We suggest you turn to the Tao Teh Ching:
80 Let there be a small country with few people. Let there be ten times and a hundred times as many utensils and let them not be used. Let there be contrivances requiring ten times, a hundred times less labour; they should not use them. Let the people value their lives highly and not travel far. Bring it about that the people are quite ready to lay down their lives at times to defend their homes rather than emigrate. As for ships and carriages, let there be none to ride. There can still be weapons, but no one to drill seriously with them and none to display them often. People should have no use for any form of writing save knotted ropes: Let the people again knot cords for reckoning. Let them be very pleased with their food, beautify their clothing, be content with their homes, take pleasure in rustic tasks, and delight in such customs [just like Negroes]. The neighbouring place can be overlooked, can be so near that one may hear the cocks crowing in it, the dogs barking; but the people would grow old and die without ever having been there. and never outside their country. -- tr. T. Byrn