Thanks for the link and your comments. This is a great post and I enjoyed some of the articles. I especially enjoyed the article about the college student who lives in his truck. My son also has a Tacoma truck and is attending college. I’m glad he decided to move back home instead of trying to sleep in his truck. I was getting worried for a while there. Luckily, he doesn’t have a shell.

The bad economy and people’s rising awareness of earth issues are helping to spread a new spirit of frugality. I think this is great, especially for people who are used to over-spending and living in debt. And, I’m very happy people are evaluating their purchases and avoiding items that are devastating to their finances or the environment. But, extreme frugality can have a dark-side, which is why I created my post. Moderation is the key to happiness for me. Money is supposed to be earned, saved, spent and enjoyed.

BTW, these Freegans have some pretty scary ideals. Can you imagine what America would be like if we all quit our jobs and ate trash? I know capitalism has its flaws, but people who are truly impoverished dream of a life like ours. And, I doubt if any of the 30,000 people who starve to death each day would consider work de-humanizing. Most of the incredible achievements of the past century were invented or created by hard-working Americans. That’s something to be proud of.

With respect to the green living, I know every little bit helps. But I don’t think going to extremes, like the lady in my second example, is going to make much more of a difference. It’s kind of like the difference between spitting in the ocean, or pouring a glass of water in the ocean.

That’s my take on the issue. I am certain others will vehemently disagree with me.

As for the Freegans – I wonder what their attitude would be if they were living in the stone age. In the absence of a capitalist society, would they still think work was dehumanizing? I suspect most of them would. Would they be productive members of their tribe? I sincerely doubt it. In fact, I suspect they would leach off the hard work of their tribe mates and do the minimum they had to in order to get by.

I do agree with you that there is waste in the world. As somebody who used to work in a grocery store, I can attest to the amount of food that is thrown into the dumpster every day. However, much of that food gets there because it reached the end of its sellable life – usually because it became stale or inedible. Even homeless people passed on much of the stuff that I used to toss when I worked in the industry – even they had their standards.

I disagree with your assertion that we have created a society in which it is possible to live entirely on the waste of others. To make such a statement, I think we first need to come to some sort of agreement on the definition of “live.” For example, I’ll argue that it takes a special person willing to live their life entirely on the waste of others, like the Freegans do; but they are a tiny minority of people living in civilized industrialized/agrarian countries.

Sure, I could “live off the waste of others” if I had to, but why should I? Most people desire a much higher standard of living and capitalism makes that possible.

You make a good point about the Stone Age – I completely agree with you regarding it being about hunting and scavenging and not wasting a bit. My point was that this is NOT the Stone Age – it’s 2010. So why would the Freegans WANT to live like they are in the Stone Age? Is it because work is truly evil, or are they just afraid of work?

I’ll assert that the Freegans have this romantic Utopian notion of how the world should really be. It’s a beautiful concept in theory, unfortunately it’s also completely untenable.