An exploration of freedom, economic necessity, and the unintended consequences of building a new way of life in our Village – Ecovilla San Mateo (ESM).
By Staff Writer Ryan
There is a quiet contradiction emerging in our beautiful community. Many of us came here seeking freedom from demanding careers, long commutes, consumerism, social expectations, and the relentless pressure to produce more, earn more, and accomplish more. We imagined a different rhythm of life: mornings surrounded by nature, afternoons with our children, meaningful friendships, healthier bodies, and the opportunity to live more deliberately.
We invested in that dream by purchasing land, building homes, relocating families, and committing significant portions of our financial resources to a new life in Costa Rica. Yet for some, the pursuit of freedom has introduced an unexpected dependency. Having invested so much in the life we wanted, we must now find ways to sustain it. The beautiful home in the forest can become both a symbol of freedom and a financial obligation that demands our continued labor.
We continue working remotely, explore entrepreneurial opportunities, or develop rental properties, that might generate additional income. We navigate the complexities of residency and employment while establishing ourselves in a country whose economy and culture existed long before our arrival. Increasingly, conversations within our communities turn toward creating businesses, attracting customers, organizing commercial activities, and developing new sources of income.
There is nothing inherently wrong with these ambitions: families need financial security, and communities need economic stability. Entrepreneurship can be creative, fulfilling, and beneficial to the wider region. But something about this emerging direction deserves thoughtful examination. Are we building an economy to support the lives we came here to live, or are we gradually reorganizing our lives around the need to sustain an economy?
Two recent articles offer an opportunity to explore this question. “Machuca Valley: Building an Economy in Service of Life,” by Daniel and Zach, reposted in El Pueblo on October 11, 2026, presents an ambitious vision for a regenerative regional economy. “Hustle Culture & the Illusion of Freedom,” by Daneyal Afaqui, published in the August/September 2026 issue of Philosophy Now, examines the philosophy of Theodor Adorno and the troubling relationship between productivity, economic systems, and personal autonomy. Read together, these articles illuminate a consequential tension: even the most well-intentioned economic vision can reproduce the pressures it was created to overcome.
A Worthy Vision and an Important Question
In “Machuca Valley: Building an Economy in Service of Life,” Daniel and Zach recognize a genuine challenge facing our emerging communities. Moving to Costa Rica, purchasing property, and building a home require substantial financial commitments. Some residents depend on employment or businesses outside Costa Rica, while others rely on savings and investments accumulated elsewhere. The authors reasonably question whether a community can remain resilient when its residents depend so heavily on economic resources generated beyond the valley.
Their proposed response is a locally rooted, globally connected economy that creates meaningful livelihoods, supports local businesses, encourages entrepreneurship, and strengthens the surrounding region. Their guiding principle is compelling: “Our economy, then, is not the end goal. It is infrastructure in service of a fulfilling life.” This is precisely the right aspiration, but declaring that the economy should serve life does not guarantee that it will.
Institutions created to serve human needs can gradually develop priorities of their own. Organizations established to provide stability may begin prioritizing growth, while systems designed to create efficiency may demand ever greater productivity. Economic arrangements intended to provide security can become sources of dependency. The question is whether the structures we create will remain faithful to their original intentions as they develop.
Daniel and Zach's stated intentions are constructive and community-minded. Taking those intentions seriously means asking how we prevent the means of achieving a fulfilling life from becoming the purpose of life itself. This is where philosophy becomes useful: it helps us examine the assumptions that practical planning can leave untouched.
The Illusion of Freedom
In “Hustle Culture & the Illusion of Freedom,” Afaqui draws on the work of German philosopher Theodor Adorno, a leading figure in the Frankfurt School of critical theory. Adorno and his colleague Max Horkheimer questioned the promise that increasing rationality, technological advancement, and economic productivity would necessarily produce greater human freedom. They observed that systems designed to improve human life could also become systems of control.
