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May 08 2019 The Moneyless Man - the works and writing of Mark Boyle Wanting something a bit more forward-looking I recently stumbled across the work of an Irish fellow named Mark Boyle [0]. Boyle is essentially a modern day Thoreau but unlike his predecessor his time in the woods is ongoing and has taken several turns, starting with a year without petroleum, followed by his well-publicized life as "the moneyless man", 3 years living outside the UK cash economy, to his current off-the-grid existence in a self-built cabin on a small Irish landholding. Over the years Boyle, who oddly enough has a business and economics degree, has been involved in promoting various alternatives to the cash economy, from gifting to "freeganism". He has chronicled his evolving path in life in various articles and essays as well as several books: The Moneyless Man: A Year of Freeconomic Living -- (c) 2010 The Moneyless Manifesto: live well - live rich - live free -- (c) 2012 Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi -- (c) 2015 The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology -- (c) 2018 I've read the first, last, and 3rd in that order; I've only skimmed the Moneyless Manifesto as it is freely available to read online on Boyle's website [1] (who maintains it if Boyle is unplugged? A mystery..). Boyle is currently 39 and it was interesting to see how his thinking evolved through his various books. My first exposure to Boyle was actually via YouTube in which I was impressed with his articulation of the many issues facing our planet and it's occupants, and our global industrial civilization's -- what Boyle calls The Machine -- role in it all. I was somewhat disappointed with the first book. While there is some higher level philosophical discussions, much of the book simply chronicles Boyle's media interactions, of which there were many. At times the reporters were literally camped out outside Boyle's gifted trailer (he was living on private land along side a public recreation trail, bartering his labor for rent). Nonetheless, it was a quick read and several of Boyle's misadventures such as raiding the up-scale grocery dumpsters provide some amusement. Boyle's latest book, The Way Home, literally came out as I was finishing the first book. The Way Home is a much more thoughtful book, coming roughly a decade after The Moneyless Man. The proceeds from his prior books was apparently enough to purchase the 3+ acre Irish landholding on which Boyle currently resides. Outright ownership seems to be the only way Boyle could possibly be living as he does, off-grid, well water and without electricity or fossil fuels. He actually hand-wrote the first draft of the book, reluctantly booting up a laptop for the final formatting. The Way Home is an expansion on a series of articles published in The Guardian, essentially consisting of journal entries grouped by season, starting with Winter. Interwoven throughout the book are excerpts from several trips made to the Blasket Islands [2], providing an interesting narrative time shift. The history of the Blasket islanders seems to hold many lessons in adaptation and right living for Boyle. One thing that stands out in The Way Home when contrasted with The Moneyless Man is Boyle's activism seems to have swung full circle from trying to promote freeconomic ideals to basically turning his back on modernity, much as groups like the Old Order Amish have. He has clearly been influenced by writers such as Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson, Daniel Quinn, and Aldo Leopold, all espousing the virtues of becoming one with a place and thus (re)making a place for Nature. All are highly critical of The Machine and it's growth imperative, as well as the human culture it has spawned, where lives are very conscripted, vocations so specialized that they are no longer connected to the nature of a place and thus feel little commitment to it. In the human-built world one place is much like another, indeed from the view behind the windshield they pretty much are. Boyle's ethics and worldview seem to belong to a previous generation, unusual in someone as young as Boyle, which got me wondering why. I think it's the fact that Ireland was late to the globalism game. The so-called Celtic Tiger roared to life in the 1990s. It wasn't so long ago that life was a good deal slower on the emerald island. My father took a trip there in the 1980s and was surprised to see people still using horse carts to move things about. You can get a sense of what the Ireland of not-so-old was like in the excellent BBC TV series "Hands" [3,4] that originally aired in the 1980s. Boyle's neighbors are also small landholders, many still engaged in farming. It's clear his hope is to build on what remains of the ethos of Place. Like Berry, Boyle laments the unwillingness of moderns to put down roots, committing oneself to a place and becoming an integral part of it. I suspect that many would join him if they could. Once one becomes dependent on The Machine via debt, specialized career tracks involving long hours and commutes, expensive accompaniments, and saving for college educations, it becomes pretty much impossible for most. Further, The Machine fosters a culture that priorities 'Me' over 'Us', competition over cooperation, selfishness over empathy. Little wonder that retiring and/or getting out of debt feels so good. Boyle's landholding includes a free hostel called 'The Happy Pig'. Fellow travelers that somehow manage to locate it (it's location is left as an exercise..) are welcome to stay in the converted farmhouse, help out with chores and of course contribute to the annual property tax bill. After finishing The Way Home I was somewhat curious about Boyle's turn inward, prompting interest in his 3rd book. Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi is a very different book, as well as the most controversial in that Boyle essentially makes a solid case for including violence in one's toolkit if one hopes to effect meaningful change. Gandhi and Mandela -- both frequently held up as the pinnacle of non-violent civil disobedience -- actually had more inclusive views of violence in their respective efforts and made use of it when non-violence efforts failed to produce results. Boyle I think effectively reveals the embedded hidden violence of our global industrial civilization which we each underwrite via our participation in it, especially via the cash economy which seemingly strives to reduce all transaction considerations to price, generally via maximally externalizing health and environmental impacts. This book seems to have been written in the aftermath of the UK Occupy movement which, like it US counterpart, looked like the start of meaningful change before fizzling out and leaving much discouragement in its wake. There is a series of YouTube videos from this period featuring Boyle talking to a UK group, many of them involved in the Occupy movement; the frustration of the audience is palpable. Boyle also points out that the State claims a monopoly on violence and that violence only flows downward; upwards flows are unacceptable to the State. Further, despite the claims of mainstream activists, the State does know how to deal with non-violent protest and in fact actively promotes it as the only acceptable expression of discontent. Boyle goes on to chronicle how restricting protest to the non-violent variety has resulted in little more than incremental reforms which The Machine quickly maneuvers around in its unquenchable thirst for growth. This is almost exactly the argument that Derrick Jensen makes in his book Endgame [5]. Referencing the actions taken by groups like Earth First! Boyle argues that to effect meaningful change means thwarting The Machine in any way one can. The unfortunate side effect of such actions is The Machine brings the hammer down hard, labeling such actors as terrorists and sentencing them to long prison stints as a cautionary tale to any considering similar actions. This was currently on display in France with the Yellow Vest movement in which some protesters have been killed, other jailed, but they have won concessions from the Macron government, specifically the roll back of the fuel tax. Boyle is careful to point out he is not advocating abandonment of non-violent civil disobedience, just pointing out it's limitations and that The Machine is in fact engaged in violence against Life on a daily basis and limiting one's opposition to that violence to strictly non-violent actions is unlikely to be effective. Further, one needs to decide individually what form effective opposition should take. Boyle seems to have decided that his form will be non-participation whenever possible. That seems to fall into the category of lifestyle choices, the kind that most mainstream environmental groups seem to advocate, the "be the change you wish to see" that one hear all too often. While its efficacy in effecting meaningful at scale is is nearly nil, I feel it has integrity and is worthwhile, and leaves plenty of room for improvised culture jamming [6] and similar acts of disobedience, civil or otherwise. - - [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Boyle_(Moneyless_Man) [1] http://www.moneylessmanifesto.org [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blasket_Islands [3] https://hands.ie [4] https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7ciDDSRept-l8GZjS7WusFlZnBE0NcfM [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endgame_(Derrick_Jensen_books) [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_jamming