Sermon on the Land

Animal husbandry, 2300 BC (Photo credit: Marcel Douwe Dekker)

At the risk of being labeled a communitarian fundamentalist, and preaching at you, I think that our first duty both to ourselves and to this world is to participate in a localized, sustainable, self-reliant (within a global system of balanced, recursive self-reliance and interdependence), community of peers. Without a community that achieves a certain threshold of economic self-reliance, security, and basic independence for its members, either in urban or rural settings (but without being too large to be personally intimate and nurturing), one tends to become a victim, a serf, or even a slave, caught in a trap; and thereafter to sink deeper and deeper into tragic compromises of ones values and actions. This can happen even to talented high achievers. It has been called the rat race.

And without a certain degree of geographic localization of such communities, even if not technically required for solidarity, production, or economic self-reliance, “unoccupied” parts of the commons tend to get robbed. Even if resources are considered common property or non-property, belonging to all, good stewardship is seldom an absentee role.

(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Husbandry is also not the work of strangers. I have seen this in many situations over the years. And that’s why I agree with Aristotle that private property (conditionally, within reason) can promote virtue. But this only applies to property that is occupied or tended in a way appropriate to its type and in a way that is responsible to society and to future generations. Abuse, neglect, and absentee ownership are anathema.

I understand of course that many people don’t want to be tied to a particular place–people are increasingly mobile and globally oriented– and I think that’s fine as long as the rest of us are enough in number to keep the local places–all the city blocks, the paddocks, and the wide-open wild spaces– looked after, tended to, and deeply cared for.

Amen?

Poor Richard

Packard plant by Ashley Dinges, on Flickr

Related articles

•  All Ownership is Conditional (PRA 2.0)
• Rethinking Common vs. Private Property (1): Introduction (p2pfoundation.net)

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