Luckenbach

Here are two excellent essays (or two parts of one) that strike at what I consider the heart of the matter. Which matter? Is there more than one? Read them slowly and with an open mind.

The Idols of Environmentalism

The Ecology of Work

….the violence that we know as environmental destruction is possible only because of a complex economic, administrative, and social machinery through which people are separated from responsibility for their misdeeds. We say, “I was only doing my job” at the paper mill, the industrial incinerator, the logging camp, the coal-fired power plant, on the farm, on the stock exchange, or simply in front of the PC in the corporate carrel.

The division of labor not only has the consequence of making labor maximally productive, it also hides from workers the real consequences of their work. People outside of such social and economic organizations might hunt in nature, fish, gather, harvest, use nature to their own ends in countless ways, but they would never knowingly destroy it, not because they are by nature good and benevolent, but because destruction is not necessary, it’s a lot of hard work, and it’s self-evidently self-defeating. For example, the near extinction of the buffalo was not driven by the thought “Well, if I shoot one I might as well shoot them all,” or game sport gone mad, or sheer maliciousness toward the animal. Ultimately, it was driven by the market for buffalo hides in that far-off place that was never once home to a buffalo, New York City. The extermination of the buffalo was driven by the same logic that drives the clearcutting of forests and the construction of high-pollution coal-fired power plants today: entrepreneurial freedom, the desire for profit, and “jobs for working people.”

(Thanks Ran)

From Violent Acres:
How many people here have ever kept mum while your boss verbally degraded you because you really needed the job and the money?

Even worse, when you went home that night and vented to your friends and families, how many of you were congratulated for doing the mature thing by keeping your job? Perhaps you have a few kids at home and it would have been irresponsible for you to risk your employment no matter how badly you were being treated? You’re an adult and you know that sometimes people need to put their morality and dignity aside and do what’s best for their family?

While you are there, she has more very enlightening posts. Keep them in mind if having to go to work irks you in any way:
McMansions are for McIdiots

You Can Learn a Lot from a Rich Girl

Drastic Measures

Mark and his missus arrived to help out on Sunday. We fenced off an area we wish to cut for hay later on and then tried to move the neighbour’s cattle. Without dogs or motorcycles. On foot.

Yeah right!

I thought I had it made. As I approached the cattle they came over to me. They then followed me as I made my way to the new paddock. But when I went though the gateway it was though there was still an electric fence across it. The cattle stopped dead. And no amount of arm waving, shooing, or other negotiation tactics would convince those animals to pass though the portal.

When they had had enough of us they would turn and scatter. Our arms just weren’t long enough to convince them that the distance between the four of us just wasn’t sufficient to get through. And away we would go again to round them up.

It would have looked hilarious. Luckliy we are hidden from the view of the neighbours and the road.

I am not a farmer. Yet.

Warning: Reading this post and following up on the ideas might really be bad for your state of mind - for a while. Seriously. I have only presented sound-bite sized explanations and conclusions here. This subject is a big one.

Now that I have some readers I am going to be a little more conscientious about posting. What better way to continue that with my reasons?

I have been giving much thought to the idea of Right Livelihood. What kind of occupation can I indulge in that is sustainable in both it’s substance and it’s relationships?

Orthodox business basics say that there are four quadrants: employment; self employment; business ownership; passive income. Apparently each one is more desirable than the last. But is it? Which are sustainable? Let’s start with the latter, ostensibly the most desirable.

The idea of passive income presupposes capital. Enough of it to live off the interest, or some other passive return. This is certainly touted as the holy grail. Witness the property flippers and their blind pursuit of equity. But it is simply not sustainable in it’s substance.

• Can everyone on this planet become a passive investor? Of course not. If you follow the trail you’ll quickly find that the wealth of the rich countries is built upon the exploitation of the poor ones.
• You’ll also find that capital has no morals. The corporation, for example, has all of the rights, but none of the responsibilites of natural persons.

It seems to me that passive income is a way for the rich to do what they want and get the poor to grow the food and clean the toilets.

