I know everyone loves the idea of "returning to the country" and living in a commune but that shit is a lot of work. Unless you have some mechanized agricultural equipment you basically turn into a peasant.
I went into small scale diversified agriculture as a seasonal laborer for a big hunk of my 20s-30s and I met so many people wanting to do thing in the OP, except they did not want to do the work necessary.
they all had hardcore capitalist brainworms telling them that buying the land and having their own home built was all the "work" they needed to do and it became quite clear that they wanted me, or whatever sucker they could find, to be their serf.
even in my own limited experience, I've stumbled across a dozen of these micro-galt's gulch type of setups where some no-nothing money douche bought ~40-200 acres and now is trying to recruit unpaid laborers ("self-starting entrepreneurs") to live there in some shanty, or worse, buy-in on a homesite.
young, starry-eyed workers do get duped into working on one, but almost nobody lasts more than a season or two, and eventually the turnover gives the place a reputation in the community. especially since nobody actually knows what the hell they are doing and workers catch on real quick to the incompetence.
That's my main problem with these types of scenarios. The initial buy-in would have to be such a fervor of ideological blindness to the situation. You'd need dozens of able-bodied laborers willing to work to live in a shack and eat berries for possibly years, even if the stated goal is some kind of egalitarian community. Like you said, that kind of ideological zeal can't last too long, so you'll end up with a revolving door turnover rate of people going back to normal civilization.
There are some places like this in the US that more or less get by, I know of a few out in Virginia like Twin Oaks. Those places seem like exceptions and often survive because they get contracts to sell something like furniture or crafts.
That’s my main problem with these types of scenarios. The initial buy-in would have to be such a fervor of ideological blindness to the situation.
absolutely. the typical founders not only didn't have the skills/knowledge and willingness to provide the labor time necessary to provide basic vegetables for themselves during the growing season, they didn't understand the problem from an organizational standpoint enough to even create a structure to induce someone with the needed skills to contribute.
they were just fools with lots of money and the deep, gene-level certainty that having money means you know what you're doing and that you're right. little barons with little fiefs, only they don't offer justice or protection.
at a very minimum the organization would/should be developed into a legal entity, probably a trust, with an electable committee and bylaws that prevent obvious nepotism/tyrannies, worker exploitation, etc. but at that point, you're basically just mirroring a smaller, less publicly accountable version of incorporating as a community under state regulation that is likely to have some kind of loophole in it where somebody with a lawyer can come along, scrutinize its legal documents, and void/absorb it into a corporate dictatorship.
they also have a tendency to become super weird and insular unless a whole whole lot of people are involved. There's some kind of threshold. I'm gonna ballpark it at around 5,000 minimum because smaller than that and you're gonna get Jonestown or something just as weird. This is why the Zapatista zone in Chiapas keeps going, because there are tens of thousands of people involved.
A lot of my extended family are farmers and that shit sucks ass. Whenever I hear people rhapsodize about growing your own food and going back to the land, I just think of Marie Antoinette cosplaying as a milkmaid on her "farm"
I know everyone loves the idea of "returning to the country" and living in a commune but that shit is a lot of work. Unless you have some mechanized agricultural equipment you basically turn into a peasant.
I went into small scale diversified agriculture as a seasonal laborer for a big hunk of my 20s-30s and I met so many people wanting to do thing in the OP, except they did not want to do the work necessary.
they all had hardcore capitalist brainworms telling them that buying the land and having their own home built was all the "work" they needed to do and it became quite clear that they wanted me, or whatever sucker they could find, to be their serf.
even in my own limited experience, I've stumbled across a dozen of these micro-galt's gulch type of setups where some no-nothing money douche bought ~40-200 acres and now is trying to recruit unpaid laborers ("self-starting entrepreneurs") to live there in some shanty, or worse, buy-in on a homesite.
young, starry-eyed workers do get duped into working on one, but almost nobody lasts more than a season or two, and eventually the turnover gives the place a reputation in the community. especially since nobody actually knows what the hell they are doing and workers catch on real quick to the incompetence.
That's my main problem with these types of scenarios. The initial buy-in would have to be such a fervor of ideological blindness to the situation. You'd need dozens of able-bodied laborers willing to work to live in a shack and eat berries for possibly years, even if the stated goal is some kind of egalitarian community. Like you said, that kind of ideological zeal can't last too long, so you'll end up with a revolving door turnover rate of people going back to normal civilization.
There are some places like this in the US that more or less get by, I know of a few out in Virginia like Twin Oaks. Those places seem like exceptions and often survive because they get contracts to sell something like furniture or crafts.
absolutely. the typical founders not only didn't have the skills/knowledge and willingness to provide the labor time necessary to provide basic vegetables for themselves during the growing season, they didn't understand the problem from an organizational standpoint enough to even create a structure to induce someone with the needed skills to contribute.
they were just fools with lots of money and the deep, gene-level certainty that having money means you know what you're doing and that you're right. little barons with little fiefs, only they don't offer justice or protection.
at a very minimum the organization would/should be developed into a legal entity, probably a trust, with an electable committee and bylaws that prevent obvious nepotism/tyrannies, worker exploitation, etc. but at that point, you're basically just mirroring a smaller, less publicly accountable version of incorporating as a community under state regulation that is likely to have some kind of loophole in it where somebody with a lawyer can come along, scrutinize its legal documents, and void/absorb it into a corporate dictatorship.
So a bastardization of communalism and 'sharecropping'. Lovely
they also have a tendency to become super weird and insular unless a whole whole lot of people are involved. There's some kind of threshold. I'm gonna ballpark it at around 5,000 minimum because smaller than that and you're gonna get Jonestown or something just as weird. This is why the Zapatista zone in Chiapas keeps going, because there are tens of thousands of people involved.
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A lot of my extended family are farmers and that shit sucks ass. Whenever I hear people rhapsodize about growing your own food and going back to the land, I just think of Marie Antoinette cosplaying as a milkmaid on her "farm"
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Why return to country when you can return to Monke
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