Mean Wage Movement
The Benefits of Becoming Poorer Intentionally | Chapter 4
There’s more to life than money
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In my early 20s I was an electrical engineer. I made $70,000/year, and my wife at the time made a similar amount. No kids, no debt, a brand new car fully paid off — money was plentiful. I rarely thought twice about my spending.
When I was 25, a frightening health problem triggered my quarter-life crisis. Dissatisfied with my life track, I got divorced, pared down my belongings, quit my job, and hiked the 2,650-mile Pacific Crest Trail.
I didn’t expect to have my views on money radically altered, but I had a lot of time to think as I walked from Mexico to Canada those months, possessing nothing but a backpack.
Hiking 15+ miles per day wasn’t always easy or fun, but the overall experience was more meaningful than the professional life I had lived before. I was in the best shape I’d ever been in. I had complete freedom to direct my own activity throughout the day, and the immersion in nature was spiritually enriching.
I found that I was having the best time of my life — and most days, I wasn’t spending a single dollar. I didn’t have a car, a shower, a toilet, a refrigerator, air conditioning, or any of the other luxuries people see as a necessity. I slept on a thin pad on the ground. But I was surrounded by beautiful landscapes every day, and I made wonderful new friends.
Of course, my financial privilege, sound health, and abandonment of responsibility are what allowed me to go hiking for months on end. I’m not saying anyone can easily take off and do the same thing.
The relevant thing I learned is this: as long as I’m financially secure, more money does not equate to more happiness. Real enjoyment in life comes from things other than material possessions. Health, community, freedom, novelty, and personal growth can be had on a budget. Financial security is mostly about the ratio of income to expenses, not about having as much money as possible.
I had no plans for what I was going to do after I finished the trail, but I discovered I didn’t want to go back to a full-time job. After several months of backpacking I had adjusted to a much simpler life. I realized I didn’t need very much money to meet my essential needs and I actually thrived living outside — so why should I spend 50 weeks a year working in an office just to afford a home I didn’t even want?
Instead of getting a new place to rent after my hike, I could convert any vehicle into a camper and it would feel like luxurious in comparison. (I always say vehicle-dwelling is best viewed as an upgrade from backpacking rather than a downgrade from an apartment.)
If I was willing to learn how to be frugal, I wouldn’t have to work as much as I once did. I could work seasonally, or I could work a variety of jobs that intrigued me but weren’t on my career path. This would grant me an abundance of something I had come to value far more than money: free time.
Time is life, and we only live once. After my health scare I knew I couldn’t take life for granted. It just didn’t seem worth it to trade in my time for excess money.
That was when I started living in vehicles — first a hatchback, then a minivan, and now a converted shuttle bus. It’s been almost 7 years and I haven’t looked back.
For several years now, I’ve earned and spent between $5,000-$15,000/year. It hasn’t always been easy but I don’t regret it. The fact that I don’t need a lot of money means I can take my time becoming a better writer without the pressure to make it profitable. Most days, my time is mine to structure as I please. I can work to save up a couple thousand dollars and then drift for a few months, drive to a new location, meet new people.
I know I’m an unusual case. Most people aren’t in a position where they can change directions in such an extreme way. Most people wouldn’t want the kind of bare-bones nomadic life I live. So what relevance does this have to your life?
I’m not trying to convince you to live how I do. As much as I like it, I know my lifestyle is not the best way for everyone. However, I think reducing unnecessary spending does benefit everyone, and I can help you identify sustainable ways to do that.
Let’s assume you want to make a lifestyle change. Maybe you’re aware that the wealthy are disproportionately responsible for greenhouse gas emissions, you know how urgently we need to reduce our emissions, and you’re in the wealthiest 10% worldwide (income greater than $18,000/year). Or, maybe you just want to live more simply and intentionally.
Where to begin? It can be overwhelming to figure out how to start. There are things you could give up, but you’re probably comfortable in your habits and none of them seem easy to change.
It’s also confusing because there’s no real target to shoot for. How will you know if you’ve done enough? Is zero impact the target? Is that even realistic?
Rather than worry about every single lifestyle choice I could modify, I like to focus on just one thing: how much I spend every year. I limit my budget, and this automatically limits behaviors that lead to greenhouse gas emissions.
In chapter 3 I talked about the median global income. This is the income of the person exactly in the middle if you lined up everyone on Earth from lowest to highest income — and it’s about $3,700/year (an optimistic estimate). Half of the world’s population lives with a lower income than that.
