Hey all,
Just got back from a work trip, during which I read "The Conquest of Bread", by Peter Kropotkin, and began reading "Man, Economy, and State", by Murray Rothbard.
This got me thinking about Kropotkin's goal of ending the scarcity of food, but rather than insist on his vague "expropriation" as a means to that end, consider this end in the framework of a coercion-free market.
Is ending the scarcity of basic foodstuffs possible through market mechanisms? Backyard homesteading and permaculture seem to imply that most any free-holder would be able to direct their property to food production without being dedicated "farmers", and with few to none of the massive capital investments required for modern industrial production.
http://www.backtoedenfilm.com/
I'm not sure how to elaborate any further, any thoughts would be much appreciated.
What do you mean by ending scarcity in food? Some food is really cheap right now, and some isn't. Do you mean "free" food?
Inasmuch as there is currently "free" air, or "free" rain (in my climate, anyways). In other words, to make (some) foods a general condition of hapiness, rather than a scarce good.
I don't necessarily mean ALL foods being abundant, but to the point where no one has to go hungry, since at least some type of basic foodstuff is always available.
Well, the problem I see here with this is that there must be some work done in order to harvest the food and bring it to people. Your body breathes naturally, but food does not come to your body naturally. Someone has to grow the food, harvest it, and then deliver it to people. Even if it is in your backyard and it is you who are doing all three steps. And the problem with that is that it is terribly time consuming. That's the beauty of the division of labor.
One comment about air being non-scarce. For most of the planet. it is in fact non-scarce. Nevermind the moon and other space related things, anyone who works in a mine or goes underwater no longer has access to non-scarce air. It has now become scarce in these particular scenarios. So someone has to work in order to bring air to these people. And all of these systems have to be maintained.
I don't think there is a way to end scarcity in a lot of these goods, but if you consider how cheap these things have become for people over the last 100 years, I don't think it's really much of an issue.
The fact that such gardens would require cultivation is sufficient to demonstrate that it is not a means to ending food scarcity. By definition, resources which can be had only at the cost of using other scarce resources are themselves scarce.
Clayton -
Clayton:The fact that such gardens would require cultivation is sufficient to demonstrate that it is not a means to ending food scarcity. By definition, resources which can be had only at the cost of using other scarce resources are themselves scarce.
By that reasoning, the air we breathe is scarce, because the resources used to obtain it (generally speaking, human bodies) are scarce.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
Well, with tens or hundreds of thousands of people dying every year of starvation I would venture to say that it is indeed an "issue."
Personally I think the problem can largely be found in markets not being allowed to function, and lack of property rights/rule of law. I think these factors probably account for most, if not all stuctural food scarcity. Of course, many many factors such as war, weather, etc. can cause temporary pockets of food scarcity.
Cheers! GML
Give me an ironman-nuclear power source and nano-bots to maintain my phsyique. C'mon future!
Where there is no property there is no justice; a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid
Fools! not to see that what they madly desire would be a calamity to them as no hands but their own could bring
I'm talking about an edible landscape, rather than what most of us consider traditional "farming". In southern New England at least, vegetation is abundant, so imagine instead of some grass on a lawn, it is leafy greens, or instead of a maple, it is a hickory, or a black walnut, etc.
When I'm saying "non-scarce" here, I basically mean something that one no longer needs to exchange for in order to procure.
I think it is an issue, because it is a question of self-determination. It seems to me that although trade is not a zero sum game, that power certainly is. That is, if I become more powerful, I have necessarily made those around me and in control of me less powerful, relative to me. As Molinari said, the goals of the classic liberals and the socialists are the same. I've come to realize that goal is simply regaining self-determination and freedom, which must mean the reduction of control our current masters hold over us. Food is an essential resource, and one that could be had for literally nothing.
No need to hope for technology. I am no futurist. This can be done now.
I recall hearing from a Chinese person (and I'm afraid I can't remember exactly where in China they said this occurred) but that when people were allowed some semblance of private property they created fruit and vegetable gardens, but once real commerce returned the gardens were no longer about subsistence and instead became symbolic of surplus so that folks walking by these gardens on the street were free to choose and eat as they liked from strangers' gardens.
I think your heart is in the right place, but I'm skeptical that food can be had for "literally nothing". Truely labor-free grown (ie. wild growth) doesn't have nearly the same output, quality, or consistancy that can be provided by agriculture, even your backyard garden. Replacing a lawn with "leafy greens" isn't as simple as planting the right thing. You'd need to get the right soil type, plant to control erosion, control pests and weeds, etc. Grass just gets by on it's own. I mean, step back for a second and consider what whitetail deer would do to a lawn made out of "leafy green vegetables". Oh yeah, and most foods need to be replanted after harvest. So that's labor and scarce good right there. Then you have the areas in the cities where you simply don't have enough green spaces to support the population, least of all the poor who would be the ones most in need of the abundant food. The only way I coudl see food becoming a general condition of human existance, rather than a scarce good, would be if we developed some kind of super-hearty and nutrient packed fungus or something that grew wild. Or radically replanned and rebuilt our cities such that there were farms growing similarly super-hearty and nutritious food that required little to no impact. Unfortunately both of these would be off in the future, not available today.
See this is an example of a form of charity, or possibly a public good situation. The people growing the "surplus" gardens still had to do so, and pay in time and materials. Far from eliminating scarcity and turning it into a general condition.
I'm not talking about completely supplanting the agricultural system as we know it. I mean, who among us would prefer to eat a roadside turnip to kobe beef?
And yes, it is really as simple as replacing the grass in your lawn with something like kale, or mustard greens. They are self seeding annuals (biennials, if you want to get technical), so you only have to sow them once, as long as you don't eat all of them to death in one year.
LogisticEarth:You'd need to get the right soil type, plant to control erosion, control pests and weeds, etc. Grass just gets by on it's own.
Then why not plant something edible that can also "get by on it's own"? Forests have no centralized governor (the gardener) commanding resources around, so what's the difference? Most of the problems of agriculture result from poorly planned intervention in natural nutrient cycles. Sounds familiar!
As far as urban areas go, there are large tracts of vacant lots, brownfields, parks, etc. which could be turned towards that end. And again, crops from these marginal areas would probably be less than appealing (rightly or wrongly) to those who could afford something better.
For all intents and purposes food is available to all individuals in advanced nations whose governments don't interfere with the process. The best cure for the scarcity of food, has been and will always be, to get government out of the economy. Hunger was the first thing to go within the free market, specifically because it is such a necessity to people
Air is not produced by human bodies.
Jackson LaRose: This can be done now.
This can be done now.
Who's stopping you?
Clayton:Air is not produced by human bodies.
No, but air is certainly used by human bodies.
Maybe I didn't quite understand what you meant by the phrase "can be had"? I figured you meant the same thing as "can be obtained". Something doesn't have to be produced by human effort in order to be obtained.
Who's stopping me? The state is trying, but I have already begun. Of course, I don't control the property of others, so I can only do so much.
Jackson LaRose: Of course, I don't control the property of others, so I can only do so much.
Of course, I don't control the property of others, so I can only do so much.
Good, I was worried there for a second, with all that Kropotkin reading and such.
LOL, don't worry, I think even Kropotkin understood that "free society" and "expropriation" are incompatible ideas.
His ideas on the revolution are rather vague, and even irrelevant to the real thrust of the book; the conquest of bread, i.e., the people taking the ability of nourishing themselves from their rulers.