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Hence my argument: what is the barest "barely" that can keep you afloat? 8 acres is your fair share of Earth. Here's a $20 bag of assorted nutritious seeds. (I

Hence my argument: what is the barest "barely" that can keep you afloat? 8 acres is your fair share of Earth. Here's a $20 bag of assorted nutritious seeds. (If you're really uptight about this, I'll throw in a $40 sack of rice as enough to get you to first harvest.) There we have the stark reality of "barely keeps you afloat" and "cannot really afford to lose": subsistence farming. Harsh as it sounds, that's the real-world baseline. Capitalism gives you the option of doing something other than self-sufficient farming. You can put in the same effort, with the equivalent "cannot really afford to lose" work-or-starve option, and leverage the available contract - or not. The notion that you're somehow not "free" to accept or reject the contract (if living at that bare edge of survival) is practically no different than subsistence farming. I acknowledge that "freedom" seems rather moot at that level, but so long as the effort required is little different from the effort for subsistence farming, that's the hard reality of being a human living on Earth. If you're accepting the contract because of "work or starve" in the context of effort I'm harping on, and you have the liberty to pick between whatever contracts are available ("start digging & planting" always being one) then yes that's "freedom". If you're compelled under threat of abuse/injury/death to work for a disproportionately meager return, and/or literally confined with no options, then that is an immoral denial of the "freedom" I'm referring to. To wit: the natural law of "produce or starve" is not to be confused with, nor equated to, compulsory hard labor within incarceration sustained with a scant moldy loaf. (I'm writing this much about the subject because I'm trying to sort thru & refine ideas, bouncing 'em off HN for insight.)

erikpukinskis 10y ago
Where do I sign up to get my 20 acres? And do I get free agriculture school? Because capitalists took the land from indigenous people who were surviving and then intentionally destroyed the social institutions that would've let them revive their culture on a land grant. Ironically, capitalists eventually did the same thing to the descendants of the settlers, with a little less outright slaughter. Therefore, I would say society owes all of us at least the land and the education—real hands on education and family-style support—before anyone can start saying wage "slavery" is a choice.
- ctdonath 10y ago
  For $10,000 (we'll arrange it via a tax refund, turbotax.intuit.com), I'll have you on 20 acres of land next week (zillow.com) with the complete set of Foxfire books documenting Appalachian live-off-the-land survival (amazon.com), plus a set of basic tools needed (amazon.com), plus a camper to get you comfortably started (craigslist.com). As for "hands on" and "family style support", you're demanding luxuries that many settlers didn't have. I'm reading the Foxfire books, they're all you'll need for a good fair start.
  - erikpukinskis 10y ago
    We don't have $10,000 each.
mch82 10y ago
How are the following assumptions addressed? 1. Every 8-acre plot of land is suitable for sustaining a person 2. Every person is legally free and able to relocate to an 8-acre plot of land
- ctdonath 10y ago
  1. Your real "land / population" fair share is 16 acres. About half of Earth's land mass is "rank wilderness", practically inhospitable. Hence 8 acres, practically all of which has something naturally growing on it, indicating you can adapt that land accordingly. Yes, some land will be more productive than other for varying needs; you're welcome to engage in some form of trade. Rough estimate is one typically needs 1-3 acres to grow enough food for one person. 8 acres should be more than enough, enough so to generate quite a surplus. Multiplying that by # of family members leverages productivity further, giving a simple family of 4 some 32 acres to work with, and into 50-100 acres for a larger family (leveraging another HNer's calculations, that can push a half-million $ revenue). 2. Most people are legally free; those who aren't are either incarcerated (and subject to equivalent subsistence by the state), or are the subject of criminal abuse (and freeing them is a major purpose of the state). Wasn't all that long ago that the USA was first settled by people who literally picked up what little they had and walked (or rode a mundane covered wagon) hundreds or thousands of miles across unpaved terrain to reach their settlement. I just looked on zillow.com for land in the 8 acre range. There is enough available for well under $10,000 (with just a few seconds' search effort) to make the thought experiment viable. "Able to relocate" is little more than picking up a briefcase and hitching a ride no more than halfway across the state. And it is a thought experiment. It is not a comprehensive analysis of encyclopedic depth and peer-reviewed correctness; it is a back-of-the napkin sanity check of what would roughly constitute a bottom-line standard, bracketing the discussion skewed by "soak the rich" redistributive thinking. Insofar as there will be complications: yes, there will be complications; figure it out, yes you may have to break ties (we're talking survival here), yes it will require effort (we're talking survival here), no it may not be pleasant (we're talking survival here). There's a recurring discrepancy I see on the subject: - some people expect "functional poverty" be achievable with virtually zero effort by the individual, all resources & energy supplied by others - some people expect "functional poverty" requires an all-out effort by the individual, with virtually zero resources & effort supplied by others. My great-grandparents having hauled themselves into Central Nowhere, Utah and elicited a decent living from the dirt there, without prolific & compulsory government welfare programs to do so, I'm rather firmly in the latter group. Bottom line is: one is expected to work AT LEAST as hard is required for subsistence farming on an average 8-acre lot. Whether the reality is actually farming an 8-acre lot, or working a mundane job in a factory, or writing apps on a borrowed MacBook, it is not unreasonable to expect/require an individual to produce at least that much in exchange for basic sustenance. This notion that the capable idle should be sustained, thru the confiscation of at least that much productivity from others, for the mere act of breathing is preposterous. Survival isn't free; you're expected to work at least that hard.
deleted 10y ago
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erikpukinskis 10y ago