One of their central concerns was instrumental rationality, a way of thinking associated with Max Weber that focuses on identifying the most efficient means of achieving an objective. Instrumental reasoning helps us build infrastructure, organize businesses, improve agricultural production, and solve practical problems. Its limitation is that it tells us how to accomplish something efficiently without necessarily asking whether the objective is worth pursuing. We can become extraordinarily effective at achieving goals we have never seriously examined.
Afaqui applies this insight to modern hustle culture, in which success is associated with discipline, productivity, entrepreneurship, and constant self-improvement. Free time becomes an opportunity to develop another skill, hobbies become potential businesses, and personal relationships become professional networks. Even health and wellness can become projects measured by performance and achievement. Eventually, people begin evaluating themselves according to their economic usefulness.
The remarkable feature of this system is that participation often feels voluntary. We choose to work harder, optimize our schedules, pursue additional income, and turn our interests into businesses. Yet the values shaping those choices may have been established by the economic system itself. Afaqui describes an illusion of freedom in which individuals appear to exercise autonomy while increasingly organizing their lives around expectations they have internalized.
This does not mean that every entrepreneurial decision is an illusion or that economic ambition is inherently oppressive. It means that the freedom to pursue economic success is not necessarily the same as the freedom to determine what constitutes a successful life. That distinction is particularly relevant our Village.
Changing Our Location and Our Thinking
Imagine a family leaving a demanding professional life in North America. They want to spend more time together, reduce stress, reconnect with nature, and escape the culture of endless achievement. They purchase land in an intentional community in Costa Rica and begin building their dream home. But construction costs exceed expectations, savings decrease, and property ownership introduces ongoing financial responsibilities. Their new home may be valuable, but that value is not readily available to pay monthly expenses.
The family still needs income. Perhaps one parent continues working remotely for an employer in another country, begins developing an online business, or explores rental opportunities and services within the growing expatriate community. These decisions may be reasonable and even essential. Yet the family relocated to gain greater control over its time, and the financial demands of relocation may now require continued or increased economic activity.
They have escaped the physical environment of their previous lives without necessarily escaping the economic pressures that shaped those lives. The commute may have disappeared, but the workday remains. The office may now overlook a beautiful forest, but the computer still demands attention. Their children may be surrounded by extraordinary natural beauty, while their parents have less time to enjoy it with them than originally imagined.
For many families, remote employment provides valuable flexibility and financial stability. The problem arises when the economic requirements of maintaining a chosen lifestyle begin to undermine the reasons that lifestyle was chosen. We can become so occupied with financing our freedom that we have little time left to experience it. This is not necessarily evidence of poor planning or mistaken priorities; families face different financial realities, and circumstances change.
It does suggest that we should be cautious about treating additional economic activity as the automatic solution to every financial challenge. Sometimes the appropriate response is to create income. Sometimes it is to reduce expenses, adjust expectations, share resources, or reconsider what we actually need. A community committed to genuine freedom should be willing to explore all these possibilities.
Economic Activity and Economic Security
One assumption worth examining in the economic vision is that developing more local economic opportunities will make our communities more stable. There is considerable truth in this idea: a diversified economy can create employment, support local suppliers, strengthen essential services, and reduce certain forms of vulnerability. But economic activity and economic security are not interchangeable.
A family operating three businesses may have more income than a family operating one, but it may also have greater debt, higher fixed expenses, more stress, and less discretionary time. Similarly, a community with numerous commercial ventures may appear economically vibrant while its residents become increasingly dependent on maintaining those ventures. Economic growth can increase resilience, but it can also increase complexity, obligations, and exposure to risk.
Consider two hypothetical households. One earns a substantial income but requires nearly all of it to maintain its lifestyle, leaving its members working long hours with limited flexibility. Another earns considerably less but has modest expenses, little debt, and substantial control over how its members spend their time. Deciding which household is more secure or freer requires looking beyond income to financial obligations, savings, time, health, relationships, and the ability to make meaningful choices.
