Luckenbach

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?

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.