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BACK TO EDEN: FROM WAGE SLAVE TO FREEHOLDER

Thread ID: 15975 | Posts: 5 | Started: 2004-12-15

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Brother Rat (Old VMI) [OP]

2004-12-15 02:36 | User Profile

Franklin is right, We must build up, one step at a time.

Abjuring the Realm.

For Kinisim and Community, BR

[url]www.dixienet.org/Sanders2.html[/url]

BACK TO EDEN: FROM WAGE SLAVE TO FREEHOLDER
An Essay on Southern Economic Renewal:

What Can the League of the South Do?

by Franklin Sanders

4 December, 2004

But Jesus called them unto him, and said, Ye know that the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them, and they that are great exercise authority upon them.

But it shall not be so among you: but whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister; And whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant:

Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. – Matt. 20:25-28

About 1954 M* of Ohio moved to L**** County, Tennessee and opened a factory. The first generation of country people who went to work there held onto their farms and worked 18 hour days. After a shift at the factory, they’d go home and raise all the crops and animals they ever had. Owning their own land, they were able to build up an estate for their children.

DOWN INTO EGYPT

The second generation was content to work at the factory and let the land go. If they stayed, they limited their farming to raising cattle or trees. Most of the land wound up in the hands of paper companies.

The third generation depends completely on their factory jobs. In the meantime M*, as the largest employer in the county, set wage rates, and they set them low, so wage rates have remained low over the past 50 years... After all, they didn’t move down here because they were philanthropists; they moved down here because labour was cheap.

Meanwhile the rest of the middle class has nearly disappeared, aided no doubt by dropping wages and the invasion of Wal-Mart and other chains. The multitude of restaurants, bakeries, small shops, groceries, hardware stores, shoe shops, dry goods stores, dairies, craftsmen and most other small businesses have vanished. What middle class remains is a small crust of lawyers, doctors, dentists, and, of course, the inevitable bankers.

In a county once covered with independent freeholders -- self-sufficient farmers and small business owners -- most people have become propertyless employees.

The predictable sequel has unfolded in the past few months as M* teetered on bankruptcy. A few weeks ago in one morning they laid off over 100 supervisory personnel. Then they shut down two of three production lines. What employees are left expect the rest of their production to be shipped to Mexico or China -- where the labour is still cheaper.

On November 8, 2004, M* declared bankruptcy.

HEALTH & LIFESTYLE

The shift from freeholder to employee led also to lifestyle and diet changes. No longer do they exercise in their work all day, or eat a diet high in vegetables, home grown meat and eggs, and raw milk. Rather, they get little exercise and eat a processed diet weighted down with sugar, refined flour, soft drinks, and other carbohydrates. The dietary and lifestyle changes leave the third generation with chronic health problems, notably high blood pressure, diabetes, and obesity. Without insurance furnished by an employer they cannot afford health care, which keeps them chained to a job.

Over the same fifty years, a people who trained their children to avoid debt have become addicted to debt. Where once father and mother laboured their whole lives to pass on a farm or business to their children mortgage- and debt-free, the children are now mired to their chins in debt. Not only have government schools and agencies taught them that no one can succeed in business or farming without constant borrowing, but the consumer society has also seduced them into mortgages, car loans, credit card debt, and borrowing of all kinds. Where once only Daddy worked, now Mama must work, too, to make the payments, so the children must go to daycare.

If they lose their jobs, they lose everything, because they own nothing.

THE MODEL OF LOVE

How do we combat the effects of greed? Mankind has already been fighting it over 6,000 years with only spotty success. Besides, the economic philosophy of modernism and industrial capitalism sees no evil -- or at least no remedy -- in the destruction of a community such as I’ve outlined above.

The remedy lies in the Law of God. Obedience to that law defines "love." The Ten Commandments are divided into the First Table, the first four commandments defining our duty to God, and the Second Table, the last six commandments that define our duty to our fellow man.