The mean global income is a bit different. If you take the total amount of economic productivity each year and divide it by the number of humans, this is the number you’d arrive at — the “average” income.
Most estimates I’ve seen for the global mean income are around $10,000. (Mean income is higher than median because a small number of wealthy people hold a large amount of the world’s wealth.)
It’s a bit of a tricky number to calculate. This article gives some good insights into the difficulties of establishing such a number.
This article describes how $10,000 is the direct calculation, but some attempts to adjust for various factors give a result as high as $18,000 in purchasing power parity dollars.
Whatever the number is, it’s clear that most Americans make significantly more than that.
…despite the challenges, these bottom lines remain true in every estimate of the global income distribution I’ve seen so far:
• The richest people in the world are many times richer than the poor.
• People earning professional salaries in countries like the US are usually in the top 5% of global earnings and sometimes in the top 1%. This gives them a disproportionate ability to improve the world.
• Many people in the world live in serious absolute poverty, surviving on as little as one hundredth the income of the upper-middle class in the US.
I like to think about that $10,000/year mean income as a target budget.
Theoretically, if everyone was perfectly motivated by equality, and if everyone who makes more than the mean income gave away their extra portion to those earning less than average, everyone on earth would make this amount of money.
While that’s obviously never going to happen — and I wouldn’t argue that it needs to happen — I find this number useful as a thought experiment for putting my own wealth in perspective.
The idea behind “mean wage movement” is to compare yourself to the global average income — are you significantly above it? Do you need to be? Think about how you could adjust your use of money to be closer to that number.
Some thoughts that accompany this in my mind: Is there any particular reason why I am entitled to more material wealth than the average human? If half the planet survives on less than $3,700/year, is there any reason I can’t thrive with 3 times that amount? If I believe all lives are equally valuable, why shouldn’t I reflect that in the way I handle my money?
When wealthy people intentionally become less wealthy, they shrink their environmental footprint, and the money they get rid of can go to people who need it more.
In this book I’d like to share some ideas for how you can learn to use less money. Partly because it reduces climate impact and wealth disparity, but also because I also believe frugality is a skill that can bring a good deal of satisfaction and freedom in life.
“Mean Wage Movement” means comparing your annual expenditures to the global average income, taking steps to move towards that average, and giving excess money to those who live under the mean wage.
Some benefits of this idea:
- It simplifies the complicated task of reducing one’s consumption by focusing on one number.
- Life feels better when you are being proactive about your lifestyle and your environmental impact, even if you don’t expect it to make a huge difference in the world at large.
- Financial security is basically a ratio of income to expenses. When you lower your expenses, the entire equation improves. With a lower cost of living, you could choose to spend less time working, you could change jobs, or you could keep working the same amount and save more money. With this money, you could pay off debts, invest in something that really matters to you, or give it away to those who need it.
- Striving to live with the global average income is an idea that could gain traction because it is easy to describe.
- There’s no pressure to literally achieve the goal. It’s called mean wage “movement” because the idea is to move in that direction. It’s not about perfection, it’s about improvement. It’s a focal point, a motivating idea; you can take your time working out ways to do it comfortably.
- The things that make us most happy in life aren’t expensive. If we spend less time at work we have more time for connecting with loved ones, learning new things, working on creative projects, volunteering, relaxing, healing, and supporting others.
Answering a few points of skepticism
- Why should I reduce my wealth? Surely I’m a drop in the bucket compared to all the billionaires out there. They are the ones who need to change, not me.
Well, that’s true in a sense. Their wealth dwarfs yours. If one billionaire decided to join the mean wage movement it would have a much greater impact than thousands of middle-class Americans doing the same.
However, wealth is like a fractal. There are always people wealthier than you, and always people poorer than you. From the perspective of someone who earns a dollar a day, a middle-class American is enormously wealthy, consumes a huge amount of resources, and has the ability to help many people.
To the extent that our lifestyles are lavish and excessive, I think they are worth addressing, even if a billionaire is a million times more excessive.
- Isn’t this communism?
You could look at it that way. If everyone adopted this idea literally, then yes, wealth would be evenly distributed.
One difference is that this is completely voluntary. It’s not communism so much as simple generosity. There’s no coercive government controlling and distributing the money; there’s no brutal dictator making life hell. It’s just people who are financially secure, giving away their extra and finding a happier life in the process.
- To solve climate change, don’t we need XYZ to happen, rather than individual action?
Don’t we need governments to step in and regulate polluting corporations? Don’t we need next-level tech to give us cleaner options?
Yes! Of course. We need people to work on those things. They could have a bigger impact in the long run.
