The Moneyless Man by Mark Boyle
It sounds like a crime novel but it is actually about one man’s attempt to live, at least for a year, free of money. This book came to me when I was watching one of Ben Fogle’s “New Lives in the Wild” programmes while visiting Julie’s mother. At the time of filming, much later than the book, Mark was living a free economy life just outside Loughrea in County Galway but the book is set much earlier in and around 2009 so not long after the financial crash. Mark, originally from Donegal, was living and working in Bristol and was clearly part of a community that sought to help each other out. However, with considerable planning (forethought entirely necessary in my opinion) he sets off on a challenge to live without money for a year. Now the obvious thing is to stockpile everything up front but that is not the point of his exercise. It is to live sustainably without the need for financial transactions or encountering any of those things of which money could be a part.
He begins the book by explaining the origins of money and effectively how money has replaced community, a theme he returns to at the end of the exercise. He does it in a light-hearted way but there is conviction in the message he has about how money has so corrupted the world and to be honest it is hard to argue against it. Having established the reason for what he is doing he then explains the laws of engagement for his experiment.
This is followed by his struggle to do all the necessary preparations finding a shelter, but also a location, having some supply of energy, the necessary arrangements for normal ablutions etc, having a means of cooking and heating that was not oil or gas based. And doing this without money. Top this with working out how to feed yourself without money. Quite a challenge he sets himself.
And as the day gets closer there is a lot of media interest and while trying to do all of the above he is constantly being interviewed about the whole thing.
And then everything kicks in and he catalogues his day from normal ablutions to travel and his reliance on a bicycle to get into Bristol to gather food from waste, the kind of stuff that is perfectly fine but has gone past its’ ‘best before date’, to growing his own food and much foraging for the things on the doorstep. He allows himself a laptop, so as to record his year and a phone so people can ring him but they are only charged via solar power so some days there is nothing and he has to resort to pen and paper but even these he has to obtain from waste products gathering up recycled paper that had only been used on one side for example. What is good though is that he then highlights the world benefits of just using both sides!
Madly, he begins the experiment at the end of November and so goes immediately into the cold and barren part of the year but he knows it will be the worst and dreadful if he has miscalculated anything.
What do I learn from this is the toughness of the life he has chosen but not one he becomes unhappy with. He is immensely fit and healthy as a result of his vegan diet and the exercise he gets surviving. He has clearly prepared well and understands why he is doing what he does and he is quite good at explaining it and the consequences for the world if we all lived differently (not necessarily like him).
The book is littered with tips on how to do things and websites that help the free economy and to be honest there are clear biblical principles at work here even if acknowledged but he does reference the early church which shared everything. But perhaps the most telling remark of all is that we have let money replace community and the price was very kigh.
Overall, a great read, thought provoking and challenging but also with some lovely tips and ideas that if we all did just one we would be on our way to turning the impending disaster to which humanity seems destined to achieve.