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Subsistence

07/06/2021

Introduction

To begin this paper, if it could be called such, it might be wise to give a brief account of what led me to these conclusions.

I had been of the rather despairing opinion that human societies would inherently default to systems of oppression, and that any attempts to impose a replacement to such regimes would inevitably fail, either in the attempt to depose the existing system, or through corruption of its ideals in the event that it succeed. Indeed, even if a 'perfect' revolution were to take place, and a truly beneficial system replace it, my opinion was that it would be only a short matter of time before a regression back to an oppressive system would take place - the motivation for such an event is simply too great.

Not content to sit there in complete misery at the state of the world, I tried to pool as much knowledge as I could find that I deemed relevant to form a reasonably accurate view of the progressions of societal structures, and with some luck pull together a solution to this seemingly insurmountable problem. My idea was to look at the problem of the human condition through as many 'lenses' as possible - historical, religious, technological, economic, and so on. I spent some time doing this, and was disappointed to find my conclusion much the same - while there were some fascinating revelations particularly with regard to religion in this, I had completely failed to come up with a 'best of both worlds' as I had so wanted. All systems would by design or inevitable circumstance lead to the same ends, and perhaps there was truly nothing that could be done. A tremendous act of confirmation bias perhaps - I had tried to remain as impartial and open minded in my research as possible, but the human mind is quite clever in its ability to fool itself.

That however would be irrelevant. I had my conclusion, and this led me to the only way out I felt I had left - to abandon society as much as was possible. I have for the entirety of my life felt very little need for human companionship, and when human interaction on a grander social level (by this I mean parties or other forms of 'mass socialising') have not caused me undue stress, they have usually caused disgust. I accept this to be a flaw completely on my part, and it is not something I am particularly proud of. However, it comes with the advantage that I have always wanted to live in as much isolation as I could manage, and now I had greater reasons to do so. Increasing global tensions and social problems had served only to fuel my innate longing for what is in essence the hermitic lifestyle. I then began preparing myself to live as self sufficiently as possible, so that the problems I saw as incurable in society would affect me less. A cowardly means of achieving peace without a doubt, but I am content to consider myself a coward, particularly in this regard.

However in this process of planning, the rather obvious finally clicked. In all of my research and pretentious ruminating, I had been a complete imbecile. I had been looking at this issue from completely the wrong aspect - thinking of what system to *impose* on society is like thinking about what job your neighbour's unborn child is going to have - quite frankly, you don't have much of a say in the matter and it's consequentially pointless. Systems are rarely imposed, and those that are still must take some process, and are almost invariably totalitarian. Instead systems come about, almost of their own accord. And while you can influence their growth, you can do so only as one of many factors. The best you can do is to try to alter those other factors to suit your ideals.

As I was trying to map out this near perfect independent life for myself as a forest dwelling hermit, the actual implications of this lifestyle grew increasingly apparent. Should it truly succeed, I would be contributing almost nothing to the net production of Carbon Dioxide, I would be removing my use as a consumer from the vast majority of corporations, I would no longer be funding the unethical processes of factory farming, or what is in essence slave labour in almost all sectors of industry. My plans would have been earn only enough to perpetuate my lifestyle, which would considerably reduce the amount of money the government would be getting out of me from income tax. I was hoping deliberately for more land than I would actually need to support myself - a selfish endeavour, but one that would ensure my isolation. If I bought only what land I needed however, I would have a truly minuscule impact on the world around me.

So, what if more people were to live that kind of life? The issue of governmental oppression would be drastically lessened. With people earning and spending less, governments and companies would have less money and would be less needed , reducing their influence considerably. If less people actually need the infrastructure and services provided, the ability to monopolise and control begins to be voided. While I believe the capitalist principles of supply and demand have been heavily corrupted to the point where to think only in their terms is to be overly reductive, they do none the less ultimately still play a significant part. To return to a less skewed level of supply and demand would allow for the possibility of fairness. Ethically speaking, the gradual erosion of intensive farming would immeasurably improve the quality of life for livestock, eliminate for the most part the need for extensive use of antibiotics and genetically modified organisms as diseases would be much harder to spread. Equally, a genuine connection to the sources of meat would confront many more people with their choices, allowing them to make genuinely informed decisions on their consumption. With produce being grown as locally as the individual's smallholding, environmental damage through transportation of goods would be heavily reduced, and the healthier diets of non intensively farmed animals would lead to less animal emission of greenhouse gases. I have criticized veganism as an invalid solution for many of these issues, and instead supported the idea of local farming - this progression from that concept improves it further in my mind. #I have a separate piece on this.# The use of chemicals would be replaced as much as possible with the use of home grown materials, and the use of home produced electricity. My proposals do involve the development of robust and easily repairable electronics to supplement this principle. The detriments to health and the significant issues of mental health caused by cities would be removed, as a more natural lifestyle with immediate satisfaction attained from one's work and the elimination of over socializing would be inherent to this social change.

None of what I am saying in this is particularly new. If you were to tell me that the benefits of the self sufficient lifestyle came as a shock to you, that would come as quite as shock to me. However what had not dawned on me before was that these benefits in themselves were sufficient in solving a great many of the problems I had foolishly considered incorrigible. If just half of the population hardly needed the government for anything at all, what position of power would the government be coming from were it to try to impose restrictions to personal freedom? What economic motivations would they be able to convince people with, if most people simply have no genuine need for the economy itself? This could free up resources for those who are unable to live in a truly self sustaining sense (the argument that less money provided to the government by people living self sufficiently is in my opinion invalid as they should vastly outnumber those unable to live in that way, and relies on a vast underestimation of the money governments have to spend with. Money which, if they have less control over the population is more likely to be spent appropriately through pressure from the people). Subsistence removes most means of exploitation, by rendering them unnecessary.