Christ summed up the whole of these duties when asked what was the greatest commandment. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like unto it: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Too often we remember only half of the law, the forbidding. But every law that forbids an evil also commands a good. If we have only refrained from hurting our neighbour, we haven’t fulfilled the law. Rather, we must also positively try to do him good. The Eighth Commandment, for example, commands us not to steal, but at the same time also commands us to promote our neighbour’s wealth and well-being.

As yet, the League of the South hasn’t given the Southern people any reason to trust us. Christ said that if we would be the greatest of all, we must first be the servant of all. We must serve, and become the servant of, our people. That is our only road to leadership. Otherwise we are just the latest brand of revolutionaries shouting, "Trust us & let us change everything!" Don’t be too surprised if the sensible Southern people say, "No, thank you."

Thru public education industrial capitalism (not free enterprise) has turned a nation of freeholders into a nation of employees. To reverse our people’s present economic serfdom, then, we must reverse what modernism has done. We have to turn employees into freeholders. Doing that will demonstrate that we really do have the best interests of the Southern people at heart, and a workable plan to help. It must become a crucial part of League Chapter activities.

THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE MODEL

The Chamber of Commerce model to promote prosperity relies on drawing industry into the community from the outside to create jobs. It aims to draw outside money into the community. Fine, as long as outside demand remains strong. When that weakens, however, the community discovers exactly how dependent it has become on that outside money, and to what extent employment has been centralised and made vulnerable to forces outside the community. .

The Chamber of Commerce’s mistake lies in (1) centralising employment, and (2) not building up the local economy from the inside out. When employment is centralised in one or two large employers (oligopoly) then the large employer sets the wage rates for everyone in the community, and not just his own employees. Obviously, employment security becomes dependent on the economic health of those large employers -- not just for their employees, but for everyone else in the community through the knock-on effect.

To build up the local economy from the inside out means to encourage local people to take care of local people’s needs. Why should Tennesseans buy tomatoes in season from California? Lettuce? Milk? Or cigars from Florida or the Dominican Republic? Or . . . you name it. Most of life’s necessities we can raise right here quite economically, and often with a competitive advantage. We can grow locally, produce locally, and buy locally.

Why don’t we?

First, because our people have left or been driven off the land or out of business because they have depended on imported jobs. Second, they have been dumbed down by public education and robbed of their desire for economic independence and their entreneurial ability. We can help them reverse those shortcomings.

UP FROM EGYPT

In the microcosmic example that opened this essay we saw the progression from freeholding to wage slavery. The first generation kept their farms and worked in the factory -- 18 hour days. The second generation refused to do that and gave up their farms and sold them to the paper companies, taking land out of agricultural production. The Third generation now wholly depends on external employment, and faces sudden job loss because of corporate bankruptcies, downsizing, or factories moving to Mexico or China.

What is the answer? A healthy local economy furnishes each other’s needs. Local people can fulfil local needs, patronise each other, and built a lasting foundation for local prosperity.

Our people have no idea how to become freeholders or financially independent. We have to take a two pronged approach, to free every one personally, and then to help those who can become freeholders.

GET OUT OF DEBT

After 50 years of government & corporate propaganda seducing them into debt, it will be hard to change past habits and extricate our people from debt slavery. In early 2004, average consumer debt in the United States was $18,250.00 [sic] per debtor. Add a mortgage to that – we have dug ourselves a very deep hole indeed.

How do you break the chains of debt slavery? There’s only one way: get out of debt. Impossible? No, it just takes patience, perseverance, and a plan.

Sit down together, husband and wife, and calculate all your debts. Whoa! Don’t give up yet! You may be shocked, but there’s a simple way out.

Work out a budget. Write down everything you spend for just one month. (Stop moaning, it’s easy. Buy a small pad and carry it with you. You’ll establish the habit of writing down every expenditure in just three days. Make it a game with your spouse.) Once you have collected all your figures, sort them out on a big piece of paper into categories: rent or house payment, insurance, food, auto repairs and gas, clothes, entertainment, etc. Go over the figures and establish how much (or better, how little) you should be spending in each category. Now you’ve got a budget.