The same principle applies to communities. A resilient community is not necessarily one that generates the greatest amount of economic activity; it may be one whose residents can meet their needs without continually expanding their economic commitments. Our conversations about regional development should therefore ask how we can reduce the amount of money, work, and economic complexity required to live well here. That question is just as important as asking how to generate additional income, and it may be more consistent with the reasons many people chose to move here.
When Purpose Becomes Another Form of Productivity
The Machuca Valley article begins with the powerful phrase “Purpose Before Economy.” It is an appealing principle, but purpose and productivity are not the same thing. A person may find purpose in raising children, caring for aging parents, tending a garden, helping a neighbor, studying philosophy, practicing a faith, or simply being present for family and friends. None of these activities necessarily generates income, yet all can contribute profoundly to a meaningful life.
Modern economic culture often struggles to recognize value that cannot be measured, exchanged, or monetized. This concern is central to the critique of productivity explored in Afaqui's discussion of Adorno. When productivity becomes the dominant measure of human achievement, activities that do not produce economic returns can begin to appear less valuable. We may not consciously intend this, but the language we use can reveal the assumptions guiding our thinking.
Daniel and Zach describe residents as potential workers, consumers, producers, investors, entrepreneurs, and participants in global networks. These are legitimate economic roles, but they are not the entirety of who we are. We are also parents, children, neighbors, friends, volunteers, and individuals whose worth exists independently of economic contribution.
Continually emphasizing residents' productive potential may unintentionally create an expectation that everyone should be building, developing, organizing, or contributing to economic growth. Those who simply wish to enjoy their homes, relationships, and surroundings may begin to feel that they are not fully participating in the community's collective purpose. That would be an unfortunate outcome for communities established around the promise of living differently. A truly intentional community must protect the freedom to contribute without producing, to participate without monetizing, and to belong without achieving.
The Risk of Commercializing Community Life
The distinction between economic opportunity and community purpose becomes especially important when commercial activities enter residential spaces. A neighborhood gathering is not the same as a commercial event, and a shared meal is not the same as a restaurant. A neighbor volunteering to teach a skill is not necessarily operating a business. A community space designed for recreation, contemplation, or social connection does not automatically become an appropriate commercial venue simply because demand exists.
These distinctions raise questions about the purpose of shared spaces and the expectations attached to them. When residential amenities become commercial venues, traffic, noise, parking, maintenance, liability, access, and competing uses become more complicated. Residents who understood a space as a shared neighborhood resource may find themselves negotiating its use with commercial interests. Once individuals depend financially on activities taking place in those spaces, decisions become more difficult.
What happens when an activity generates income for one resident but disrupts the tranquility of another? What happens when commercial demand competes with ordinary community use? What happens when the financial interests of a few begin influencing decisions about resources owned or supported by everyone? These are questions about governance, fairness, and the meaning of community, as well as administration.
A life-centered approach would begin by establishing the purpose of residential and common spaces, respecting applicable regulations and governing documents, and protecting residents' reasonable expectations. Commercial opportunities could then develop in appropriate locations, with clear authorization and safeguards. Dedicated commercial spaces within the wider valley might offer a more sustainable approach than gradually converting residential amenities into economic infrastructure. The existence of an economic opportunity does not, by itself, establish that pursuing it serves the community. That judgment requires examining who benefits, who bears the costs, and what may be lost in the process.
Community Relationships and Economic Exchange
As our Village grows, residents will naturally develop relationships based on shared interests, skills, and opportunities. A resident may know a reliable contractor, another may help organize a farmers' market, and someone else may share expertise in education, engineering, agriculture, or health. These exchanges can strengthen community life. But there is a difference between relationships that occasionally produce economic opportunities and relationships increasingly organized around them.
When neighbors begin viewing one another primarily as potential customers, clients, collaborators, or investors, social interaction can change. Gatherings may become networking opportunities, friendships may acquire commercial expectations, and voluntary contributions may become services for sale. The question is whether we are developing an economy from an existing community or gradually transforming the community into an economic network.
