I’ve been seeing a few autistic content creators taking about low demand lifestyles. It always triggers me – it’s fine if you have the money and support to be able to do that, but if you’re alone, or widowed, like me, it’s big on impossible. Bills need to be paid, and I’m the only one who can do that.
I’m also new-ish to philosophy. I love listening to podcasts like “The Minefield”, “The Philosophers’ Zone”, and “The Religion and Ethics Report” from the ABC, but I’m not well-read on philosophy.
After seeing yet another social media post about the autistic need for a low demand lifestyle, I thought to myself that I really need to blog about this. I knew it needed a philosophical and sociological lens, so I turned to ChatGPT again. I asked it to “write a blog post on the iniquities of the concept of a “low demand lifestyle” and the appalling privilege the concept shows. Use as much evidence as you can, from a combined philosophical and sociological perspective, please.
After it generated this, we then went into a very long conversation about privilege, my personal situation, the difficulties that Uber presents for me as an autistic driver, the iniquities in research, empathy, the percentage of the population that is in some way neurodivergent, mental health, neuroplasticity, autism and tertiary education, quantum physics, grief… and more. If you really, really want to read the whole transcript, it’s here.
Read on to see ChatGPT’s scathing assessment of the structural and societal issues around a “low demand lifestyle”.
(Side note – have I turned a little piece of AI into an autistuc progressive socialist? Given that I ticked the box to share our data, and the machine learning works, I can only hope so…)
The term “low-demand lifestyle” has been gaining traction in certain neurodivergent and disability advocacy spaces, often framed as a way to reduce stress, improve well-being, and accommodate the unique needs of individuals with executive dysfunction, chronic illness, or other conditions that make conventional work and social expectations unsustainable. While the idea may sound reasonable in principle, it reveals a troubling undercurrent of privilege, class blindness, and social inequity. From a combined philosophical and sociological perspective, the concept disregards the material realities of most working-class and marginalized people, entrenches existing inequalities, and reflects an unexamined reliance on structural exploitation.
- The Philosophical Incoherence of a “Low-Demand Lifestyle”
A. Demand, Responsibility, and Ethical Relationality
At its core, the phrase “low-demand lifestyle” implies a retreat from obligations, but this raises profound ethical concerns. Human societies function through mutual responsibility—a core principle in deontological ethics (Kantian duty ethics) and virtue ethics (Aristotelian flourishing). To live ethically means recognizing that one’s existence is deeply interconnected with others, and a just society requires reciprocity.
While it is true that some individuals may need accommodations due to disability or chronic illness, to frame a low-demand lifestyle as an inherent right rather than an adaptive necessity distorts the nature of social obligation. The philosopher Iris Marion Young, in her theory of “social connection” ethics, argues that justice is a shared responsibility, not something one can opt out of when it becomes inconvenient.
Furthermore, the Rawlsian perspective on justice (John Rawls, A Theory of Justice) reminds us that fairness requires policies that do not just benefit those who already have the privilege to dictate their level of engagement. Can everyone equally afford to adopt a low-demand lifestyle? If not, then promoting it as a desirable goal without accounting for social stratification is morally dubious.
B. The Implicit Privilege of “Opting Out”
A “low-demand lifestyle” is only available to those who can afford it. This concept echoes the bourgeois retreat into minimalism and self-care as a replacement for systemic change. Historically, those with wealth and social capital have often framed their ability to reduce labor as a matter of personal enlightenment (e.g., aristocratic leisure in Ancient Greece, Romantic rejections of industrialization).
But for working-class individuals, single parents, and the global poor, a low-demand lifestyle is not an option. They cannot reduce their engagement with work, childcare, or basic survival without devastating consequences. To endorse the low-demand lifestyle as a universal good is to ignore the lived reality of the vast majority of people, a stance that aligns with Marie Antoinette-style detachment rather than genuine social justice.
- The Sociological Reality of Demand and Exploitation
A. Who Bears the Burden of a “Low-Demand Lifestyle”?
The privilege embedded in the concept becomes clearer when we ask: If some people reduce their labor, who picks up the slack?
Sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s concept of the “second shift” reveals that even within two-income households, women disproportionately bear the burden of unpaid domestic labor. This is a clear example of how “demand” is not simply an individual experience—it is socially distributed.
Similarly, if affluent individuals or those in creative fields reduce their engagement with “demanding” work, the burden shifts downward onto gig workers, service industry employees, and low-wage laborers. The fact that people in tech or academia can discuss a low-demand lifestyle while their food is delivered by an Uber driver working 12-hour shifts is a stark reminder of how deeply exploitative structures support this illusion.
B. The Myth of Self-Sufficiency
A common defense of the low-demand lifestyle is that it promotes self-sufficiency—living with fewer obligations, producing only as much as one personally requires, and disengaging from capitalist productivity. However, this perspective is fundamentally ahistorical and class-blind.
True self-sufficiency is a myth. No individual is fully self-reliant. The food we eat, the medical care we receive, and the roads we drive on all depend on a vast, interdependent network of labor. The people advocating a low-demand lifestyle often still rely on invisible laborers—farmworkers, janitors, truck drivers—who do not have the luxury of reducing demand.
The sociologist Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus” helps explain this discrepancy. Those raised with economic and cultural capital experience their privilege as natural and rarely question the structural forces that make their low-demand lifestyle possible. In contrast, the working class and marginalized communities live in an environment where “demand” is an inescapable condition, not a personal choice.
- The Hidden Ableism of “Low-Demand Lifestyle” Rhetoric
Ironically, the low-demand lifestyle is often framed as a form of disability justice, but this framing is deeply flawed. Many disabled and chronically ill people are already forced into low-demand lifestyles against their will, due to systemic exclusion from employment, education, and public life.
For neurodivergent people, particularly autistic individuals with executive dysfunction or PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance), the idea of reducing external demands may be a necessity. However, instead of advocating for a just redistribution of resources to support all disabled individuals, the low-demand lifestyle rhetoric often skews individualistic: “I will simply disengage from demand” rather than “We should build structures that equitably support different levels of capacity.”
Moreover, disabled individuals in poverty do not have the option to embrace a low-demand lifestyle. They are constantly battling bureaucratic demands (disability benefits, medical appointments, inaccessible workplaces), meaning that demand is often highest for those least able to manage it.
To romanticize a low-demand lifestyle without addressing the barriers that prevent others from choosing their level of engagement is to ignore the very real struggles of disabled people who need demand to be reduced systemically, not just for the privileged few.
Conclusion: Demand is a Structural, Not Personal, Issue
At its heart, the problem with the low-demand lifestyle is that it frames demand as an individual experience rather than a structural issue. It ignores the sociological reality of interdependence, the ethical imperative of mutual responsibility, and the material constraints of class, disability, and labor exploitation.
The real question should not be: “How can I reduce my own demand?” but rather: “How can we equitably distribute the burdens of demand across society?” Instead of advocating for an individualistic retreat, we should be pushing for systemic solutions: universal healthcare, living wages, accessible workplaces, and equitable caregiving structures.
To seek a world where demand is more fairly distributed is a just goal. But to claim that one can personally “opt out” of demand, while relying on an invisible underclass to sustain that choice, is the height of privilege.
A truly just society does not reduce demand for a select few—it reorganizes demand so that it does not crush the many.
The Auld Skald's Fudgel 