A few years ago, Mark Boyle read the famous Ghandi quote –  be the change you wish to see in the world. So he decided to give up money — of which he had plenty. That translated into changing his lifestyle drastically — feeding himself with foraged or wasted food, cooking outside rain or shine, living without electricity in an old van and brushing his teeth with things like cuttlefish bone and fennel seeds. He’s written a book, called The Moneyless Manfiesto. He recently did an interview on “Wild Economics”, with Permaculture magazine.

Here are some of his thoughts, from a 2010 writing:

Ironically, I have found this year to be the happiest of my life. I’ve more friends in my community than ever, I haven’t been ill since I began, and I’ve never been fitter. I’ve found that friendship, not money, is real security. That most western poverty is spiritual. And that independence is really interdependence.

Could we all live like this tomorrow? No. It would be a catastrophe, we are too addicted to both it and cheap energy, and have managed to build an entire global infrastructure around the abundance of both. But if we devolved decision making and re-localised down to communities of no larger than 150 people, then why not? For over 90 per cent of our time on this planet, a period when we lived much more ecologically, we lived without money. Now we are the only species to use it, probably because we are the species most out of touch with nature.