But knowing your spending habits isn’t changing them, and here’s a sure fire way to change them: the envelope budget. This has worked for thousands of couples, and it will work for you. Get a box of envelopes, and on each one write down the category, and how much you have allotted for that category every month. Next time you get paid, don’t deposit your check: cash it. Take the money home and sit down together and put the allotted amounts into each envelope. As you need it, take out the money to pay your expenses. The catch is, when the money’s gone, it’s gone. Use no credit cards for any reason. Never spend more in any category than you’ve allowed, and be sure to set aside one envelope for "Debt reduction." Start with your smallest debts first, and as soon as you’ve paid them off, move on to the others. (Obviously, don’t stop making payments on the rest of your debt at the same time. Just concentrate on paying one debt at a time by paying extra on that one.)

Don’t laugh, it works. After six months on the envelope budget, my wife and I had broken forever our addiction to credit cards, and saved enough money for a second car, to boot. By the way, it’s important to engage your children in this budget. By watching Momma and Daddy handle their money carefully, children learn to handle their own. And you’ll be helping yourself, because the envelope budget will help you spare money you would otherwise have blown -- money that will get you out of debt.

But isn’t everybody in debt? Maybe, but it makes a difference for you, because on every cent you borrow, you have to pay interest. Over the course of a thirty year mortgage, for example, you will pay about three times the cost of your house. Think about it. If your house costs $100,000, you pay $300,000. Could you use an extra $200,000, or do you like slaving for the bank? Try doubling or even tripling your monthly payment. Every house payment you make in advance saves you hundreds of dollars in interest.

Ever notice that in every small town or city, the newest, costliest, and flashiest building is the bank? Why is that? Could it be they are fattening off our debt addiction? Isn’t it time you put the bankers on a diet, so they will stop feeding off you?

BECOMING FREEHOLDERS

Obviously, not everybody has the desire, drive, or knowledge to become a freeholder. For those who do, the biggest obstacle is often ignorance. They know how to produce something, but nothing about marketing, management, and accounting. We can’t offer our people financing, but we can offer them the next best thing: our expertise. We can show them how to market themselves and their business, how to manage it, and how to keep their books.

Opportunities for freeholders are limitless. In farming, for example, new technology makes it possible to avoid huge capital inputs and debt and still make six figures on 60 acres. In cities anyone willing to clean houses can work all he wants. I know of one fellow making a handsome living raising mice to sell to zoos and bird farms. Owning and operating vending machines brings a good living. Another fellow travels all over the country washing windows. The truth is, in a world where most people exhibit a shiftless wage slave mentality, conscientious, hard-working, diligent people can sell their labour at a high premium. All they need to do is find the customers.

ECONOMICS FEEDS BACK INTO POLITICS

Our economic goals dictate certain political goals. The League of the South ought to push abolishing all laws and regulations that discriminate against freeholders. These artificial barriers must be brought down so that freeholders can compete with giant corporations. For example, almost every state regulates milk more stringently than heroin. Why shouldn’t farmers be able to sell healthful raw milk right off their own property? Or fresh meat? Why aren’t they free to set up produce stands and sell home grown vegetables or tobacco?

Every farmer has an inalienable right to sell his own produce directly to the public without being subject to any sales tax or privilege tax. Every freeman has the right to engage in any occupation of common right without being subject to sales tax or privilege tax. By the gift of God these natural rights belong to every human being, particularly the right to make a living. The League of the South must assert this right in legislative halls across the South.

So called "privilege" taxes, whether they travel under that name or "licensing" or "regulation for the public good or health," can only be enforced against corporations, because these are juridical persons, legal fictions created by the legislature to confer the privilege of limited liability and eternal life. But the laws intended to capture for the state some part of the benefit which a public corporation bestows have been unjustly and tyrannously extended to private activities of natural human beings. For us, earning a living is a right, not a privilege, and we must make that right a reality, or Southern economic renewal will stay a pipedream.

It is precisely the cost of complying with the maze of regulations, laws, and taxes that shuts and bars the door to competition from small freeholders. Large corporations can afford the compliance costs. Small freeholders can’t. So-called "health" regulations or licensing or zoning, ad nauseam, effectively bar the small freeholder altogether so that he can never enter the market to compete. Of course, corporations make large political donations, while non-existent small freeholders don’t.