Next I’ll consider employment. In my opinion employment is fundamentally a destructive relationship. It doesn’t matter whether you have a good boss, or not, the nature of employment is unequal. This subject is so big that I am just going to link to a website to get you started.

If I think that being employed is not-so-good, then surely I can’t, in good faith, employ people can I? That, in the words of the Bee Gees, is where I came in. Or got out. I was pondering my employee situation one day when I decided to follow the trail. Surely I, an engineer, could solve this one for good? I started by defining the type of person that would be a good fit for my organisation and then investigating where that person might be or how I could create that person. I ended up here. Basically I needed someone who had been broken by the education system. When I put it like that I found that most of my energy for business dissipated.

If you recall how many times you have received bad service, or heard the words “it’s hard to get good help”, you’ll start to get an idea of the employer-employee relationship. Combine it with your recollection of how passionate some people can be about their personal interests, and still do a bad job at work, you’ll be getting a better idea.

Perversely, the better the conditions at work, the more the employee is getting sucked into the destructiveness of the relationship.

This is not to say that there is not a positive relationship to be had. Maybe an employee who uses the resources of his employer - in any way he/she sees fit - to achieve a goal that he/she also shares? But what happens when the employee wants to change the vision or pursue a Project Of No Redeeming Value?

Self employment might be the most sustainable quadrant, in my opinion. I was informed, in my early business career, that this was a ‘bad place’ to be. My income would be limited to what I could personally earn. When I was on the ski lift I would be poorer at the top, while a business owner or passive investor would be richer.

But from a relationships perspective, if everyone was self employed, and formed partnerships for particular tasks, and of free will, surely this option is the most sustainable? Consider yourself as a child. When you had a project (building a sandcastle for example) you would recruit others who shared in your interest and you worked as a team to complete it. The team was disbanded at the completion of the project. That worked - didn’t it?

I know some companies try to harness this idea. Probably to increase profits. The apparent job satisfaction is only a side effect.

It now remains to consider what kind of work you would do as a self employed person. That is a different topic. However, I am forming the conclusion that the tradesman/craftsman paradigm is probably the most sustainable when you consider the training issue. Youngsters apprenticed to highly skilled masters, that is. You still have the employment issue at this point.

This was supposed to be a Mike’s Reasons topic. And this is one of the reasons we are now here. We have decided that we will never employ people in an employer-employee relationship again. We wish to operate from a total freedom of association standpoint. And while we are reconciling our values with reality, we will be happy to grow our own food, and clean our own toilets.

Just like Gandhi.

Oh, did I mention spinning cotton and overthrowing the British Empire?

We took possession of the land today. We have arranged for one of the neighbours to graze 13 cattle for a while. That should leave me with plenty of grass for haymaking. We’ll need the hay for mulch around the fruit trees when we get started on that.

Our own livestock number already in the thousands - I took a beehive nuc box onto the property yesterday. I will transfer the frames and bees to the actual hive in the morning - hopefully before the bees have started their day’s foraging.

We chose to start keeping bees for a number of reasons: the honey, the pollen, and the pollination. Bees are one of those permaculture staples.

Why would I want to turn my house around?

It was built in the 60’s (I guess), and the orientation would have been chosen to take best advantage of the views. The longest axis of the house (which is roughly 6m x 18m) runs north-south.

Basic solar energy requirements are that, at my location, a house length is 2-3 times its width, and that the longest axis run east-west. This is so that the winter sun can reach deep into the house through the north windows - all day. In summer the higher sun can be blocked from the interior by the eaves. This cannot happen when a house is lined up north-south.

In addition, there are currently no sunward roof faces. So there is no place to put solar PV panels, or solar hot-water panels. It is an energy inefficient house.

I used to have this philosophy about keeping stuff. If I hadn’t used something in the last year then I threw it out. It was all about simplification. Now I think that one possibility is that I shouldn’t have acquired it in the first place. Could I have done without, or even borrowed it?

And some of that stuff I learnt at university? Well some of it wasn’t directly related to my major - I just turned in the assignments and attended lectures. After all, why would I ever want to analyse shear force and bending moments in beams? So I threw those notes away in one of my moves.

