1.
Autonomous building
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Advocates of autonomous building describe advantages that include reduced environmental impacts, increased security, and lower costs of ownership. Some cited advantages satisfy tenets of green building, not independence per se, Off-grid buildings often rely very little on civil services and are therefore safer and more comfortable during civil disaster or military attacks. Most of the research and published articles concerning autonomous building focus on residential homes. These houses can be built now and it is possible to build a house with no bills for the same price as a conventional house, but it would be smaller. In the 1970s, a group of activists and engineers calling themselves the New Alchemists believed the warnings of imminent resource depletion and starvation, the New Alchemists were famous for the depth of research effort placed in their projects. Using conventional construction techniques, they designed a series of bioshelter projects and they published the plans for all of these, with detailed design calculations and blueprints. The Ark used wind based water pumping and electricity, and was self-contained in food production, as of January 2010, the successor organization to the New Alchemists has a web page up as the New Alchemy Institute. The PEI Ark has been abandoned and partially renovated several times, the 1990s saw the development of Earthships, similar in intent to the Ark project, but organized as a for-profit venture, with construction details published in a series of 3 books by Mike Reynolds. The building material is filled with earth. This makes a wall that has large amounts of thermal mass, berms are placed on exposed surfaces to further increase the houses temperature stability. The water system starts with water, processed for drinking, then washing, then plant watering, then toilet flushing. The cisterns are placed and used as thermal masses, Power, including electricity, heat and water heating, is from solar power. One major bank building in the Netherlands was constructed to be autonomous, as an architect or engineer becomes more concerned with the disadvantages of transportation networks, and dependence on distant resources, their designs tend to include more autonomous elements. The historic path to autonomy was a concern for secure sources of heat, power, water, a nearly parallel path toward autonomy has been to start with a concern for environmental impacts, which cause disadvantages. Autonomous buildings can increase security and reduce environmental impacts by using resources that would otherwise be wasted. Autonomy often dramatically reduces the costs and impacts of networks that serve the building, other impacted resources, such as oil reserves and the retention of the local watershed, can often be cheaply conserved by thoughtful designs. Autonomous buildings are usually energy-efficient in operation, and therefore cost-efficient, but they may substitute energy production or other techniques to avoid diminishing returns in extreme conservation. An autonomous structure is not always environmentally friendly, the goal of independence from support systems is associated with, but not identical to, other goals of environmentally responsible green building. First and fundamentally, independence is a matter of degree, living within an autonomous shelter may also require that party to make sacrifices with lifestyle choices, personal behavior, and social expectations to name a few
2.
Commodity fetishism
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As such, commodity fetishism transforms the subjective, abstract aspects of economic value into objective, real things that people believe have intrinsic value. Therefore, the exchange of commodities obscures the true economic character of the human relations of production. It is nothing but the social relation between men themselves which assumes here, for them, the fantastic form of a relation between things. In order, therefore, to find an analogy we must take flight into the misty realm of religion. There the products of the human brain appear as autonomous figures endowed with a life of their own, so it is in the world of commodities with the products of mens hands. I call this the fetishism which attaches itself to the products of labour as soon as they are produced as commodities, marx borrowed the concept of fetishism from The Cult of Fetish Gods by Charles de Brosses, which proposed a materialist theory of the origin of religion. Marxs first mention of fetishism appeared in 1842, in his response to an article by Karl Heinrich Hermes. Hermes agreed with the German philosopher Hegel in regarding fetishism as the crudest form of religion, marx dismissed that argument, and Hermess definition of religion as that which elevates man above sensuous appetites. Therefore, the appetite of the fetish worshipper smashes the fetish when it ceases to be of service. Because their social co-existence, and its meaning, is expressed through market exchange, therefore, social relations are continually mediated and expressed with objects. In a capitalist society, the perception that the market is an independent, sentient entity, is how buyers, sellers. The work contract is the mask that obscures the economic exploitation of the difference between the paid for the labour of the worker, and the new value created by the labour of the worker. The buyers and the sellers determine and establish the economic and financial relationships, and afterwards compare the prices in, in History and Class Consciousness, György Lukács started from the theory of commodity fetishism for his development of reification as the principal obstacle to class consciousness. The economist Michael Perelman critically examined the systems from which arose intellectual property rights. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis critically reviewed the belief systems of the theory of human capital, knowledge, as the philosophic means to a better life, is contrasted with capitalist knowledge, produced to generate income and profit. Such commodification detaches knowledge and information from the person, because, as property, they are independent. The sociologists Frank Furedi and Ulrich Beck studied the development of commodified types of knowledge in the culture of risk prevention in the management of money. Hence, the fetishization of financial risk as a sum of money is a reification that distorts the perception of the true nature of financial risk
3.
