Rethinking Abundance

This chapter illustrates how intentional communities rethink abundance and ask how much we need to be happy. Sharing resources, from car sharing to food, provide access to goods and services without formal ownership and offers residents a form of freedom; for example, performing labor in bulk offers efficiencies that free residents from time-consuming tasks. Residents demonstrate that sustainable buildings such as strawbale houses can be comfortable and beautiful and that practices such as riding a bicycle for transportation can be fun and social. Some have critiqued intentional communities and the voluntary simplicity movement which hails primarily from the white, middle-class.