One example will suffice. Recently state regulators attacked a farm in middle Tennessee. Why? Rogue meat and milk retailers. These farmers had the almighty gall to sell their own farm-grown milk and meat labelled as "dog food." After the farmers spent over $25,000 defending themselves against the charge that they were operating as "unlicensed pet food distributors," they gave up.

What a victory for the public health! What a victory for Big Brother! Tennesseeans had been protected from exercising their own wits about what they would or would not eat, and from whom they would buy it. No telling what would have happened if Tennesseans had been allowed to make those decisions for themselves. Why, why it would have been – freedom!

ECONOMICS DOVETAILS

From this congruence of economic and political aims it becomes obvious that pursuing the economic well-being of the Southern people (as the League of the South’s statement of purpose sets forth) dovetails with our political, social, and cultural well-being as well. Freeing our people from debt slavery and helping them to independent freeholding throws off huge benefits on every side. Raising them to greater effort and responsibility in money matters inevitably raises them to greater political, social, and cultural efforts as the vision of a new, free, and independent South becomes a reality before their own eyes.

Compatriots, we need only begin to act and we will see that reality in our own lifetime. How do we accomplish such a huge task? One small step at a time, so as my grandfather would say, Grab a root and growl!

God save the South!

© Franklin Sanders

Rev.3:2 Wake up! Save what is left. That which is about to die Daniel 3:17-18 ...BUT IF NOT...
:thumbsup:

Faust

2004-12-15 02:58 | User Profile

Brother Rat (Old VMI),

A great idea! M. G. Kains book is pretty good, I have a copy. You can do a lot even with one Acre. Chickens are not hard to keep and are a good source of meat. And a small garden can make more food than one might think.

Five Acres and Independence [url]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0486209741/[/url]

Brother Rat (Old VMI)

2005-01-04 04:40 | User Profile

You are right Faust, amen!, It does not take much. Franklin Sanders lives this way, and I do also. This is how many of our Recent ancestors lived. I liken us to the Amish, EXCEPT with Guns, chainsaws, computers, and Sims, Timrod, etc.

"The complete book of Self-Sufficiency By John Seymour, DK". I highly recomend, Seymour's 1976 classic: [url]http://outdoors-magazine.com/s_article.php?id_article=88[/url]

It can be stil be found on the net.

I bought it in @ 1978, and have used as a template. Excellent.

For Kinism and the Leaven Community, BR :thumbsup:

Brother Rat (Old VMI)

2005-01-04 04:44 | User Profile

[url]http://the-moneychanger.com/outside_files/agararianism.htm[/url]

THE LEAVEN COMMUNITY & THE AGRARIAN IDEAL: DEBUNKING AGRARIANISM

If there is one idea I want you to take home today, it is this: community is essential to agrarianism. To take up an agrarian life style, we must build communities, and these communities must leaven the rest of our society, because the modern world has gone so far wrong that it cannot be corrected; it must be rebuilt.

THE HYPE AND THE HOPE To begin with, it’s a good idea to separate the hype from the hope in agrarianism. There’s nothing actually “evil” about hype. Think of it as the icing on the cake. Without icing, it would be much harder for the cake to attract kids – or flies. But the hype is only the promise to call us in. Once we get beyond the allure, what remains to hold us? After the hype of agrarianism has excited us, what hope will strengthen us to persevere?