The key advantage to this concept however, is that it is not a 'system' in itself, but a collection of lifestyles which genuinely serve the individual. It is about as easy to 'implement' as it is to get people to buy a food blender. Except unlike the complete lack of any nutritional gain from blending up your food (and the delightful prospect of swallowing lumpy pseudo-digested vegetable slop) in exchange for vast swathes of money and electricity, it comes with direct benefits to the participant, and improves the state of the society at large the more people adopt it.

Of course in this I do not envision a grand anarchic Arcadian paradise. While I concede that almost all forms of technology have and are being used in distinctly immoral ways, to propose a complete abandonment in the vein of the Anarcho-Primitivist is to be impractical, and to 'throw out the baby with the bathwater' as it were. A cessation of consumerism however is key, and a general stripping of technology that is not necessary integral. This becomes not just an act of morality but of practicality however - why bother powering an Alexa with your finite electricity you get from your own turbine? The price of being wasteful is immediately and personally felt. The gradual abandonment of cities would allow for the succession of communities of distinct self sufficient individuals and families, and the preference for 'robust' electronics which would inherently accompany that lifestyle would allow the majority of services to be supplied by individuals - why travel to an airport and use a commercial airline if someone in your community is able to cheaply and effectively run their own plane? Note again that this would not necessarily abolish the commercial airliner, but simply fight the crushing of smaller alternatives where they may well be more appropriate. The point of this concept of subsistence is to allow for societal reform without relying on corrupt higher organisations, by instead using the individual's level of power. The internet allows many occupations to be carried out from home, and others still can be much more pleasantly and efficiently carried out within the local community. This lifestyle would also promote the federalization of the internet, and this decentralizing movement would bring with it huge gains to personal privacy and freedom, and the direct involvement with the underlying technology would increasingly promote a more minimalist internet, with unnecessary processes stripped for the sake of reduced personal cost - meaning less waste particularly with regard to electrical consumption.

Perhaps the greatest argument against this idea of 'Subsistence' (as I shall unimaginatively call it in this essay) would be the personal finances needed to adopt such a lifestyle. Against this I have two principle counter-points on which I will elaborate in a moment. The first is that for if not the majority, a great many people are perfectly financially equipped for this endeavour. The second is that again, this is not a total replacement of the current position but a gradual reform.

To address the first of these points in greater detail, anyone in the middle class of Western society is more than financially able to purchase a small plot of land and acquire the necessary equipment to run a subsistence smallholding. #I should ideally supplement this point with some basic arithmetic, but for now I will simply leave it for you to conclude on. Meanwhile for the working class, for many it is still possible, and for those who are really financially unable, those who could be safely considered impoverished, there are I think two categories into which they can be divided. One one hand there are those that are kept in that financial position through excessive consumerism, wasting money that could otherwise be sufficient to pull them out of their current circumstances on trivial mass produced detritus. On the other hand, there are those who no matter how much they may save, their circumstances and income make it in all senses impossible to escape their condition. There are a great many people that will claim only the former exist, and a great many others that will claim only the latter. In truth, I would say both exist in some proportion which it would be pure speculation to guess at. For the former, the simple solution is to just stop the train of consumerism, something which if there is a general societal shift to a more responsible means of existence is more than settled in the realm of possibility. I should also note that in this I am not implying that the role of the consumer is exclusive to the working class, though I should hope that that clarification is not necessary. For the latter, my second counterpoint must stand.

The second of these points in continuation is quite simply the notion that this concept is a perfect and immediate solution is rooted in pure naivety. This is not a lifestyle which will be adopted by all, nor should it for a wide variety of reasons. With more people living self sufficiently, and less jobs being taken, despite the overall decrease of consumerism there should be I would speculate an increase in opportunity for employment for those who have no alternative, using jobs instead as a means of attaining that self sufficient lifestyle. This should be further supplemented by what funds the government would have, their reduced control making it more feasible that the unfathomably excessive funds at their disposal could be used to actually benefit the populace. I am also not proposing the complete abolition of public service, or for that matter of just about anything, only the maximum level of self reliance which will inherently reduce the use of anything which could be considered 'unnecessary' as a result. While this answer could be considered something of a cop out, it still stands as this is not meant as a grand new system, but a general proposal for improvement.

Another argument against this concept is of course the finite amount of land to go around. Overpopulation has been a looming issue for the past couple of centuries, and has only grown as time has progressed. However, the current age of mass sterility may well reduce that problem, while the demand for land could incentivize a great deal of 'hoarders' to profit. This is none the less a perfectly valid issue, however.

Of course the idea is far from perfect. But it is something which can easily be improved on, as even just my planning for my own life effortlessly translates into the philosophy of mass subsistence - changing many issues into simple points of practicality. It is also currently a distinctively reductive view of the world, as it is in its current form only a simple improvement as opposed to any kind of fully fledged ideology (god forbid!). The practical matters can be simply addressed with various different systems and technologies, and the issues left out are actually often addressed by this system (take for example the level of crime, which I have entirely neglected to write about in this piece but still considered partially resolved by the principles of subsistence) and must instead be focused on individually within the context of the overall philosophy. That is why I have titled this piece as an introduction, it simply summarises the overall concept leaving room later for the specifics (some of which I have already written as papers to be incorporated into this concept, though I fear some rewriting may be necessary).

The beauty of this concept to me, is that even if it were never to see the light of day as a broad social change (which is perfectly possible no matter what, given the incentive almost all bodies of power would have to influence it out of the media and public discussion), anybody who partakes in it should benefit significantly purely of their own accord, as well as benefiting the world around them. You can't do that with techno.