ECONOMY

ECONOMY

1. He lived in a self-built house

   • 2 years, 2 months
   • Concord, MA
     • Travelled a lot
   • On the shore of Walden Pond
   • He only paid 28.12 1/2 dollars for it
     • His only furniture was a bed, a table, three chairs, cooking utensils, a lamp, and a desk.
     • • Finishes in winter

2. Most Men make a mistake by laboring a lot

   • "the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day" (Thoreau 3)
     • a working man doesn't even have time to have true moral uprightness
   • All they do is work, they barely live their life
   • The things they get from laboring will be thrown away in the end
     • For example: are slave-owners divine or immortal? No, they do not get these things from their everyday work.
       • Even the seniors who have labored all their life cannot give valuable advice about it

3. Necessities of life

   • Food
     • Keeps the fire within us
       • Grand neccessity is to keep the vital heat within us
         • Because the world is "cold"
           • If the rich are "cooked" are the poor frozen?
   • Shelter
   • Clothing
     • Help retain our own heat
   • Fuel
     • Prepare food/ increase warmth

4. He spent years of his life trying to "Improve the nick of time," Thoreau 12)

   • He did this through anticipating nature
     • He was a reporter of snowstorms and rainstorms
       • After his labor, he found that his fellow-citizens did not want to offer him a spot in the court house..
         • In result of this, he looked to the woods as a better place to be.
     • He listened to the wind and observed sun and land

5. Walden Pond

   • He thought of it as a place of business rather than a place to live cheaply.
     • FIrst part of business that he talks about is clothes, saying how they are of such priority in society for the means of looking a certain way
       • Relates quite precisely with our own society these days, possibly even more than he saw back then.
       • He also says how an old pair of clothes is the only thing you should need and that new clothes are unnecessary unless you are going to an important meeting or ball..
         • These views are definitely not seen in our society today; all people DO is buy new clothes.
     • Secondly, he mentions shelter and how it is a true necessity of life, and we have needed it ever since the beginning of man.
       • Despite this, almost every living thing had shelter except for the majority of the civilized society he lived in.
         • "...it is evident that the savage owns his shelter because it costs so little, while the civilized man hires his commonly because he cannot afford to own it..."(Thoreau 23)
         • Yet even after the housing improved, the civilized men themselves have not.
           • "It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings." (Thoreau 26)
       • He believes we are rather "imprisoned" than housed in them.
       • He focuses on how society looks to have such luxurious things while not paying attention to safety and convenience.
         • He doesn't understand why people are so tempted to jump at luxury, he himself would rather not.
   • March 1845
     • He went down to Walden Pond around where he would build his house and cut down trees.
       • By the middle of April, he has completed the frame of his cabin
         • After digging out a cellar, in the beginning of May, some friends help him complete it

6. On his own in the forest, he found ways to make money.

   • He grew a small garden of beans, potatoes, corn, peas, and turnips
     • Made $8.71 1/2 & ate $4.50 worth of vegetables
       • After getting some money from many different day-labor jobs, he finds that just a few weaks' money was enough for a whole year.

7. Overall, Thoreau thinks that there may be philanthropic good that will come from this experiment but before one goes out and tries to do what he has done, that they must perfect themselves inwardly first and throw away their chains of materialism and tradition.