Consumerism
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Consumerism is a social and economic order and ideology that encourages the acquisition of goods and services in ever-increasing amounts. In economics, consumerism may refer to policies which emphasise consumption. In this sense, consumerism expresses the idea not of one man, one voice, but of one dollar, one voice, the term consumerism has several definitions. These definitions may not be related to other and confusingly. One sense of the term relates to efforts to support consumers interests, by the early 1970s it had become the accepted term for the field and began to be used in these ways, Consumerism is the concept that consumers should be informed decision makers in the marketplace. Practices such as product testing make consumers informed, Consumerism is the concept that the marketplace itself is responsible for ensuring social justice through fair economic practices. Consumer protection policies and laws compel manufacturers to make products safe, Consumerism refers to the field of studying, regulating, or interacting with the marketplace. The consumer movement is the movement which refers to all actions. While the above definitions were becoming established, other people using the term consumerism to mean high levels of consumption. This definition has gained popularity since the 1970s and began to be used in ways, Consumerism is the selfish and frivolous collecting of products. In protest against this, some people promote anti-consumerism and advocate simple living, Consumerism is a force from the marketplace which destroys individuality and harms society. It is related to globalization and in protest against this some people promote the anti-globalization movement, vance Packard worked to change the meaning of the term consumerism from a positive word about consumer practices to a negative word meaning excessive materialism and waste. The ads for his 1960 book The Waste Makers prominently featured the word consumerism in a negative way, the consumer society emerged in the late seventeenth century and intensified throughout the eighteenth century. This included sugar, tobacco, tea and coffee, these were grown on vast plantations in the Caribbean as demand steadily rose. In particular, sugar consumption in Britain during the course of the 18th century increased by a factor of 20, critics argue that colonialism was indeed a driver of consumerism, but they would place the emphasis on the supply rather than the demand as the motivating factor. An increasing mass of exotic imports as well as domestic manufactures had to be consumed by the number of people who had been consuming far less than was becoming necessary. That idea was produced later, more or less strategically in order to intensify consumption domestically, marketplaces expanded as shopping centres, such as the New Exchange, opened in 1609 by Robert Cecil in the Strand. Shops started to become important as places for Londoners to meet and socialise, restoration London also saw the growth of luxury buildings as advertisements for social position with speculative architects like Nicholas Barbon and Lionel Cranfield
4.
