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Over at Simplicity In Kansas there is an article about Downsizing vs. Divesting as defined by one Jane Adams, who writes for the AARP magazine.

The contention of Ms. Adams is that downsizing is

…restricting and cutting back while holding on to yesterday’s dreams and ambitions…

while divesting is about

…redefining what is important and having new dreams, a new degree of freedom and lightness in ones life without the possessions that trap a person.

I find this choice of semantics interesting because:

down·shift (doun’shĭft’)

v., -shift·ed, -shift·ing, -shifts.

v.intr.

1. To shift a motor vehicle into a lower gear.
2. To reduce the speed, rate, or intensity of something.
3. To simplify or reduce one’s expectations or commitments, especially in work hours: “28 percent said that they had downshifted and voluntarily cut back on their income in some way … to reflect changes in priorities” (Carey Goldberg).

v.tr.

1. To shift (a motor vehicle) into a lower gear.
2. To reduce in speed, rate, or intensity: “The president is downshifting his confrontational rhetoric and reaffirming his readiness to talk arms control” (Newsweek).
3. To simplify or reduce one’s commitments in (one’s life).

whereas:

di·vest (dĭ-vĕst’, dī-)

tr.v., -vest·ed, -vest·ing, -vests.

1. To strip, as of clothes.
2.
1. To deprive, as of rights or property; dispossess.
2. To free of; rid: “Most secretive of men, let him at last divest himself of secrets, both his and ours” (Brendan Gill).
3. To sell off or otherwise dispose of (a subsidiary company or an investment).
4. Law. To devest.

It seems to me that Ms. Adams got it exactly backwards. To divest is to dispose of, to cast away, to get rid of, whereas to downshift is to simplify or reduce, to reflect change in priorities. However, that is really a minor semantic aside. The interesting thing in the post is Kansas Simplicity mentioning that reminded him of something he had read of feudalism; “…the King was trapped by his possessions…”

I call it interesting because Feudalism is the beginning of the rise of the middle class, at that time the Knights:

In the early ninth century, control of Europe was largely under the rule of one man, Emperor Charlemagne (771-814). After Charlemagne’s death, his descendants warred over land ownership, and Europe fell apart into thousands of seigniories, or kingdoms run by a sovereign lord. Men in the military service of lords began to press for support in the late ninth century, especially in France. Lords acquiesced, realizing the importance of a faithful military.

Military men, or knights, began to receive land, along with peasants for farmwork. Eventually, knights demanded that their estates be hereditary. Other persons in the professional service of royalty also began to demand and receive hereditary fiefs, and thus began the reign of feudalism.

In 1066, William the Conqueror invaded England from France and spread the feudal framework across the land. The feudal relationship between lord and vassal became the linchpin of English society. To become a vassal was no disgrace. Vassals held an overall status superior to that of peasants and were considered equal to lords in social status. They took leadership positions in their locality and also served as advisers for lords in feudal courts.

As you can see, without Feudalism, there would be no middle class, no mittelstand, no bourgeoisie, who allied with the kings in the late middle ages to uproot the feudal system and supplant the Knights (and eventually the Kings. From that time on, successful embourgeoisement typically meant being able to retire and live on invested income, and it has also from that time been accused of narrow-mindedness, materialism, hypocrisy, opposition to change, and lack of culture, among other things, by persons such as the playwright Molière.

So, in my characteristic long-winded way, I agree completely with Kansas Simplicity, one should defiantely think of Feudal lords, and the bourgeoisie who came after them when thinking of investment, retirement, and what that means to simplicity and downshifting.