The philosophical analysis Afaqui presents encourages us to examine precisely these kinds of changes. Economic thinking can gradually become embedded in how we understand ordinary relationships and activities. We begin asking what something is worth, how it can scale, whether it is sustainable as a business, or how it might generate revenue. Those questions are appropriate in commercial settings, but they need not govern every aspect of human life.
Some things are valuable precisely because they exist outside economic exchange. A neighbor helping another neighbor without expecting compensation is expressing community, rather than conducting an inefficient transaction. A gathering that produces no revenue may be an exceptionally successful afternoon. Time spent doing nothing economically productive may be exactly the freedom we came here to find.
Building With Costa Rica
Daniel and Zach recognize the importance of connecting emerging residential communities with the wider region, one of their proposal's most promising ideas. This requires careful attention to the relationship between expatriate residents and established Costa Rican communities. San Mateo, Orotina, Maderal, and surrounding areas already possess functioning economies, local knowledge, businesses, traditions, and social institutions.
New residents bring additional resources, skills, and perspectives. The opportunity extends beyond creating an economy for expatriates to participating responsibly in the economy and society of the country that has welcomed us. That might mean purchasing from existing local businesses, supporting Costa Rican farmers and tradespeople, developing partnerships, investing in appropriate local enterprises, or sharing professional expertise when invited.
It also means recognizing that foreign residents do not necessarily have unrestricted authorization to work in Costa Rica. Immigration status, labor regulations, business structures, and applicable permits must be considered when proposing new livelihood opportunities. A regional economic vision that overlooks these realities risks encouraging ambitions that may be difficult to implement fairly or legally. More fundamentally, it risks treating the surrounding region primarily as an opportunity for development rather than as a community of people with their own priorities.
A genuinely regenerative approach should begin with listening to what existing residents want and which local businesses need support. We should ask what activities would strengthen the region without displacing established livelihoods or changing its character in undesirable ways. We should also ask how newcomers can contribute without assuming that their preferred model of development should become the region's future. These questions reflect the humility that responsible stewardship requires.
Learning From Mondragón
Daniel and Zach reference Mondragón, the Spanish cooperative enterprise network, as an example of economic institutions reinforcing one another. It is a useful case study in organizing enterprises around principles extending beyond shareholder profit, including worker participation, education, and regional development. But we should be careful about the lessons we draw from it. Mondragón's size and economic reach demonstrate organizational capacity; they do not, by themselves, establish that a similar degree of economic integration would be desirable in ESM.
Our objectives may be quite different. We are not necessarily trying to create a major employment center or industrial network, and many residents came here because they wanted to move away from environments dominated by economic activity. The most relevant lesson may be to design institutions whose economic activities remain accountable to clearly defined human purposes.
Accountability requires more than good intentions. It requires mechanisms for evaluating whether an institution continues to serve the people for whom it was created. For ESM, that means deciding what success should look like before building organizations intended to achieve it. Otherwise, the creation and growth of those organizations may gradually become their own justification.
Avoiding the Return of Hustle Culture
Recognizing these risks does not mean abandoning the idea of a regenerative economy. It means taking “Purpose Before Economy” seriously enough to test our decisions against it. If we want to create an economy in service of life, we need principles that protect that relationship over time.
1. Define the life we want before designing the economy
We should begin with a collective discussion about what brought us here. Our reasons may include financial opportunity, more time with family, a healthier environment, greater independence, meaningful relationships, or a slower pace of life. For most people, the answer is probably some combination of these, but the priorities matter.
If time with family is central to our vision, economic initiatives should be evaluated partly by whether they protect or diminish that time. If tranquility is important, we should consider the noise, traffic, and activity associated with commercial development. If connection with nature is essential, environmental protection must be more than a marketing theme. We cannot determine whether an economy serves life until we have defined the qualities of life it is supposed to serve.
2. Distinguish genuine needs from manufactured opportunities
Not every opportunity needs to become a business, and not every problem requires a commercial solution. Before launching an initiative, we should ask whether it responds to a demonstrated need or whether we are equating activity with progress. An existing Costa Rican business may already be able to provide the service. Neighbors might share equipment, organize a volunteer initiative, or establish a cooperative arrangement that reduces costs without requiring additional income. Choosing to consume less is also an option, and considering these alternatives encourages intentional entrepreneurship.