Freeganism
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Freeganism is a practice and ideology of limited participation in the conventional economy and minimal consumption of resources, particularly through recovering wasted goods like food. The word freegan is a derived from free and vegan. The pamphlet Why Freegan. —written by former Against Me, the first organized group of self-described freegans formed in 2003 as an offshoot of the Wetlands Preserve nightclub and associated Activism Center in New York City. We came to realize that the problem isn’t just a few bad corporations, from 2005, freegan. info organized regular events including sewing and bicycle workshops, wild food foraging expeditions, and trash tours—public dumpster dives open to the public and to media. S. The majority of groups are now inactive, however, and many people. Studies usually find that most people that participate in practices associated with freeganism, dumpster diving for food, Freegan practices in theory reject the commoditization of basic necessities, the imperative of economic growth, and an economy based on money exchange rather than free gifting or sharing. Freegan organizations also often use consensus-based decision-making, popularized by the anti-globalization movement, the word freegan originated as a play on the label veganism and research on freegan. info in New York found that most participants were vegetarian or vegan prior to becoming freegan. In many cases, though, freegans critique vegans by arguing that vegans ignore the environmental and labor impacts of the products they buy, in some instances, one-time vegans return to eating animal products if found from the dumpster, sometimes referred to as meaganism. Freegans rejection of veganism is often tied to their discovery of food waste, estimated as up to 40% of the supply in the United States. Some freegans associate themselves with back-to-the-landers or anarcho-primitivism, the latter of which asserts that human beings should not only capitalism. With some exceptions, though, freeganism is an urban or suburban phenomenon. However, dumpster diving is not limited to rummaging for food, freegans report recovering clothing, books, appliances, bicycles and these events attracted significant media coverage, particularly between 2005 and 2009, from outlets such as The New York Times, Oprah, and MSNBC. Instead of buying conventionally grown foods, wild foragers find and harvest food, some freegans participate in guerrilla or community gardens, with the stated aim of rebuilding community and reclaiming the capacity to grow ones own food. Sharing is also presented as a common practice, associated with the anarchist idea of a gift economy. For example, Food Not Bombs recovers food that would go to waste to serve warm meals on the street to anyone who wants them. Really, Really Free Markets are free social events in which freegans can share goods instead of discarding them, share skills, give presents, a free store is a temporary market where people exchange goods and services outside of a money-based economy. In New York City, freegan. info often distributes recovered food items for free in an ad-hoc manner after trash tours, freegans also advocate sharing travel resources. Internet-based ridesharing or hitchhiking reduces but does not eliminate use of cars and all the resources needed to maintain
5.
Gift economy
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A gift economy, gift culture, or gift exchange is a mode of exchange where valuables are not traded or sold, but rather given without an explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards. This contrasts with an economy or a market economy, where goods. Social norms and custom govern gift exchange, Gifts are not given in an explicit exchange of goods or services for money or some other commodity. The nature of gift economies forms the subject of a debate in anthropology. Anthropological research into gift economies began with Bronisław Malinowskis description of the Kula ring in the Trobriand Islands during World War I. The Kula trade appeared to be gift-like since Trobrianders would travel great distances over dangerous seas to give what were considered valuable objects without any guarantee of a return. According to anthropologists Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry, it is the relationship between market and non-market exchange that attracts the most attention. Gift economies are said, by some, to communities. Gift ideology in highly commercialized societies differs from the typical of non-market societies. Gift economies must also be differentiated from several closely related phenomena, such as common property regimes, however, he claims that anthropologists, through analysis of a variety of cultural and historical forms of exchange, have established that no universal practice exists. Gift exchange is frequently embedded in political, kin, or religious institutions, gift-giving is a form of transfer of property rights over particular objects. The nature of property rights varies from society to society, from culture to culture. The nature of gift-giving is thus altered by the type of property regime in place, property is not a thing, but a relationship amongst people about things. According to Chris Hann, property is a relationship that governs the conduct of people with respect to the use. Anthropologists analyze these relationships in terms of a variety of actors bundle of rights over objects, an example is the current debates around intellectual property rights. Hann and Strangelove both give the example of a book, over which the author retains a copyright. The gifts given in Kula exchange still remain, in some respects, in the example used above, copyright is one of those bundled rights that regulate the use and disposition of a book. Gift-giving in many societies is complicated because private property owned by an individual may be limited in scope
6.