So when I want to turn the new house around 90 degrees where do I start? I can pay a building moving company some large amount to to it, or I can figure out how to do it myself. It wasn’t so long ago (well it was actually - before big trucks) that home owners would move across town and take their house with them. And do it themselves (with a little help from their friends, I suppose). Just how hard can it be to spin a house around? In 2006?

I don’t think that houses are built quite the same anymore. Therefore I will need to provide structural support for the building. My first idea is to put two beams along the length of the house, and sit it on them. Then move resulting load.

And to do that I’ll need to analyse the shear force and bending moments so I can specify the beams I’ll need.

I’ll expand on health as a reason for moving at a later date. Suffice, for now, to say that it is.

Food is a major contributor to health. Growing your own ensures that you know what you are eating. Even the authorities won’t keep you safe from bad food. Recently rice imported into Europe has been found to be contaminated with GM rice. If you think that GM ingredients are safe - then do some more reading.

It is possible that contaminated long-grain rice remains on sale in New Zealand despite the contaminating variant being untested and unapproved by any authority in any country.

“The situation for New Zealand consumers remains unclear as Authorities have deemed information about their action-plan as falling under the Official Information Act,” says Jon Carapiet from GE Free NZ in food and environment. Until the information is released New Zealand shoppers should consider avoiding any US long-grain rice, and should return unopened packs to the shop for a refund.

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=7047

V. keeps saying that she really wants to do this and that she is very excited. But I am sure our reasons are slightly different. That’s why the title says “Mike’s reason” and not “Our reason”.

Oh, and my reasons aren’t in order.

The Environment

Whatever your opinion on the mechanisms of ecological damage, I think we all agree that the natural environment just ain’t what it used to be. And the economy drives the damage. The truth of the matter is that the more you spend, the more environmental damage is done on your behalf.

New Zealand’s food is imported from around the world, or at least carted the length of the country. The term ‘food miles’ has been coined to help measure just how much.

Our energy requirements, while far less than the average American, are still pretty silly. Just look at the congestion in New Zealand’s cities now, compared with twenty years ago. We are using our cars more. Hardly a month goes by without someone in the electricity industry telling us that we are headed for blackouts in the near future due to the industry’s inability to keep up with demand.

I am sure that there are a million good reasons why every one of us just has to do the things that we do. And that it should be the other guy who takes the bus to work. Or whose kids should walk home from school (after all it is dangerous out there). But in the end, we are each the other guys “other guy”

So, we are doing something about it. We could have done it a dozen other ways, I’m sure. But this way fits in with the other reasons that will follow.

We will be growing and raising the bulk of our own food. It’s our intention to use organic methods in all of our food production. There are enough organic success stories, and chemical horror stories, to indicate that chemical fertilisers are a huge folly. I’m expecting it to take a while for the soil fertility to get back to normal, but we’ll wait.

There is a stream at the bottom of our property. I’m hoping that the water will be in better condition on the way out than it was on the way in. At the moment it is clearly contaminated by the runoff of the farms up the valley.

We will be reducing our fossil fuel derived energy consumption as far as practical. Fewer trips in the car. Fewer devices in the home (and those devices turned off more). A few simple modifications to the house to reduce heating requirements. When our consumption of electricity drops to a certain level, then we will switch to an alternative source.

We just won’t have as much money to buy things. That in itself will make a difference. I’ve heard that the number of miles travelled on the country’s roads is directly proportional to the GDP. Well, we won’t be spending as much, therefore the GDP won’t grow as much.

I know we are only two people. But we are doing this having been inspired by others. So maybe others will get inspired by our example - and then we will be more than just two.

I’m still coming to grips with the blog thing. In particular the subject matter. I’d like to think that my posts might be useful to someone, somewhere, sometime. So, I don’t want it to get too wide. But it needs to be wider than what we are doing on the farm.

The subject matter, therefore, of this blog will be that related to the reasons we have moved out of the city. Which means I’d better put together a list of reasons.