3. Measure prosperity through well being
If we want a different kind of economy, we need different measures of success. Business creation, employment, and revenue may be useful indicators, but they should not stand alone. We should also consider whether residents experience greater financial security, enjoy sufficient time with their families, maintain strong relationships, and feel free to participate in community life without economic pressure.
We should ask whether initiatives reduce stress, improve access to essential services, and strengthen relationships with Costa Rican neighbors. We should examine whether they preserve the natural environment and residential character of our communities. We should also consider whether they make life simpler or more complicated. An initiative that generates revenue while increasing conflict, obligations, and stress may not represent the progress we intended.
4. Protect spaces and relationships from unnecessary commercialization
A healthy community needs places where people can gather without becoming customers. It needs shared spaces dedicated to recreation, friendship, contemplation, and ordinary neighborhood life. It also needs opportunities for generosity that are not structured as transactions. These needs should remain visible as the valley develops commercial opportunities.
Protecting them requires distinguishing between appropriate commercial development and residential and social spaces that should remain primarily dedicated to community life. Clear governance, transparent decision-making, and respect for established land uses can help preserve that distinction. Such protections are part of what makes an economy regenerative.
5. Preserve the freedom not to participate economically
Residents should never feel that belonging depends on entrepreneurship, professional expertise, financial investment, or participation in economic initiatives. A retired couple enjoying their garden contributes to the character of the community, as does a parent spending the afternoon with children. A neighbor who volunteers occasionally, shares a meal, or simply offers friendship also contributes. These contributions may never appear in an economic development report, but that does not make them less valuable. A community that celebrates economic initiative must be equally capable of celebrating lives that are not organized around economic ambition.
6. Establish boundaries before financial interests become entrenched
It is easier to establish principles before economic dependencies develop than afterward. Once businesses rely on particular activities, locations, or customer relationships, restrictions can become financially and emotionally difficult. Thoughtful planning should therefore establish appropriate locations, legal authorization, clear operating expectations, and mechanisms for addressing effects on surrounding residents.
Community governance should distinguish between the interests of individual enterprises and the interests of the community as a whole. Economic proposals should be evaluated against the community's stated purpose rather than accepted simply because they promise growth. Clear boundaries can protect entrepreneurs and residents alike by creating shared expectations from the beginning.
7. Make room for the question of enough
Perhaps the most countercultural act an intentional community can undertake is to define sufficiency. Modern economic culture rarely encourages us to ask when we have enough; there is always another investment, opportunity, improvement, or project. But a fulfilling life may depend partly on knowing when to stop. We should be able to ask when a home or income is sufficient, when a business has grown enough, and when additional economic activity begins taking more from life than it contributes.
These are personal questions, and the answers will differ among residents. A community should not impose a single definition of enough. It can, however, create a culture in which asking the question is normal, respected, and encouraged. That alone would distinguish it from much of the hustle culture Afaqui critiques.
A Different Understanding of Regeneration
The term regenerative is increasingly used to describe economic activities that restore ecosystems, improve resource management, and strengthen local communities. These are worthwhile objectives, but our understanding of regeneration should extend further. A regenerative economy should restore human time, attention, relationships, and autonomy as well as soil, water, biodiversity, and financial resources.
It should make it easier for parents to be present with their children and reduce unnecessary financial anxiety. It should create opportunities for meaningful contribution without requiring every contribution to become a commercial enterprise. It should allow people to develop talents because they find them fulfilling, not merely because those talents have market value. It should strengthen existing Costa Rican communities rather than creating isolated economic enclaves.
Such an economy should recognize that a successful life may include long periods of activity that produce nothing measurable. This is an argument for remembering why economic activity matters. The purpose of a healthy economy is to help people live well, and keeping everyone busy is no substitute for that purpose.