Simple living
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Simple living or voluntary simplicity encompasses a number of different voluntary practices to simplify ones lifestyle. These may include reducing ones possessions, generally referred to as minimalism, or increasing self-sufficiency, Simple living may be characterized by individuals being satisfied with what they have rather than want. Although asceticism generally promotes living simply and refraining from luxury and indulgence, Simple living is distinct from those living in forced poverty, as it is a voluntary lifestyle choice. Simple living can also be a reaction to materialism and conspicuous consumption, some cite socio-political goals aligned with the anti-consumerist or anti-war movements, including conservation, degrowth, social justice, and tax resistance. A number of religious and spiritual traditions encourage simple living, early examples include the Sramana traditions of Iron Age India, Gautama Buddha, and biblical Nazirites. The biblical figure Jesus is said to have lived a simple life and he is said to have encouraged his disciples to take nothing for their journey except a staff—no bread, no bag, no money in their belts—but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. Diogenes of Sinope, a figure in the ancient Greek philosophy of Cynicism, claimed that a simple life was necessary for virtue. Plain people are Christian groups who have for centuries practiced lifestyles in which forms of wealth or technology are excluded for religious or philosophical reasons. Groups include the Shakers, Mennonites, Amish, Hutterites, Amana Colonies, Bruderhof, Old German Baptist Brethren, Harmony Society, there is a Quaker belief called Testimony of Simplicity that a person ought to live her or his life simply. Jean-Jacques Rousseau strongly praised the life in many of his writings, especially in his Discourse on the Arts and Sciences. Epicureanism, based on the teachings of the Athens-based philosopher Epicurus, epicureanism upheld the untroubled life as the paradigm of happiness, made possible by carefully considered choices. Specifically, Epicurus pointed out that troubles entailed by maintaining an extravagant lifestyle tend to outweigh the pleasure of partaking in it. Henry David Thoreau, an American naturalist and author, is considered to have made the classic secular statement advocating a life of simple and sustainable living in his book Walden. Thoreau conducted a two-year experiment living a plain and simple life on the shores of Walden Pond, in Victorian Britain, Henry Stephens Salt, an admirer of Thoreau, popularised the idea of Simplification, the saner method of living. Other British advocates of the life included Edward Carpenter, William Morris. C. R. Ashbee and his followers also practiced some of these ideas, British novelist John Cowper Powys advocated the simple life in his 1933 book A Philosophy of Solitude. John Middleton Murry and Max Plowman practised a simple lifestyle at their Adelphi Centre in Essex in the 1930s, irish poet Patrick Kavanagh championed a right simplicity philosophy based on ruralism in some of his work. George Lorenzo Noyes, a naturalist, mineralogist, development critic, writer and he lived a wilderness lifestyle, advocating through his creative work a simple life and reverence for nature
7.
Walden
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Walden is a book by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, the work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. Thoreau used this time to write his first book, A Week on the Concord, the experience later inspired Walden, in which Thoreau compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development. By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreaus other goals, and the project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear, nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. Part memoir and part spiritual quest, Walden opens with the announcement that Thoreau spent two years at Walden Pond living a life without support of any kind. Readers are reminded that at the time of publication, Thoreau is back to living among the civilized again and he does this, he says, to illustrate the spiritual benefits of a simplified lifestyle. He easily supplies the four necessities of life with the help of family and friends, particularly his mother, his best friend, and Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Waldo Emerson. The latter provided Thoreau with a work exchange – he could build a house and plant a garden if he cleared some land on the woodlot. Thoreau meticulously records his expenditures and earnings, demonstrating his understanding of economy, as he builds his house and buys, for a home and freedom, he spent a mere $28. 12½, in 1845. At the end of this chapter, Thoreau inserts a poem, The Pretensions of Poverty, the poem criticizes those who think that their poverty gives them unearned moral and intellectual superiority. He recounts the reasons for his move to Walden Pond along with detailed steps back to the construction of his new home and his possibilities included a nearby Hollowell farm. Thoreau takes to the dreaming of an existence free of obligations. He announces that he resides far from social relationships that mail represents and he also loved to read books by world travelers. He yearns for a time when each New England village supports wise men to educate and thereby ennoble the population. Sounds, Thoreau encourages the reader to be “forever on the alert” and “looking always at what is to be seen. ”Although truth can be found in literature, in addition to self-development, an advantage of developing one’s perceptiveness is its tendency to alleviate boredom. “All sound heard at the greatest possible distance, ” he contends “produces one and he explains how loneliness can occur even amid companions if ones heart is not open to them
8.