THE HYPE Although I am poking fun at it now, the romanticism of Agrarianism is really indispensable. Whose heart has been so thoroughly asphalted over that it does not leap at the thought of owning a little place in the country? Add to that the very real joys of agrarian living – clean air, serenity, good neighbours, plenty of exercise, and good wholesome food and drink -- farm fresh eggs, milk still warm from the cow, steaming hot biscuits, home-made ham and sausage, and a dipper full of crystal clear cool water from the well – Whew! It sounds like a combination health camp and vacation home. Then add in the siren call of self-sufficiency, self-reliance, and independence. To be free, really free. To be your own boss, standing on your own two feet like some time-warped transplant from colonial times. Heady . . . The picture Andrew Lytle paints in his essay, “Hind Tit” in I’ll Take My Stand offers an unforgettable picture of that self-sufficiency. From waking in the morning until the day’s end, the man of the house is master of all that he surveys. And think of the ideal rural community. The little village with all the picturesque if sometimes cantankerous farmfolk. Why, they’re practically wearing their regional peasant outfits from the old country, complete with smocked shirts and embroidery. Man, pull out the accordion and let’s start the polka! Or at least pull out the banjo and let’s have a bluegrass festival. I can’t keep my feet from clogging. And really, it’s not all hype. In fact, it’s all true, every bit of it. The farm fresh food is there. The fresh air. The exercise. The neighbours. The escape from the frenzied friction of city life. The fishhook is, those things don’t come alone, and they don’t come without effort.

A TYPICAL DAY ON THE FARM Your typical day on the farm might start this way. You pull up at your barn to find two sections of wooden fence completely obliterated, as though a small but very accurate tornado had passed in the night. Further investigation reveals that your big bull has demolished the fence to get into the pasture with all the cows and your little bull, who you’ve been keeping separate from the big bull so the big bull wouldn’t use him for goring practice. A quick glance over the pasture shows that the little bull is still alive, but all your breeding plans have now been ruined for another year, thanks to the big RED bull hopping the fence into the pasture with the little WHITE bull and all the cows that were only supposed to socialise with the little WHITE bull. And look over there on the other side of the barn. Are those pigs? Yes, and they’re not where they’re supposed to be. They’ve escaped again. And they are headed for your neighbour’s pasture, where the nine of them will do more damage to his turf in one hour than eighty-eight men armed with shovels, picks, and a destructive attitude. Now follow me to the barn to feed animals. When you try to take the lid off the barrel, you quickly learn where the chickens have been roosting. Don’t forget the other smells of agrarianism, manure being the chief one. Some of it simply won’t wash off. Pigs, for instance, produce about four times as much manure as humans. Every day. And pigs have a smell, well, peculiar to pigs. You can scrub it off with Clorox or sulphuric acid or mildly radioactive nuclear waste, but that’s about all that will wash it off. Anybody ready to milk the cow? First, get a cow. Whoops, first find the cow. Then get the cow into the stall. Then get the cow to hold still. Then sit on your stool and put your bucket under her udder and your head in her flank. Wash off her udder. Now, what are those pointy things hanging down there? Where’s the tap? FLAP! The cow smacks you in the face with her tail. You persevere. FLAP! She smacks you again. You’re pinching her. FLAP! You grab a piece of baling twine off the floor to tie her tail to her leg, reach her around behind her to grab the tail, and that’s the time she picks to . . . well, you get the picture. How about some farm fresh eggs? You’ll have plenty, if your dogs have left you any chickens. Whoops! No time for breakfast now, you’re out of feed. Have to drive in town for corn and sweet feed and scratch feed. Whoa! Look at the price on that stuff. I’m going to have to put my animals on a diet. Now imagine all this in the rain. And let’s stretch that rain out for a week. Let plenty of cold rain trickle down the back of your neck, and let your feet step into mud a foot deep. Walk out into the barn. Look at the milch cow. Isn’t there something unusual about her? What’s this? She can hardly stand, and she’s swollen twice her size. O, no! It’s bloat! Who left the cover off the feed barrel? The cow ate half a barrel! Call the vet! No, never mind the vet, hand me that water hose. Quickly you cut off the brass fitting and begin stuffing hose down the cow’s throat, hoping that your hose enters her esophagus and not her windpipe. If you are really devoted, you will suck and blow on the free end of the hose. WHOA! Cow! Don’t lie down! If she lies down it will kill her. Got to keep her moving, got to keep feeding that hose down her gullet until it hits the gas pocket and deflates her. And sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Sometimes you may find your horse down with colic, and call every friend you have, and pour Wesson oil down him by the gallon and walk him and walk him and walk him from here to New York, and leave him at 1:30 in the morning thinking he’s okay, only to find him on his back dead as a hammer in the morning. And you think back and remember that yesterday morning he was just fine, but this morning he’s dead, and even in death the burden doesn’t leave because you have to call the rendering plant to haul him off. And all this happened because some child -- or maybe even you yourself – left a top off a feed barrel. When you drag yourself to bed at night wincing in every joint and muscle, you realise that agrarian life is as far from city life as the Moon is from green cheese. The responsibility and initiative, the risk, and the unforgiving vigilance that farm life demands tower orders of magnitude above city life, not to mention the physical labour.