The Courage to Question Our Own Vision
One of the most valuable contributions of Adorno's philosophy, as explored by Afaqui, is the insistence that genuine autonomy requires critical reflection on the forces shaping our choices. We cannot assume that a decision is genuinely free simply because we make it voluntarily. We must also examine the expectations, pressures, and assumptions influencing that decision. This is particularly important in intentional communities.
We have already demonstrated a willingness to question conventional ways of living. We left familiar environments, accepted uncertainty, and invested in an alternative vision. But questioning the world we left behind is only the beginning. We must also be willing to question the world we are creating.
Are our decisions guided by the values that brought us here, or are we importing familiar assumptions about productivity, growth, achievement, and economic success? Are we developing businesses because they improve life in the valley, or because entrepreneurship has become our default response to uncertainty? Are we building institutions that increase residents' choices, or creating structures that may eventually demand their continued participation? Are we strengthening community relationships, or increasingly organizing them around economic exchange?
These questions need not be criticisms of the people working to develop a regional economy. They are precisely the questions that responsible, intentional development should welcome. A vision that cannot tolerate critical examination risks becoming another system of expectations rather than an expression of genuine freedom.
The Freedom to Simply Live
There is something deeply appealing about the vision Daniel and Zach present in “Machuca Valley: Building an Economy in Service of Life.” It recognizes that meaningful lives require material foundations: families need financial security, local businesses deserve support, and economic cooperation can strengthen communities. These realities should not be dismissed. But neither should we assume that the answer to economic vulnerability is always more economic activity.
Sometimes the answer may be better economic organization or stronger local relationships. Sometimes it may be lower costs, shared resources, or greater financial simplicity. Sometimes it may involve recognizing that the lifestyle we have constructed demands more than we originally intended to give. The challenge is to remain honest about these possibilities.
We should be particularly cautious about allowing economic necessity to evolve into a community-wide ideology of productivity. Not everyone needs to become an entrepreneur, and not every skill needs to become a service. Not every gathering needs to generate revenue or every shared space become economically productive. Nor does every resident need to participate in building a regional economic network.
There must remain room for people who simply want to live: to raise children, grow food, enjoy friendships, walk through the forest, read a book, help a neighbor, or watch the rain. There must be room to spend an afternoon doing nothing that anyone would describe as productive. These are not activities that take place only after we have finished building a successful economy. They are among the reasons for building a successful economy in the first place.
Let Life Remain the Measure
Daniel and Zach have opened an important conversation, and their proposal deserves thoughtful engagement. Economic resilience matters, and our growing communities have opportunities to contribute meaningfully to the wider region. But the philosophy explored in “Hustle Culture & the Illusion of Freedom” offers a necessary caution. We can become so focused on creating the means of freedom that we unintentionally construct new forms of dependency.
We can celebrate entrepreneurship while overlooking the pressures that make entrepreneurship feel necessary. We can promote community development while gradually commercializing the relationships and spaces that make community meaningful. We can speak sincerely about putting purpose before economy while allowing economic logic to shape our understanding of purpose itself. Avoiding these contradictions requires deliberate choices, clear boundaries, thoughtful governance, and a willingness to question whether every new opportunity truly advances the life we want.
Perhaps our greatest opportunity in ESM is to demonstrate how thoughtfully an economy can be designed so that people need not organize their entire lives around it. We came here seeking something different, and the challenge now is to remember what that difference was. Let us build an economy that supports our freedom, without allowing the pursuit of that economy to become another obligation from which we eventually wish to escape.
As we consider what to build next, perhaps we should begin with one deceptively simple question. Will this give us more freedom to live the lives we came here to live? If the answer is uncertain, that may be the most important reason to continue the conversation.
References
Daniel and Zach. “Machuca Valley: Building an Economy in Service of Life.” El Pueblo, October 11, 2026. Originally published in Machuca Elements, Issue 55. El Pueblo stewardship archive.
Afaqui, Daneyal. “Hustle Culture & the Illusion of Freedom.” Philosophy Now, August/September 2026, pp. 8–11. An examination of contemporary work culture through the philosophy of Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer.