Freeganism and Social Renewal
Last Sunday The New York Times published an intriguing story on freeganism – an emerging lifestyle in which people exist off the detritus of larger society, exercising minimal use of currency and sustaining themselves from the still-edible food discarded by restaurants and grocers (a practice also known as dumpster diving or skipping). The article profiles these social misfits, known as freegans, who find dilapidated homes in Buffalo, New York, that would otherwise be subject to vandalism or worse and make them their own.
In the wake of a bubble in the United States that dumped millions of livable houses, it is refreshing to witness an emergent segment of the population step up and claim for themselves the infrastructure offered by habitats that were deemed practically worthless by the free market economy. Ironically, by following the rules of the mortgage game – and losing that game – previous owners were subject to dispossession and frequently found themselves in tent cities. But in this case the willing and – dare I say – joyful recolonization of abandoned property by those who were never interested in or able to play the capitalist game of real estate investment is tolerated, if not welcomed, by the neighborhoods and municipality of Buffalo.
Could this practice become a movement, an example of the perennially American reinvention of society, like the westward expansion of the 19th century, in which the abandoned properties in some small way offer “a gate of escape from the bondage of the past; and freshness, and confidence, and scorn of older society, impatience of its restraints and its ideas, and indifference to its lessons”? Or will these freegan squatters eventually be reabsorbed into the dominant economic framework of debt and materialism as their living situation grows more comfortable and the thrust of desire lures them into the very culture they had defined themselves in opposition to?
Well written post Melanie and very interesting to boot. I have always felt that the largesse of capitalist society produces enough excess to stave off poverty at its periphery. However, your finishing posit is the most poignant because unfortunately I believe that no matter how socialist/freeganist/anarchist etc a movement is, it will always come back to being capitalist. This does feel quite defeatist and saying that big business will prevail is probably one of the saddest sentences you will find anywhere on this site. Until such time that a reinvented society has enough momentum that its 'big idea' is equal to 'big business', the left over pastrami on rye will still have precedent over tuna mayo on brown.
Well written post Melanie and very interesting to boot. I have always felt that the largesse of capitalist society produces enough excess to stave off poverty at its periphery. However, your finishing posit is the most poignant because unfortunately I believe that no matter how socialist/freeganist/anarchist etc a movement is, it will always come back to being capitalist. This does feel quite defeatist and saying that big business will prevail is probably one of the saddest sentences you will find anywhere on this site. Until such time that a reinvented society has enough momentum that its 'big idea' is equal to 'big business', the left over pastrami on rye will still have precedent over tuna mayo on brown.
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