The Theory of the Leisure Class
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These displays, including conspicuous consumption and conspicuous leisure, serve to glorify exploit over industry. Like Marx, Veblen criticized the dominant economic theories of his day as static and hedonistic, whereas classical economists measured utility in static terms of maximum material gain, Veblen perceived people as seeking status in addition to, or even above, material gain. For Veblen, the key point is that status has a utility of its own, through time, Veblen argues that technological development compels adaptations in the pursuit of status as well as material gain. In the modern age, as in times, the more powerful and exploitative leisure class accrues status. So successful is the class in their glorification of exploit that their behaviors are not reviled by the industrial class but are instead roughly emulated. Workers may even forfeit material comfort in order to some small level of status. Critics of his reportage about the sociology and economics of the society that is the U. S. In the event, contemporary society did not psychologically supersede the tribal-stage division of labour, during the Mediæval period only land-owning noblemen had the right to hunt and to bear arms as soldiers, status and income were parallel. In having a wife without an independent economic life a man can display her unemployed status as a form of his conspicuous leisure, social formalities, In contemporary society, social manners are remnants of the barbarians formal, social practice of “paying respect” to ones socially powerful betters. In itself, etiquette has little value, but is of cultural value in identifying, establishing, and enforcing distinctions of place within a social class, thus the practice of “Hail to the chief. ”Establishes a place for everyone. Therefore, such physical and intellectual pursuits display the freedom of the man and woman from having to work in an economically productive occupation. The leisure class is composed of people exempted from work and from practicing economically productive occupations. As such, the consumption of the leisure class has little to do with either comfort or subsistence, and much to do with social esteem from the community. Yet, such is not the case, because the lower classes consume expensive alcoholic beverages and narcotic drugs. In doing so, the working classes seek to emulate the standards of life and play of the leisure class, moreover, upon achieving self-preservation, “the needs of conspicuous waste” determine the economic and industrial improvements of society. Consequently, to the classes, possessing such an object becomes an exercise in the pecuniary emulation of the leisure class. Clothing also indicates that the wearer’s livelihood does not depend upon economically productive labour, such as farming and manufacturing, moreover, the symbolic function of clothes indicates that the wearer belongs to the leisure class, and can afford to buy new clothes when the fashion changes. Chapter IX, The Conservation of Archaic Traits The existence of the leisure class influences the behaviour of the man and woman
9.
Slow Food
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Slow Food is a grassroots organization founded by Carlo Petrini in Italy in 1986. Promoted as an alternative to fast food, it strives to preserve traditional and regional cuisine and encourages farming of plants, seeds and it was the first established part of the broader slow movement. Its goals of sustainable foods and promotion of small businesses are paralleled by a political agenda directed against globalization of agricultural products. Slow Food began in Italy with the founding of its organisation, Arcigola. In 1989, the manifesto of the international Slow Food movement was signed in Paris. At its heart is the aim to promote local foods and traditional gastronomy, conversely this means an opposition to fast food, industrial food production and globalisation. The Slow Food organisation has expanded to include over 100,000 members with branches in over 150 countries, over 1,300 local convivia chapters exist. 360 convivia in Italy—to which the name condotta / condotte applies—are composed of 35,000 members, offices have been opened in Switzerland, Germany, New York City, France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and Chile. Global headquarters are located in Bra, near Turin, Italy, numerous publications are put out by the organisation, in several languages around the world. In 2004, Slow Food opened a University of Gastronomic Sciences at Pollenzo, in Piedmont, the Colorno branch has since been closed and transferred to Polenzo as well. Carlo Petrini and Massimo Montanari are the figures in the creation of the university, whose goal is to promote awareness of good food. In 2008, Slow Food USA hosted its largest gathering to date dubbed Slow Food Nation in San Francisco, as of 2013, Slow Food USA has a membership of roughly 12,000, down from over 30,000 in 2008. In 2011 the organisation was forced to make a series of staff layoffs and this was partly attributed to the economic recession, but also to disagreements within the movement and a loss of several key personalities. Slow Food USA currently has 200 chapters, down from 225 chapters in 2011, the movement also encourages the creation of urban gardens. Slow Food-University of Wisconsin has five projects that are dedicated to the efforts, including a Family Dinner Night, weekly cafe. From then there have been 46 Slow Food chapters established on campuses of higher education, notable members include Alice Waters, Eric Schlosser, and Michael Pollan. The Executive Director is Richard McCarthy,100 school gardens in different cities across the US would be funded in an effort to teach kids where food comes from and how food is grown. Slow Food UK works to raise awareness about sustainability and social justice issues surrounding food
