A Different Way of Living

In south-west France, a Buddhist community known as Plum Village has been demonstrating a way of life very different from that of modern consumer society. Founded in 1982 by the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thích Nhất Hạnh, it is based upon simplicity, cooperation, mindfulness and respect for the natural world.

Plum Village is not an economic experiment in the conventional sense. It is a spiritual community. Nevertheless, its way of life has much to teach us about the future, particularly if we accept that the age of continuous economic growth is drawing to a close.

The central question is whether some of the principles practised at Plum Village might become increasingly relevant to ordinary communities as economic shrinkage makes present ways of living unaffordable.

The Importance of Simplicity

Modern economic thinking assumes that prosperity depends upon increasing consumption. More goods must be manufactured, more services purchased and more money spent. Economic growth has become an objective in itself.

Plum Village starts from a different position. It places greater importance upon the quality of human life than upon the accumulation of possessions.

People live comparatively simply. They share facilities, undertake everyday tasks together and place considerable value upon activities that require little expenditure.

This is not poverty imposed by circumstances. It is simplicity adopted voluntarily.

There is an important distinction here. In a shrinking economy, many people will have little choice but to reduce their consumption. What Plum Village suggests is that living with less need not necessarily mean living less well.

Indeed, some of the activities that make life satisfying, including companionship, gardening, cooking, walking and helping others, require relatively little commercial expenditure.

The Energy Question

The modern economy depends upon an enormous and continuous supply of energy. Fossil fuels have enabled machinery to replace human labour, food to travel thousands of miles and goods to be manufactured in one part of the world for consumption in another.

The problem is not simply the amount of energy available. It is the amount of surplus energy remaining after the energy sector has met its own requirements.

As the energy cost of obtaining energy rises, less surplus energy remains available to support the wider economy.

This is central to the argument for Localism.

Economic shrinkage will not affect every activity equally. Discretionary consumption is likely to come under pressure first, while the provision of essentials, including food, shelter, heating and care, must continue.

Plum Village offers an example of a community in which everyday life is organised around relatively modest material requirements.

It does not demonstrate that modern society can dispense with industrial energy. Its buildings, equipment, transport and other facilities still depend upon the wider economy. Nevertheless, it illustrates how human satisfaction can be less dependent upon material consumption.

Cooperation Instead of Competition

One of the most striking features of Plum Village is the importance attached to community life.

Cooking, cleaning, gardening and maintaining the surroundings are shared activities. Work is not regarded simply as something undertaken in exchange for money. It is also a contribution to the wellbeing of others.

This principle has considerable relevance to Localism.

In the modern economy, many everyday needs are met through commercial transactions. People purchase services that earlier generations often provided within families, neighbourhoods or small communities.

This arrangement has been made possible by high levels of monetary income, extensive transport networks and abundant energy.

As these become less affordable, cooperation may become increasingly necessary.

Neighbours might share tools, help maintain buildings, grow food together or assist those who are elderly or disabled. Skills that have little commercial value today may become increasingly important.

Such cooperation would not eliminate the need for money or specialist services. It would, however, reduce the extent to which every human requirement must be satisfied through a commercial transaction.

Rediscovering the Value of Work

Modern society tends to measure the value of work by the income it produces.

Yet many of the most essential human activities are either poorly paid or entirely unpaid.

Growing vegetables, caring for an elderly neighbour, repairing a fence, preparing meals and maintaining a home all create genuine value. Much of this activity is either excluded from economic statistics or inadequately represented within them.

Plum Village treats ordinary work as an important part of daily life.

There is a lesson here for the future.

As discretionary industries contract, increasing numbers of people may need to find useful occupations closer to home. The distinction between employment, household work and community activity may become less rigid.

Localism envisages a revival of small-scale productive activity, including food growing, repair, maintenance, woodworking and other practical skills.

This would not be a return to the past in every respect. Modern knowledge would remain valuable. But the organisation of work could become more local, more practical and less dependent upon distant employers and markets.

The Return of Community

Perhaps the greatest lesson from Plum Village concerns human relationships.

Over the past two centuries, industrialisation, urbanisation and increasing mobility have progressively separated people from the communities in which earlier generations lived.

Families have become geographically dispersed. Employment often requires travelling considerable distances. Everyday services have become centralised, while many smaller communities have lost shops, workshops and other places where people once met.

The result has been increasing dependence upon large organisations and commercial services, accompanied in many places by a weakening of everyday social relationships.

Plum Village demonstrates the value of living within a recognisable community in which people share responsibilities and know one another.

Localism could encourage a similar rebuilding of relationships, although without the religious commitments or communal living arrangements of a monastery.

