adorned with some beautiful wild groups of palm-trees left quite to
themselves; the valley extends towards Wady Ghodwa, which it
joins. Keeping on in that direction, I came to a poor hamlet called
Márhhaba inhabited by a few families, who bitterly complained of
their poverty. Here was formerly a village built of clay, and a large
spacious castle about sixty-five paces square. All is now deserted;
and only a small part of the available ground is under culture,
forming about six or seven small fields. The same picture is met with
all over Fezzán, where the only places exhibiting to the eye some
degree of life and prosperity are Sokna and Múrzuk. The population
of this wide expanse of country falls short of even sixty thousand
souls.
The heat of the day had already set in, when I returned to the
tents, where I was extremely rejoiced to see the different members
of our caravan collecting at last, so as to afford a fair prospect of our
soon setting out for unknown and more interesting regions. There
had arrived Mohammed el Sfaksi, a man with whom Mr. Gagliuffi had
entered into a sort of partnership for a commercial journey to
Negroland, and whom he had supplied with a tolerable amount of
merchandise; and in the afternoon came the boat. The following day
Yusuf Mukni, Mr. Richardson’s interpreter, came with the rest of the
luggage, so that gradually everything fell into its right place, and
nothing was now wanting but the Tuarek chiefs to set our whole
body in regular motion. We therefore procured a load of dates from
Aghár, and, getting everything ready, roused our spirits for the
contemplation of novelties and the encountering of difficulties; for the
latter could certainly not be wanting where the former were at hand.
June 19.—While the greater part of the caravan took the direct
road to the well Sháraba, Mr. Overweg and I, with the remainder,
chose the road to Tessáwa, or rather, more accurately, Tasáwa; but
though our party formed but a small body of people, yet it presented
a very animated spectacle. The lazy Arab mode of letting the camels
go singly, as they like, straggling about right and left, strains and
fatigues the traveller’s attention; but his mind is stimulated and
nerved to the contemplation of great distances to be traversed when
he sees a long line of camels attached one to the other, and led by a
man at a steady pace without any halt or interruption. As for myself,
riding my own méheri, I was quite at liberty to go before or fall
behind, just as the circumstances of the road called for observation,
or presented something worthy of attention.
Having passed some tolerably deep sand-hills accumulated in the
wady, we obtained a sight of an advanced spur of the plantation of
Aghár to our left, when the ground became firm, and the country
more open. Then, keeping along the southern border of the principal
plantation, we passed the village and our former camping-ground,
and having left further on some deserted villages and a few
scattered huts of palm-leaves, still inhabited, a little on one side,
about noon we again entered a sandy region with a few detached
palm-groups. Here I observed a specimen of a very rare sort of
bifurcated or divided palm-tree (not the dúm, which is generally so),
with two distinct tufts hanging down on the opposite sides: this is the
only specimen I ever saw. We then passed the village of Tasáwa,
which, with its clay walls and towers, looks much more considerable
from afar than it appears when viewed from among the deserted
houses within it; still it is one of the more wealthy and important
places in the country. A little beyond it we encamped on the open
sandy ground, when, as our small tent had by mistake gone on in
advance, and our large tent was too bulky to be pitched for one
night’s rest, we contrived a very tolerable airy shade with our
carpets.
We had scarcely made ourselves comfortable, when we received
the joyful news that Hatíta, with two sons of Sháfo, had just arrived
from Ghát, and were about to call on us. Their arrival of course had
now become a matter of the utmost importance, as Mr. Richardson
had made his mind up not to start without them, though it might have
been clear, to every one well acquainted with the state of things in
the interior, that their protection could not be the least guarantee for
our favourable reception and success in the country of Aïr or Asben,
inhabited and governed by an entirely distinct tribe. And, on the other
hand, the arrival of these chiefs made our relation to Mohammed
Bóro extremely disagreeable, for, after waiting so long for us, he now
clearly saw that Mr. Gagliuffi, in declaring that we relied entirely on
him for our success, while we were in fact placing ourselves wholly
at the disposal of the chiefs of Ghát, was only trifling with him. He
therefore flew into a violent passion, threatening openly before the
people that he would take care that we should be attacked on the
road by his countrymen; and these were not empty threats.
After a hot day followed a very fine evening, with a beautifully clear
moonlight; and cherishing the fervent hope that, with the assistance
of the Almighty, I should succeed in my dangerous undertaking, I lay
down in the open encampment, and listened with hearty sympathy to
the fervent prayers of the Tinýlkum, which in melodious cadence,
and accompanied with the sound há, há, sometimes in a voice of
thunder, at others in a melancholy unearthly plaint, were well
adapted to make a deep impression upon the mind, the tall palm-
trees forming majestic groups, and giving a fanciful character to the
landscape in the calm moonlight.
It is a remarkable fact that, while the Mohammedan religion in
general is manifestly sinking to corruption along the coast, there are
ascetic sects rising up in the interior which unite its last zealous
followers by a religious band. The particular sect to which belong the
Tinýlkum, who in general are Máleki, has been founded by
Mohammed el Médani, who established a sort of convent or oratory
(zawíya) near Masráta, and endowed it with a certain extent of
landed property, from the produce of which he fed many pilgrims.
The best feature of this creed is the abolition of the veneration of
dead saints, which has sullied in so high a degree the purity of Islám.
Mohammed el Médani is said to have died a short time ago; but his
son continues the pious establishment. It is a sort of freemasonry,
and promises to make a great many proselytes. In Tasáwa also
reside a few Tinýlkum, who, however, have been intimately
intermixed with the Arabs, while the others in general keep their
blood pure, and do not intermarry with the people of Fezzán.
Having assured ourselves that, owing to the arrival of the Tuarek
chiefs, we should have to make some stay here, we determined to
pitch our large tent early the next morning, while the chiefs had a
long dispute with Mohammed eʾ Sfaksi, the subject of which I must
relate, as it throws some light on the history and the present state of
this country. The northern Tuarek, when they occupied the country
round Ghát, established a sort of tribute, or gheráma, to be paid by
merchants passing through their territory, and on payment of which
the trader should be no further molested, but enjoy full protection. At
that time the Masráta—a section of a very powerful Berber tribe—
had made, as we shall see, a colonial settlement in Ágades, and,
owing to their great power, commercial activity, and near connection

