Wednesday Walk: Some Anti-Capitalist Musings

Considering how we can rethink collective ownership and reusing rather than recycling

Welcome to Willoughby Hills!

Every Wednesday, I offer a few short ideas that I hope will inspire you to do some more reading, thinking, and exploring. Let’s take a little walk together and see where the path leads…

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Capitalism Hates Community

I was at the local hardware store recently and the thought occurred to me that capitalism and community are really diametrically opposed ideas. I had to run to the store because I was in the middle of upgrading an electrical box in my son’s room to add a ceiling fan and the screwdriver tip that I had for my drill was too short.

I didn’t think much of it. The store is less than 10 minutes away and a longer bit is under $5. Problem solved, right?

But as I left the store with a new, longer driver bit, something just felt wrong.

I literally made a special trip to the store to buy a special tool that will be used to drive two screws and may never be needed again. But capitalism has taught us that the solution to all of our problems is to buy more.

We’ve only been living in our new house full time for about a week now, although we’ve been living here off and on since March. We’ve met several of the neighbors and they all seem nice. Some have explicitly made mention of their tools and said that if I ever need to borrow anything, to just let them know.

In all likelihood, several of my neighbors probably had solutions to my problem sitting in their garage or basement. It may not have been a longer Philips bit like I purchased, but it could have been a bit extender, a right angle attachment, or something else to get the job done.

At any rate, I still didn’t feel like I knew my neighbors well enough to go knock on a random door and ask for help. So rather than embrace community, I chose isolation and purchasing more stuff. Ugh.

And this little driver bit had me thinking about all of the times in life that community could lead to less consumption.

Every one of my neighbors, including me, owns a lawn mower that we each only need to use once every week or once every other week. It’s great for lawn mower manufacturers, but would it make more sense for all of us to just share one?

I think about the neighborhood where I grew up and how things felt differently than they do now. There was the one neighbor who owned large extension ladders. He let people go in his garage and use them when they needed to clean their gutters or do other work high on their houses. I was often sent next door to borrow a cup of sugar or flour from my neighbor when my mom was short something mid-recipe, and our neighbor often came to our door looking for an egg or a cup of milk.

To some extent, these are isolated memories spread across 18 years of childhood, so they probably aren’t as regular of occurrences as I think. Still, they are food for thought.

We stopped in our local library yesterday for the first time and were impressed with the “library of things” that they have available for rent: everything from a “content creator” kit that includes a video camera, microphone, and green screen to a set of light sabers for kids.

The notion of individualist consumption for each and every item in our home is starting to feel dated and unsustainable. Robust community where rarely used items (or even everyday items) can somehow be shared feels like a strong antidote.

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Reusable Reusable Bags

As we’ve been unpacking our new house, one thing that we’ve had to grapple with is what to do with the stuff that we no longer need.

While local thrift stores will take almost anything as a donation, there’s no guarantee that those items will find a new home. They might get incinerated, sent to a landfill, or shipped overseas, which leads to a whole host of issues. (If you’re interested in hearing more about what happens to overseas shipments of clothing, listen to my podcast with fashion designer Francisca Gajardo, who grew up near one of the world’s largest clothing dumps in Chile.)

We’ve been struggling with what to do with reusable bags. We have a bunch of them and really no longer need about half of them. We could donate them, but we’ve never seen them selling in the thrift stores where we donate.

Well, I recently found a solution to our problem (that also solves a few other problems). It was at our local grocery store River Valley Co-Op (which I profiled a few months ago).

Right near the front door to their Easthampton, MA store is a bin for reusable bags, except it’s not a collection bin for recycling. The bin is meant to be like a “leave a penny, take a penny” tray, but for reusable bags while shopping in the store.

Here’s what the sign says:

Did you forget to bring a bag?

Pick one up here!

Have bags you no longer need?

Donations of reusable shopping bags are welcome.

Bags must be clean and without any large holes or tears.

Anybody who forgot to bring a reusable bag with them to the store can pick up a bag from this barrel and use it to bring their purchases home. I’ve definitely forgotten my reusable bags at the store before and have had to leave with either paper or plastic (which I hate doing if I can avoid it).

But anybody (like me) who finds themself with a surplus of bags can also help fill the barrel.

It’s not the biggest solution to the world’s problems, but I think it’s a smart way to consider how to make an impact.

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Other Wednesday Walks

Recycled Cabins

The Military Disinformation Complex

If you’ve missed past issues of this newsletter, they are available to read here.

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