MUDDLING TOWARD FRUGALITY ebook

Well written. Huge swathes of history in a few paragraphs that are precise & interesting. Deals directly with the myth that human life is always headed upward & onward. Resources are limited. The sooner this is realized & dealt with the better for all humanity. While looking for more energy resources we have to make the extremely difficult decision to wean ourselves away from unrestrained oil use. The future is not bleak but the time to make decisions is limited if we want life on this planet to continue for future generations.

I first read this book in 1984. Borrowed it from the library. I have bought it several times since to give as gifts. The reason I think it is important and valuable is because the author cut through all the depression and desperation of our ordinary lives and showed that over time humans are improving, each in our own individual way. Cutting through all the acquisitiveness we have been brainwashed to adopt and cutting to the chase about what matters.

No, it's not a "tree huger" book, it is about practical every-day philosophy while also zooming out to the big picture.

I highly recommend it. If I were to compile a list of books every High School kid should read, this would be in the top 5.

The kind of useful, chewy content you just can't often find.

This is actually pretty dated and pretty opaque. It wasn't the approachable and interesting read that I had been hoping for. It hit the library donation pile almost immediately. I recognize that things like this can become dated very fast, the person who mentioned it was obviously a whole lot mellower and willing to ferret out inspiration than I was.

If you believe that untrammeled economic growth and consumer consumption without end is possible then this book is not for you. If on the other hand, you have a nagging suspicion that our current economic system is heading for a precipice, then Muddling Toward Frugality should make you feel more positive about the future. I know this book was originally written more than 30 years ago, but the plan that Warren Johnson lays out for realistic changes in our economic behavior make sense even now, maybe now more than ever. It certainly made me think about ways that we can and should be changing now - including support for sustainable small businesses, and a commitment to human values. I love Edward Abbey's introduction, especially this: "Muddling Toward Frugality is a hopeful book, despite its title. Mr. Johnson shows in what I find a persuasive argument that if we have enough time, and if we begin to change our ways now, voluntarily, with patience, good humor and good will, we can not only avoid calamity but even regain a saner, easier, more rewarding way of life."
I only wish that more people had paid attention to this book when it was originally published, we'd have had a 30 year head start on where we need to be rather than a crisis of more people consuming scarcer and scarcer resources. Now I want everyone I know to learn about the message in this book so we can really begin to make positive change for the future of all of us.

The new Easton Studio Press edition of this classic book by Warren Johnson is based on the cogent original "fruitful use" meaning of the word frugality more than its current thriftiness connotations. That humanity is muddling at best, and failing at worst, to achieve long-term fruitful use of our planetary resources is clear, and this text is both an idealistic and pragmatic way of understanding the sustainability crisis we face. It will take many strategies such as this to inspire the mainstream to seek "the satisfaction of enough" when, by definition, more is not enough in consumer society. Perhaps it helps to remember that whether postconsumers decide to find satisfaction with a little or a lot, consumers can never get satisfied at all.

They never ask us as the problem is foreseeable or developing. They ask us after the problem fills the entire landscape, at which point little can be done to remedy the problem.

A Geologist.