At the same time, there’s no guarantee that governments are ever going to make moves to save us. They’ve made a lot of promises to reduce emissions in the future but they are still growing just like always. There’s also no guarantee that significantly-game-changing technology is going to appear in time to make a difference.
Instead of waiting around for the government to tell us to do the right things, we can simply choose to do the right things right now. We can keep pressuring politicians to take climate change seriously, and keep working on technological solutions, while also moving towards a lower-impact personal lifestyle. I don’t see a conflict there.
- Won’t I be doing more if I stay wealthy and use my money for a good cause?
Maybe in some circumstances. Maybe if you’re a climate activist who flies around the world to speak at conferences, for example, buying all those flights is worth it in the long run.
Accumulating a lot of wealth beyond what’s actually necessary to accomplish that work is still excessive. There are probably ways to be more efficient with that, and release some of that money to people who need it more.
- It might help others if I give them my money, but won’t I be making my own life miserable? Why would I want to be poorer?
Having less money does not always equate to a lower quality of life. I encourage working towards the mean wage in a way that is sustainable and healthy. In other words, don’t throw yourself into an insecure situation where suddenly you’re at risk of becoming homeless or going hungry. The idea is to analyze your spending and identify cheaper solutions that still satisfy your needs. More on that later.
- What’s the point of trying? The climate is already screwed.
That’s probably true, but we can still try not to make it as screwed. Perhaps more importantly, if climate change (or any other sociopolitical happenings) bring an end to the period of extreme prosperity we’ve enjoyed in recent decades, you’ll have to learn how to survive with less resources anyway — so it couldn’t hurt to get some practice right now.
- Even if I’m in the 1%, it’s expensive where I live — how can I live with less money?
I’ll get into some ideas for that in future chapters!
The end goal
Let’s say by some stroke of luck this book becomes wildly popular and millions of people start adjusting their expenses towards the global mean. What should happen next? What would be accomplished? How would it change the world?
My vision is a movement of people who are discovering a new paradigm for meaningful living. It’s not a self-punishing asceticism, a misery to be endured, but a way to align our lifestyles with the reality of our world today, which ideally leads to a happier, stabler, richer existence. One where we are not obsessed with wealth and material gain, chronically overworked and too tired to enjoy the things that actually matter; rather, we are rested, mindful, content, connected, available, and fulfilled.
When our peers and neighbors see what we’re doing, how we’re going in the opposite direction from the rest of our money-hungry society and actually thriving in the process, I hope they will be confused and intrigued and maybe start to think about their own interactions with money, work, consumption, and poverty.
If it snowballs to the point that “mean wage movement” enters common language, maybe it would accelerate a fundamental shift in values. We’re already seeing a lot of people question the moral integrity of billionaires and the destructive effects of capitalism. If that sentiment grew strong enough, if wealth was not praised but actually frowned upon as excessive, selfish, and unhealthy, maybe it would turn the tables on the rich elite. Our insatiable lust for wealth and our worship of “successful” billionaires could be replaced by a sense of disgust at their pathological hoarding.
When I was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail, I noticed a strong element of generosity in thru-hiker culture. “Hiker boxes” exist at most resupply points: if you have anything extra you don’t need, like food, gear, or first aid, you just leave it in the hiker box and someone who needs it will take it. Part of the reason hikers do this is just because they’re nice, but there’s also a practical incentive that motivates people to get rid of excess: when you’re carrying your backpack up mountain passes, you resent every ounce of unnecessary weight. There is a built-in penalty for taking more than what you need.
Maybe billionaires need to feel the weight of their excess, too.
If nobody in society likes you or wants to buy your products because you’re an exploitative billionaire, maybe that will apply some pressure to handle wealth more ethically, even if it’s only for marketing and appearances.
There will always be egotistical people trying to gain power and money so they can have the status of being on top. What if culture shifted so that the measure of their greatness is not how much wealth they can amass for themselves, but how much they can help humanity? If some of the wealthiest people in the world started pledging to devote the vast majority of their wealth to solving the world’s biggest problems, wouldn’t that be cool?
I want to live in a world where the pissing contest between rich people is not about who can build a rocket to go to space, but who can build the most free hospitals; who can set up the most loans for entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa; who can fund effective birth control, cure diseases, and ensure everyone on Earth has nutritious food and clean water to drink. Now that would be something to brag about.
Reducing your own consumption might not mean much compared to what the wealthiest people do, but it’s still a great way to get involved with changing our culture’s materialistic values from the ground up.
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