I’ve been thinking about having a small homesteading/subsistence farming commune kinda thing with some extended family and other people to insulate ourselves from increasing precaritization. Several family members are also interested in this kind of thing and quite a few have the relevant knowledge. This seems like it would be individually beneficial to us but I wonder if it’s withdrawing from society too much. Or something.
What are y’all’s informed commie opinions about this stuff?
I asked this same question recently, so I will refer you to this post.
Thanks! Interesting to see people’s perspectives.
I’m curious about the class/settler analysis, since it seemed like people didn’t quite agree on that and I’m not really sure what to think myself.
Also I don’t think I would aim to be totally self-sufficient or such a large scale, don’t know if that makes a difference. But sounds like that may not be economically feasible from one person’s experience.
What class analysis was controversial? To me it just seemed like Kaffe was giving talking points some people hadn’t heard of and thus, they asked for clarification.
I volunteered on a kibbutz. It was quite rich, they had a medical device (plastic) factory, orchards and apple processing factory. So we had a swimming pool, cinema, sports hall and a free bar. Not sure if this is really relevant. Some people worked really hard, others didn’t. I loved the life for about 6 months but then it felt quite claustrophobic.
Not sure it’s relevant to what you are looking at. I think it would be hard. Once you had all sold up and invested it would be hard to go back. If someone wanted to leave, could you buy them out? With what? If you couldn’t pay them back you might be trapped together. I think you need some kind of cash cow, like the plastic factory, maybe not on that scale but something that brought in a good amount of cash maybe crop farming I don’t know your situation? So you could at least buy people out if they wanted to leave? Maybe I got it all wrong? What are your thoughts?
Interesting points, I could see the claustrophobia really becoming a problem.
What I had in mind was much smaller scale and not totally self sufficient, probably just aiming to grow a significant percentage of what we eat and share housing/land responsibilities and costs. But I’m also not the one with the know-how and there’s just been mumblings about it, not solid serious discussion.