Ebook The Simpler Way Collected Writings of Ted Trainer 1St Edition Samuel Alexander Online PDF All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Ebook The Simpler Way Collected Writings of Ted Trainer 1St Edition Samuel Alexander Online PDF All Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Ebook The Simpler Way Collected Writings of Ted Trainer 1St Edition Samuel Alexander Online PDF All Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

The Simpler Way Collected Writings of

Ted Trainer 1st Edition Samuel

K Punk The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark

Grey 1st Edition Samuel Alexander

A Filthy Way to Die Collected Memories of the Vietnam

Disputing the Deluge Collected 21st Century Writings on

A Maturing Market The Iberian Book World in the First

Carbon Civilisation and the Energy Descent Future Life

The Art of Us Kl Hughes Ted Hughes

The internet of things Samuel Greengard

Edited by Samuel Alexander and Jonathan Rutherford

Copyright © 2020 Ted Trainer

Editors’ introduction iii

PART ONE: Overview 1

PART TWO: The global predicament 13

PART THREE: Mistaken solutions 185

PART FIVE: The Simpler Way transition strategy 315

PART SIX: Challenging questions 385

In the decade we’ve known him, and as editors of this volume, we

The Simpler Way is an ‘eco-anarchist’ vision of a world where self-gov-

that there is so much interesting and important work to be done in his

Importantly, Ted’s message is not just critical or negative. Much of his

now in the cities, towns and neighbourhoods where we live. In this

But readers beware! Against the grain of a post-modern and cynical

In this monumental task, he offers strong strategic proposals for ac-

We also note that there is some deliberate repetition of issues in plac-

The arrangement of this anthology has been organised as follows. Part

Samuel Alexander and Jonathan Rutherford

December 2019, Melbourne, Australia

We cannot solve the alarming global problems confronting humanity

There is a workable and attractive alternative society, the Simpler Way,

For instance, the ‘Ecological Footprint’ analysis indicates that the

do, approximately 65 billion ha of productive land would be required.

These simple figures clearly demonstrate the impossibility of all people

1.1. Now add the absurd commitment to economic growth

Consider the implications. If we assume a) a 3% p.a. economic growth,

– in that scenario, the total volume of world economic output would be

So even though the present levels of production and consumption are

1.2 But what about technical advance?

When confronted by global sustainability problems most people just

The core ‘tech-fix’ faith is that resource demand and environmental

1.3 Global problems should be seen in terms of ‘limits to

The ‘limits to growth’ perspective (Meadows et al., 1972) is essential

world resources. Our per capita consumption of items such as petro-

This grotesque injustice is primarily due to the kind of economy we

Even when transnational corporations do invest, wages can be 15–20

For most Third World people the effects of ‘neoliberal’ globalisation,

These are the reasons why conventional development can be regarded

Similar effects occur in rich countries, where the economic system we

2.1 Conclusions on our situation

These considerations of sustainability and global economic justice show

society. There is no possibility of having an ecologically sustainable, just,

3. The Simpler Way alternative

• Far simpler material living standards, which does not mean

Key elements within the Simpler Way include:

Simple traditional alternative technologies will be quite sufficient for

Because we will be highly dependent on our local ecosystems and on

The crucial importance of integration of functions and systems must