Not Buying It, by Judith Levine

I just finished reading Not Buying It. It chronicles Ms. Levine's decision to stop shopping, except for essentials, for a full year. The year in question was 2004. She and her partner faced many puzzling choices as they went through this year of abstinence. What kinds of foods are necessities, which ones are luxuries that shouldn't be bought? Certainly, their larder was full of some items I would consider luxuries (three kinds of salt?).

They had two or three places of residence and three cars between them. Already, that's more luxury than we have or expect to have. Of course, all that was purchased before 2004. Still, I'm sure it made it much easier to cut back to the bare essentials (sort of) for a full year.

Oh, I do empathize with feeling that you can't buy anything you see. I've often felt deprived that way whether because of my diet or a shortage of funds, or just being frugal.

But they didn't do it just to be frugal. The idea was to drop out of consumer society for a year and see where that left them. Ms. Levine says, it left her as a "citizen," more aware of her place in the social body, the body politic.

It seemed to me it left them with a lot of dilemmas. What to give a niece for graduation, if you won't buy anything new? They ended up giving her a family heirloom, a necklace Ms. Levine got from her mother.

And that's the tough part. You can stop buying but even the used items were once "consumed" by somebody else. And your friends will come through and buy you things because they feel sorry for you, even though your deprivation has been self-imposed.

That happened to me once. I was fed up with television and when I moved into a studio apartment I didn't go out and buy one. So I lived without a TV for over a year. Then a friend said, "You have to have a TV!" and gave me a beat up little black and white TV she'd originally purchased in 1969. It worked well enough and I did appreciate its presence when I was out of work. But, I could have lived just fine without it, and relied on the radio for information.

So it's an interesting book but in fact, I don't think they really got away from being consumers. Most people can't, though they did meet up with a man who lives on just a few thousand dollars a year and has enough left over to give $256 to charity. Maybe he's the closest to being a nonconsumer it is possible to come.

Since I don't participate in the holiday hooplah, which is what set Ms. Levine off on this year of Not Buying It in the first place, I guess I am more relaxed about the whole issue of being a consumer. We can all take our purchases seriously, and maybe we should. Who is supported and who is harmed when we buy this or that? But on the other hand, to do this balancing act every time one is out shopping is very difficult.

The book reflects a noble endeavor, imperfectly executed, as all of us are imperfect beings. Ms. Levine gives it honesty; she doesn't pretend that she never slipped up and bought a few "unnecessary" things, or that her partner Paul didn't decide he absolutely had to have alcohol so he made his own beer. It was an interesting experiment to read about, and I'm glad I'm not the one making it.