THE HOPE So does that mean we ought to tuck tail and run back to the city before we all die of muscle cramps and lockjaw? Absolutely not. In the first place, the romantic visions of agrarianism are not mere hype. They are the cream of agrarian life, even though the way to that cream leads through a trail of tears, mud, and manure. Above all there is the hope --the great hope -- that even in an insane and inhuman modern world agrarian living can restore sanity and humanity for our children and ourselves. Speaking as one who for years has butted his head against the granite fortress of modernism, I am more convinced than ever that our only way out is cultural secession. What is cultural secession? To build, in effect, a new world parallel to the existing world. I am not talking about monastic communities where we just retreat into our cells and let the world go to hell as it may. I am talking about building a new world right in the middle of the old world, rebuilding society along lines more fitly proportioned to the nature of man, a world that moves at man’s pace for man’s ends, and not a machine’s pace for a machine’s end. (And let me make myself clear, I mean nothing coerced. Agrarianism must be voluntary or it will be stillborn.) To build that new world we will have to build not only new communities but also new institutions. We have to examine the values of our modern world – money, power, success, Big Brother government, frenzied consumption, the ever-bigger-ever-better notion of progress – and we have to ask which ones really fit into the Christian civilisation we want to leave our children, and which do not. We have to reject all the prizes and rewards of modernism, in other words, we have to re-align our own values. Then we have to build the institutions that will support those values and credential our own leaders – families, communities, schools, universities, professional and trade and business organisations. We have to transfer our loyalties to these new institutions, honour their credentials, and we have to abandon and boycott the old institutions. We have to build a new world parallel to our old, dying world. Nor is this a new idea. It is exactly how the primitive church grew to change the entire Western world. In the parable of the leaven Christ explains to us how it is done. (Luke 13:21) A woman, he says, took a lump of leaven and hid it in a three pecks of meal until the all the meal was leavened.. Quoting this parable may make you squirm a bit, because you will remember that the parable refers to the Kingdom of God. And you may be asking yourself, isn’t he going too far identifying agrarianism with the Kingdom of God? No, for this reason. I am a Christian, and whatever I do, whatever goal I set for myself and for society, must first serve the Kingdom of Christ. But there is another forceful reason. Modernism – all that comprises the secular, materialist worldview -- is dying exactly because it has abandoned the God of the Scriptures. As it becomes more consistent with its own false presuppositions, it chokes on its own falsehoods. I do not say that Christianity is the answer merely because I have no other answer, but because that is the correct answer.

THE ONE OR THE MANY? One of the modern errors that agrarianism must overthrow is extreme individualism. Every good lie – and every good heresy – contains a little bit of truth. So individualism contains some truth, but not the whole truth. In our day men have abandoned practical Trinitarianism, so they cannot help but fall into one of the twin errors of extreme individualism (egoism) or socialism (communism). Whoa! What is practical Trinitarianism? I thought there was only theological Trinitarianism. Wrong -- the Trinity is not only the greatest mystery in the cosmos, the greatest riddle of theology, it is also the only practical pattern for living, for the Great Trinitarian God has made the cosmos in his own image, both many and one. The Trinity reconciles the question, Which is ultimate, the many or the one? Is the individual supreme, or the community? In modern life that question is viewed as an irreconcilable opposition. Either the many rule, or the one: socialism or the ruthless free market. They cannot be reconciled. In many places our modern world (primarily in our private lives alone) has answered in favour of the one, but without lasting satisfaction – as Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones lamented in their great hit song. Extreme individualism isolates the individual from that web of normal human relations that defines us all. Atomised into individuals without roots, place, or community, even the tender bonds of family between husband and wife and parents and children are dissolving. Wealth increases, while love and trust disappear. One by one rugged individualism has shut them out, painting itself into a very lonely corner. Of course, the opposite – the supremacy of the many – doesn’t solve the problem, either. The Soviet Union and socialism around the world have proved that with miserable failure. Nevertheless, in our public lives, modernism has subjected us to the ultimate rule of the many. The collective supreme in our public lives, the individual supreme in our private lives, and what is the result? Slaves distracted by the bread of consumerism and the games of immorality. What is the Trinitarian answer to the problem of the one and the many? Equal ultimacy. Subordination in love. Reconciliation into the ordained harmony. We learn that answer first of all in the family, with its hierarchy and chain of command upwards and downwards, ruled, restrained, and motivated by love. The next level of Trinitarian harmony lies in the community, and this is the focus of my remarks today. As you no doubt suspected when I recounted the perils of farming, you simply can’t go it alone. I have a big family (seven children, three of them married, six living with or near us) and we still need outside help. If we are to build viable agrarian communities, we have to help each other. We can’t do it by ourselves. We have to work through communities.

