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