Hitler’s Third Reich sprang, according to a recent thesis,
from Nazism’s paranoia about ecological crisis and from its interpretation of
history as a racial conflict: this thesis suggests that fear about the
sufficiency of German resources lead the Nazis to invade the Soviet Union and
to slaughter Slavic populations to conquer land the “Aryan” people could
colonize and cultivate in the East. In other words, instead of using German
technology to bring about a revolution in agricultural productivity, Hitler opted
for paranoia, racial division, totalitarianism, militarization, imperialism, war, and genocide.
To make war on the poverty, the debt, the inflation, the decline, and the fear
faced by the German people, Hitler made World War II. To “save” 60,000,000
Germans, the Nazis precipitated the deaths of some 60,000,000 persons. Many
people followed these totalitarians--lending important force to their deceits--inviting
murders and mayhem for the sake of their own “salvation”.
Today, there is paranoia about ecological crisis. Today, there
are racial grievances and persons fomenting them. Today, history is being interpreted
and reinterpreted as a singular struggle for scarce resources between races and
ideologies. Today, there is economic desperation and brutalization among many
populations who face poverty, personal and public debts that cannot be paid,
deflation (perhaps depression), decline, and fear of the future. Because their
concerns are increasingly existential, these populations find little solace in stale
promises and ideologies and in comatose, enervated religions that concern
themselves only with the state of one’s soul in another world. How will we be
saved? What means will we adopt to achieve our salvation? Must we revert to the
precepts of Nazism for “salvation”?
Because they are increasingly desperate, because they are so
economically interdependent, our populations are becoming undemocratic, even
totalitarian. For the sake of socialized economic security, we stifle ourselves
and others. Without a revolution in lifestyle, our wills, so subordinate to our
subsistence and security, must become thralls to socialized employment and
hostile to convictions, faith, and independent thoughts and actions because
these are sources of division in an indivisible economy.
The ruts our leaders move in suggest to them that the only
means to salvation is the course that they have pursued to this point: a course
of social and economic collectivization. We get socialized educations to work
in a socialized economy under socialized licenses subject to confiscation by
the state and its agents if we diverge from their socialized plans. Through a
process of globalization, federalization, specialization, regulation, and
licensure, we have almost all come to depend on others for our sustenance. It
is just this course that now has us all feeling so insecure; it is just this
course that has us on the verge of global insolvency, a world war, and
totalitarianism--and still showing up for the same work with the same ideas the
next day.
It is time we rediscovered Thomas Jefferson. The
foundation for republican values is formed, according to Mr. Jefferson, by
independent farmers. Jeffersonian Democrats envisioned a diverse yeomanry independent
as to their convictions because they were independent as to their subsistence. Apparently,
this Democrat no longer exists. And, thanks largely to government subsidies to
agriculture, few farmers are independent and few farms are family-owned. Most
of us now work outside of agriculture. In other words, we depend on others for
our food. Our economy is dominated by services, government, and public corporations.
But individual liberty is a problem in a service economy. It is problematic
because one’s demand in the economy, and hence one’s sustenance, depends on one’s
deference to the wishes of others. And how can an economic servant be a
sovereign—a sovereign unit of We the People? The obedience that is
characteristic of economic servants, of government employees, and of those in corporate
hierarchies may be admirable to their economic masters but will it keep them
and us from being mastered politically to the adversity of all Americans? In an
interconnected, socially-networked economy dominated by these deferential
persons, we are all increasingly enjoined to a smiling obedience to others. But
deference makes poor and pliant democrats because it makes them incapable of
independence of thought and action. For this reason, Mr. Jefferson considered service
(non-agriculture) economies, public stock corporations, Federalism, and central
banks to be existential threats to democracy. And, as noted above, his
fears have largely been borne out. We are becoming zombie citizens with
carefully circumscribed convictions because we depend on others for our food.
This makes servitude inevitable. It makes individual liberty ultimately impossible.