Where do I sign up to get my 20 acres? And do I get free agriculture school? Because capitalists took the land from indigenous people who were surviving and then intentionally destroyed the social institutions that would've let them revive their culture on a land grant. Ironically, capitalists eventually did the same thing to the descendants of the settlers, with a little less outright slaughter. Therefore, I would say society owes all of us at least the land and the education—real hands on education and family-style support—before anyone can start saying wage "slavery" is a choice.

ctdonath 10y ago
For $10,000 (we'll arrange it via a tax refund, turbotax.intuit.com), I'll have you on 20 acres of land next week (zillow.com) with the complete set of Foxfire books documenting Appalachian live-off-the-land survival (amazon.com), plus a set of basic tools needed (amazon.com), plus a camper to get you comfortably started (craigslist.com). As for "hands on" and "family style support", you're demanding luxuries that many settlers didn't have. I'm reading the Foxfire books, they're all you'll need for a good fair start.
- erikpukinskis 10y ago
  We don't have $10,000 each.

mch82 10y ago

How are the following assumptions addressed? 1. Every 8-acre plot of land is suitable for sustaining a person 2. Every person is legally free and able to relocate to an 8-acre plot of land

ctdonath 10y ago
1. Your real "land / population" fair share is 16 acres. About half of Earth's land mass is "rank wilderness", practically inhospitable. Hence 8 acres, practically all of which has something naturally growing on it, indicating you can adapt that land accordingly. Yes, some land will be more productive than other for varying needs; you're welcome to engage in some form of trade. Rough estimate is one typically needs 1-3 acres to grow enough food for one person. 8 acres should be more than enough, enough so to generate quite a surplus. Multiplying that by # of family members leverages productivity further, giving a simple family of 4 some 32 acres to work with, and into 50-100 acres for a larger family (leveraging another HNer's calculations, that can push a half-million $ revenue). 2. Most people are legally free; those who aren't are either incarcerated (and subject to equivalent subsistence by the state), or are the subject of criminal abuse (and freeing them is a major purpose of the state). Wasn't all that long ago that the USA was first settled by people who literally picked up what little they had and walked (or rode a mundane covered wagon) hundreds or thousands of miles across unpaved terrain to reach their settlement. I just looked on zillow.com for land in the 8 acre range. There is enough available for well under $10,000 (with just a few seconds' search effort) to make the thought experiment viable. "Able to relocate" is little more than picking up a briefcase and hitching a ride no more than halfway across the state. And it is a thought experiment. It is not a comprehensive analysis of encyclopedic depth and peer-reviewed correctness; it is a back-of-the napkin sanity check of what would roughly constitute a bottom-line standard, bracketing the discussion skewed by "soak the rich" redistributive thinking. Insofar as there will be complications: yes, there will be complications; figure it out, yes you may have to break ties (we're talking survival here), yes it will require effort (we're talking survival here), no it may not be pleasant (we're talking survival here). There's a recurring discrepancy I see on the subject: - some people expect "functional poverty" be achievable with virtually zero effort by the individual, all resources & energy supplied by others - some people expect "functional poverty" requires an all-out effort by the individual, with virtually zero resources & effort supplied by others. My great-grandparents having hauled themselves into Central Nowhere, Utah and elicited a decent living from the dirt there, without prolific & compulsory government welfare programs to do so, I'm rather firmly in the latter group. Bottom line is: one is expected to work AT LEAST as hard is required for subsistence farming on an average 8-acre lot. Whether the reality is actually farming an 8-acre lot, or working a mundane job in a factory, or writing apps on a borrowed MacBook, it is not unreasonable to expect/require an individual to produce at least that much in exchange for basic sustenance. This notion that the capable idle should be sustained, thru the confiscation of at least that much productivity from others, for the mere act of breathing is preposterous. Survival isn't free; you're expected to work at least that hard.

deleted 10y ago

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