PERSONAL PRECAUTIONS For those of you who want to try agrarian living, I have a baker’s dozen worth of tips. Some of these come from my own experience in the last three years, some from a recent conversations with Allan Nation, editor of the Stockman Grass Farmer, Lynn Miller, Editor of the Small Farm Journal, and Charlie Walters, editor of Acres, USA. Don’t quit your day job. Even the best farm will take three or more years to reach profitability, so you will have to subsidise your farming activity with outside income. Don’t leave yourself high and dry without money. It takes a lot to build up a place and keep it up. Don’t spend money yet. Once you have a place, observe it for a year before you do anything. Jim Kibler told me that you have to live in a place a year before you even begin to know it, and I have found that true, but incomplete. He should have said a dozen years. Observing means looking at what grows at what time of year. That will tell you a lot about your soil and what you need to do. Successful farmers walk their land. Walk yours. Listen to it. Don’t even put down lime before a year of observation has passed. You cannot compete with commodity farming. Don’t even try. Study out how to farm. Farming is not instinctive. Read books and periodicals. Watch. Ask questions of those who are already doing it well. Approach it with humility. Most farms fail from what Allan Nation calls “heavy metal poisoning.” They are overcapitalised, i.e., they have more capital invested in tractors, trucks, trailers, and equipment, than they can use, on land overvalued by real estate development. On land that overpriced you can’t make an adequate return farming. Tie up money in assets gaining value, not losing value. Assets losing value are land, tractors, buildings, etc. Assets gaining value: cows, calves, ewes, lambs, improving pastures. Rent before you buy so that you can perfect your skills. You have to be able to make the land pay. Never take government money. What the government pays for, the government controls, including you. Never borrow money. Doing so seals your doom and forfeits all independence. Pragmatism doesn’t work. You may think that it is pragmatic to follow the so-called “proven” methods of commodity farming, but in fact their pragmatism doesn’t work. It requires huge capital and labour inputs that will break you and destroy your soil. Grow grass & let the animals do the work. Not marijuana-type grass but green grass. Concentrate on growing fine grass and let the animals do the harvesting. You’ll build your soil and develop a crop at the same time. Ultimately, you have to develop your own market. If you’re not willing to do your own marketing, you shouldn’t do your own farming. You cannot compete with commodity farms. Raise food for yourself and your family. If you have to maintain your off-farm job so that you can stay in the country but you’ll never be able to earn a living off your farm, so be it. Better half a loaf than a mouth full of gravel.

PRACTICAL COMMUNITY CONSIDERATIONS We must have communities to survive. Through communities we can enjoy and establish for our children and ourselves a lifestyle independent of the present world. Call it modernism or techno-fascism or simply insanity, I don’t want to live there anymore, and I want to leave something better to my children. This is what I call “cultural secession.” I advocate that people who share traditional Christian culture form communities -- not as a method of retreat, but of rebuilding. Our job is to create parallel institutions and a parallel worldview that by its excellence and beauty will supplant the current culture and economy. Now, I am not numb to the dangers. The opportunities for stupendous pharisaical legalism abound here, so we must take great care not to end up worse off than we started. Here are a few practical considerations, another baker’s dozen.

