lol, agreed on both points. i have been doing career and personal gymnastics for decades to contort my material situation and geographic location to realize some amount of personal subsistence ag activity with safe land tenure. it would be completely unrealistic for anyone to replicate my path. it will never generate more than it will have cost me, cumulatively, but its like a calling and a will to material/ecological reilience.
us political economy is completely at odds with allowing workers access to the resources necessary for even partial subsistence. i believe European elites and colonial administrators learned long ago that subsistence agriculture, besides being “wasted”/unrealized value for the ruling class, is also a potent means of labor resistance. in settler projects, it was the carrot to attract settlers and the brass ring of southern emancipation. but the frontier is now closed, more or less, so the economic screws are tightened to drive all but the most exploitative off the land best suited for plantation agriculture or fortress conservation & country resorts.
there are still weirdos out there being weird in the little fragments, coloring outside the lines. and we definitely could use more passenger trains out here lol. in case i want to take a trip into town and see like a fancy show or a fancier doctor with a store-bought haircut.
Farm to Taber made good video recently how farm subsidies mainly present stable returns for land owners and inflate land value making it impossible for agricultural workers to become farmers.
The homesteads I’ve visited in Europe were sometimes 3 train rides + a bus ride + a 8 km hike away but that’s still a qualitative difference to own a car or be fucked. And some have buses or trains almost straight to door too.
lol, agreed on both points. i have been doing career and personal gymnastics for decades to contort my material situation and geographic location to realize some amount of personal subsistence ag activity with safe land tenure. it would be completely unrealistic for anyone to replicate my path. it will never generate more than it will have cost me, cumulatively, but its like a calling and a will to material/ecological reilience.
us political economy is completely at odds with allowing workers access to the resources necessary for even partial subsistence. i believe European elites and colonial administrators learned long ago that subsistence agriculture, besides being “wasted”/unrealized value for the ruling class, is also a potent means of labor resistance. in settler projects, it was the carrot to attract settlers and the brass ring of southern emancipation. but the frontier is now closed, more or less, so the economic screws are tightened to drive all but the most exploitative off the land best suited for plantation agriculture or fortress conservation & country resorts.
there are still weirdos out there being weird in the little fragments, coloring outside the lines. and we definitely could use more passenger trains out here lol. in case i want to take a trip into town and see like a fancy show or a fancier doctor with a store-bought haircut.
Farm to Taber made good video recently how farm subsidies mainly present stable returns for land owners and inflate land value making it impossible for agricultural workers to become farmers.
The homesteads I’ve visited in Europe were sometimes 3 train rides + a bus ride + a 8 km hike away but that’s still a qualitative difference to own a car or be fucked. And some have buses or trains almost straight to door too.