It must, eventually, stand the state in God’s stead. And it will be the end of
American democracy. Unless…
The technology already exists for a revolution that might
avert the anthropogenic causes of anticipated ecological crises. The technology
I speak of would reduce interdependencies, and hence, conflicts (ie. racial conflicts).
In other words, there is an alternative to Nazism. There is no need for
paranoia, racial division, totalitarianism, militarization, imperialism, war, and genocide. And America
might reestablish a Jeffersonian yeomanry of independent farmers.
There is a revolution afoot in quiet quarters. Many of these
revolutionaries have been derided as “preppers”. Perceiving existential
threats, of necessity, these revolutionaries have mothered an invention (okay,
maybe they just combined some existing technologies). In fact, the idea these
persons have promulgated is an idea that, if applied on a large scale, could
soon solve world hunger, could dramatically reduce carbon emissions, would
revolutionize our economy and our health, and could preserve our individual
freedoms.
Don’t dismiss this idea for its elemental simplicity; this
is revolutionary: at most latitudes, in a relatively small greenhouse, perhaps situated
efficiently underground, but oriented toward the sun, with geothermal heating
and cooling, and drip or hydroponic or ceramic irrigation systems, utilizing high
efficiency grow lights during some winter hours, even without a well (ie. using
new dehumidifier technology), perhaps employing some aquaculture and/or poultry
husbandry, one can grow a diversity and quantity and quality of organic food
our ancestors only dreamed about—enough, apparently, in perhaps 500 square feet
per person (ie. with some fast-growing microgreen crops and without grain crops)
to almost feed oneself. In other words, it is possible, again, and perhaps as
never before, to depend on oneself for food. In fact, with a very little land,
an inexpensive structure (ie. some plastic and a hole in the ground), and some
relatively cheap equipment, one might feed oneself even in northern latitudes
and high altitudes, even in wind-swept and desolate places! Using this
technology, the entire population of the earth could probably almost feed
itself (and might house itself) on less than half of the underutilized acres
currently under the control of the United States Bureau of Land Management or
on about 1/16 of the land mass of the United States! The benefits of this prospective
revolution are almost inestimable. The density of land use could increase. Transportation
and energy and packaging costs would be exponentially reduced as would the
potentially harmful application of commercial fertilizers, herbicides, and
pesticides. Consumption of healthy, organic food would cut medical costs.
Dependency on government would be decreased: given the opportunity to observe
the growth of the fruits of their individual efforts, many people, not now participating
in the labor force, might become productive in both growing their own food and
in other work, and in this way, might exponentially reduce their draw on food
stamps and other welfare benefits. With food security, with an elemental education
in production and saving (ie. preserving seeds and crops) and risk and reward,
more Americans might elect to become entrepreneurs. In the shelter of an
accommodative personal space, with no need to compete with younger, healthier
workers, many retirees and disabled persons who rely solely on tentatively-solvent
Social Security payments might work to achieve food security and self-reliance.
In this way, our leaders might obtain relief from many of the burdens which
they have shouldered—burdens that they have taken upon themselves to house,
feed, clothe, and care for many millions of people—and thus avert the
disappointments that must attend such superhuman efforts. A secure and personal
supply of food will reduce the vulnerabilities of the people to economic
depressions, to political manipulations and oppressions, to theocratic and
secular fanaticism, to racial and ideological divisions, to terrorist threats,
and to asinine incursions into the affairs of other countries. The prospective
benefits of this revolution in food security, as presented so cursorily, are,
by no means, comprehensive.
If our leaders are serious about anything but their continuing
control over the people, they will vet, refine, and promote this technology by compiling
proven research on yields and costs for small homesteads for publication to the
public, by propounding smaller subdivisions of agricultural and ranch land and permissive
agricultural uses on residential land, by opening public lands to small homesteads
(ie. to welfare recipients in lieu of other welfare benefits), by offering tax
credits for home food production facilities, by avoiding taxation of foods
produced for oneself and family, by reinstating the Constitutional protections
to property, and by encouraging lending to small homesteaders. If you consider
this idea absurd, I would remind you that Albert Einstein once said “If at
first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.” He also observed,
“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created
them”.