*  ** Communities ought to be in rural areas or small towns, it seems.  You can certainly try one in an urban setting.  Let me know how that works.
* **  As much as possible, communities ought to grow organically, rather than centrally planned from the top down, adding one family at a time rather than a mass migration.
* ** The community must be open and not closed, must look and reach outward and not inward.  Think of it as an advancing beachhead, not a besieged  enclave.
* ** Individuals must be able to support themselves.  Many will have to keep one foot in two worlds, to earn a living outside the community.  (Long live the Internet and modern telecommunications!)  That will enable them to get started and live within the new community.  (I don’t see how anybody could move to a small farm and get it paying in less than three years, unless it was exceptional to start with.)
* ** Starry eyes ought to be de-starred.  Rural life is physically challenging.  Its monotony can deaden.  You have to work at providing intellectual and artistic stimulation.  Count the cost before laying the first brick. 
* ** Individuals settling in new communities ought to want a lifestyle change.  Move from the city to the country expecting to live as a mall-rat and you’ll just disappoint yourself and annoy the folks at Wal-Mart. 
* ** Individuals in the community must be self-supporting, and communities economically viable.  At the beginning, members probably ought not depend on the new community alone for sustenance.
* ** The community must work like leaven in the local area and culture where it finds itself.  Unless the members of the community cultivate social intercourse with their neighbours, they won’t transfer anything, and certainly not ideas.  You can’t sit there like a scab on the land.  You have to put down roots and mingle with your neighbours.
* **  Humility, humility, always humility.  You’ll never make it in a rural locale if you show your neighbours that you’re a smart aleck know-it-all.  You probably have more to learn from them than they do from you anyway.
* **  Physical does matter.  A community is physical.  People ought to work and live conveniently close together.  (Think of urban churches, where members might drive an hour or two just to get to church. Under those circumstances physical fellowship is practically impossible.)
* **  A community must have a transcendental center.  It must self-consciously know what it is and what it stands for.
* **  A community must have continuity.  There is no covenant without a covenant people.  The culture must self-consciously pass itself on to the next generation.
* **  But a community that is all rules and rigor without compromise or compassion will shatter shortly on its own tyranny.  God is gracious, and has decreed freedom for us.  In fact, he insists on it.  I think Robert E. Lee’s single rule as president of Washington College sums it up best:  “Make no unnecessary rules.”

WILL IT WORK? Do I think such communities would live and thrive? Could people living together, building communities, really regain and reform anything? Well, if not they could sure have a good time trying. (I know I am, along with my whole family.) The alternative is the counsel of despair: give up and let the barbarians take over. -- F. Sanders

I originally wrote this piece as a speech for the Virginia League of the South Agrarian Hedge School on Dec. 8, 2001. If you are serious about agrarianism or living on a farm or even thinking about it, you ought to subscribe to these three publications:

Small Farmers Journal P.O. Box 1627 Sisters, Oregon 97759 [url]www.smallfarmersjournal.com[/url] Quarterly, $30/year, 125 folio pages

The Stockman Grass Farmer P.O. Box 2300 Ridgeland, Mississippi 39158-2300 (800) 748-9808 [url]www.stockmangrassfarmer.com[/url] Monthly, tabloid, $28/yr.

Acres, USA P.O. Box 91299 Austin, Texas 78709 (800) 355-5313 [url]www.acresusa.com[/url] Monthly, Tabloid, $27.00

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All rights reserved,©1998-2001 Franklin Sanders & The Moneychanger

Faust

2005-01-24 19:30 | User Profile

Brother Rat (Old VMI)

Great Post! [QUOTE]You are right Faust, amen!, It does not take much. Franklin Sanders lives this way, and I do also. This is how many of our Recent ancestors lived. I liken us to the Amish, EXCEPT with Guns, chainsaws, computers, and Sims, Timrod, etc.[/QUOTE]

Amish with Guns, now that is the lifestyle I want!

:gunsmilie :cheers: :gunsmilie