People would continue to occupy their own homes and lead their own lives. What would change is the extent to which they depended upon one another locally.

A locality would become more than a collection of houses. It would increasingly become a functioning social and economic community.

Food and the Land

Plum Village also demonstrates the importance of maintaining a relationship with the land.

Its organic Happy Farms produce vegetables for the community’s meals. Food growing is regarded not merely as agricultural production, but as an activity connecting people with the natural world.

In a future of more expensive energy, local food production is likely to become increasingly important.

Modern agriculture depends heavily upon machinery, fertilisers, transport, refrigeration and complex distribution systems. Rising costs could make some of these arrangements progressively less affordable.

Localism therefore envisages more land being cultivated close to where people live, with greater use of human labour and smaller-scale methods.

Gardens, allotments, orchards and small farms could become increasingly important sources of food.

Plum Village cannot be regarded as proof that a community can become entirely self-sufficient. But it demonstrates that food production can be integrated into ordinary community life rather than treated as a distant industrial activity.

The Limitations of the Example

There are important differences between Plum Village and the kind of Localism that may emerge through economic necessity.

Plum Village is a voluntary religious community. Its members have chosen a particular way of life and share a common philosophy.

An ordinary British locality contains people of different ages, abilities, beliefs and interests. Many will have little desire to participate in communal activities.

Moreover, Plum Village operates within a prosperous industrial society. It benefits from modern infrastructure, healthcare, transport and the wider economy. Its existence does not establish that a similar community could provide all its requirements independently.

There is also the question of scale.

A monastery with a few hundred residents is very different from a town of several thousand people. The arrangements suitable for one cannot simply be imposed upon the other.

Localism must therefore develop through practical necessity and voluntary cooperation, rather than through the adoption of a prescribed communal lifestyle.

Nevertheless, the principles of simplicity, mutual assistance and shared responsibility remain relevant.

Localism as a Natural Evolution

The most important distinction is that Plum Village represents a deliberate choice, while Localism may increasingly emerge as an economic necessity.

As surplus energy becomes more constrained and the costs of maintaining complex systems rise, the present highly centralised economy may become progressively harder to sustain.

Some activities will necessarily remain national. Defence, telecommunications, specialist hospitals and major transport infrastructure cannot realistically be organised entirely at the level of individual localities.

But many everyday essentials could increasingly be provided closer to home.

Food production, repair, maintenance, basic care and numerous small services could become more local.

This would not require everyone to embrace Buddhism, communal ownership or any particular philosophy.

It would simply reflect the practical advantages of meeting more needs with fewer resources and shorter supply chains.

In this respect, Plum Village is valuable not as a blueprint but as a demonstration of possibilities.

A Different Understanding of Prosperity

Perhaps the greatest obstacle to accepting economic shrinkage is the assumption that a reduction in material consumption must inevitably mean a corresponding reduction in human wellbeing.

For generations, governments have encouraged the belief that rising incomes and increasing expenditure are the principal measures of progress.

Plum Village challenges this assumption.

Its philosophy suggests that human satisfaction can arise from relationships, useful activity, a sense of belonging and an appreciation of the natural world.

These are not substitutes for essential material requirements. People still need adequate food, warmth, shelter, healthcare and security.

But once these needs are met, greater consumption does not necessarily produce a better life.

This distinction could become increasingly important in a shrinking economy.

If society continues to judge success entirely by the standards of economic growth, shrinkage will be regarded only as failure.

If, however, prosperity comes to be understood more broadly, the revival of local communities might offer compensating benefits.

Conclusion

Plum Village is not a model for the future organisation of the British economy. It is a Buddhist community established for spiritual purposes, not an experiment in surviving economic collapse.

Nevertheless, it provides a useful reminder that the highly individualistic, consumption-driven society of the modern industrial age is not the only possible way of organising human life.

People can cooperate rather than compete in every activity. They can share resources, undertake useful work without monetary reward and derive satisfaction from belonging to a community.

Localism is likely to emerge for very different reasons. It will be driven principally by the declining affordability of the energy-intensive systems upon which modern society depends.

Yet the resulting changes may lead towards some of the same principles.

The future may require us to consume less, travel less, repair more, grow more of our own food and depend more upon the people around us.

Plum Village suggests that such a life need not be regarded entirely as a loss.

The real challenge will be to preserve the essential achievements of modern civilisation while rediscovering the social and practical strengths of smaller communities.

In a world accustomed to measuring progress by how much more it can consume, perhaps the most important lesson from Plum Village is that a society can become materially poorer without necessarily becoming poorer in every other sense.