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Why does Thoreau emphasize "capitalistic" principles in Walden? Is he being satiric?

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On one level, Thoreau is being satiric when he says he is conducting his experiment in living on sound business principles. However, on another level, Thoreau is completely serious in trying to show, in detail, that most ordinary people have the resources to do what he is doing, if they are willing to plan carefully and live simply.

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On one level, Thoreau speaks satirically when he says he is conducting his experiment in living on sound business practices. He never uses the word capitalistic, but it is clear that he is poking fun at the high seriousness with which money and business are taken in his culture. Thoreau writes of capital and business,

I determined to go into business at once, and not wait to acquire the usual capital, using such slender means as I had already got.

In this statement, he is having fun, because his "business" goal is to manage to have no business for two years but instead to live without working. He goes on to say,

My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles.

Thoreau's business is to "front" or face life directly and...

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"drink" its "marrow." He wants to get rid of all the encumbrances, such as a job or a business, that he feels would interfere with living as simply and authentically as possible. One of the points Thoreau makes inWalden is that by being too focused on money and getting ahead, people often become miserable in order to acquire a lot of goods they don't really want.

However, on a different level, Thoreau is being completely serious about laying out all the business or financial details of living for two years without working. He knows, as he states repeatedly, that we all live in a material world and have to find ways to get our physical needs for clothing, shelter, and food met and that we all want to live, if simply, in a way above wearing rags and going hungry. He is passionate about wanting to show people that what he is doing is not a pie-in-the-sky impossibility or due to having a trust fund. He shows that he finances this venture out of his own modest savings, earned through his not terribly lucrative work. His experiment is repeatable by ordinary people if they have the ingenuity and determination to live simply that he does. He shows how possible his experiment is to help convince readers that they have choices about how they live.

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