Eliot Community is central to the vision of Voluntary Simplicity because our lack of community is both a cause and an effect of our extreme consumerism.
People feel lonely so they go to the malls to be around people.
Or, they go home to an empty house and turn on the TV for the sound of a human voice. With community, on the other hand, people not only fill the emptiness that drives them to consume, they can begin to save money and preserve resources by sharing, bartering, or purchasing things together. So, as we urge people to reduce their extreme consumerism, it's not enough to just point out the problems. We have to offer them alternatives to lives of shopping and television. One of the alternatives is a life lived in community.