A Waste-Not World: toward a policy of right to subsist

How Things Are

Here in America and the west, cash is king. Your consumption is expressed in terms of dollars, your budget is discussed in terms of dollars, your worth is measured in terms of dollars. If you spend less than a given amount for groceries each week, you're thrifty, good with money, possibly a skin-flint; if you spend more than a given amount, you may be careless, hoyty-toyty, or maybe discerning regarding the quality of the food you're willing to consume. The strength of your principles is measured by whether you put your money where your mouth is.


Here in America and the west, the vast majority of the idle are poor. Those who have the least disposable income also have the most disposable time. They also eat the unhealthiest food (because corn and soy are the most heavily subsidized agricultural products on the market) and raise the most children, meaning more people going into distressed school systems, with habits of eating nutritionless food and expectations of spending their lives in front of the television. "It was good for my daddy and it's good enough for me."


Here in America and the west, the poor have little or no access to soil on which to grow their own food. Acre upon acre of unused parking lots and empty buildings pull down property values in the cities, while the poor subsist on nutrient-bankrupt packaged foods. Pockets of more independent poor do exist, often in neighborhoods of immigrants, where several families of Eastern European or south-east Asian descent live near each other and raise meat rabbits, chickens and vegetables. But in general the poor rely on their food stamps and money in order to eat, leaving nothing for savings and nothing with which to better themselves.


Here in America and the west, some of the poor do attempt to fight back against their food poverty--but they often find themselves faced with insurmountable regulatory resistance. The landlord can't let them plant vegetables in their postage stamp front yard because it's against a city ordinance. No chickens are allowed within many city limits; neither are goats, the very most common source of milk and meat outside the west, and an animal that very easily adapts to urban living--creating less noise and less poop than a dog half its size. And even those who have enough land outside of a city may face backlash for their efforts to grow their own food, from neighbors who don't like the noise pigs make at meal time or who think the chicken coop is too small.

Here in America and the west, a staggering number of people don't know how to cook rice or beans--the very staff of life for the rest of the world. 20% or more of Americans don't know how to cook rice, and outside of certain communities American consumption of dry beans is sporadic at best. In fact, many Americans eat out for more than a third of their meals in a given week, and when they eat at home it is often a prepared food: a hot pocket, boxed mac and cheese, or "meal solution" (the modern equivalent of a TV dinner). Without rice or beans, and using flour infrequently for luxury items like cookies instead of daily to reduce purchases of pasta, bread and tortillas, even the little bit of food independence that could easily be within the reach of the poor manages to stay out of reach--simply because they don't know how to utilize it.

Here in America and the west, everyone is acclimated to a state of abundance and diversity in their diets. Leftovers are easily ignored when you could microwave a frozen burrito in the same amount of time and have a resulting meal that would be equally if not more tasty. Eating rice three or more days in a row is considered a hardship, and for most, sandwiches for lunch every day gets old really fast. In the quest for a diet that isn't boring people bounce from fast food joint to takeout dive to microwave dinner. While in theory people are aware that buying the raw ingredients would be a far cheaper way of achieving the same level of variety in their diets, in practice they know that their homemade versions never taste the same as the ones at the restaurant or store, and their tongues are conditioned to shun the affordable and crave the expensive.

Here in America and the west, many property owners are saddled with exorbitant property taxes. While some states and towns give breaks for agriculture, many don't, and the land taxes become an insurmountable obstacle to continued farming--particularly for the small farmer who operates on a narrow profit margin. Estate taxes upon a farmer's death often force the farm to be sold since all of a farmer's assets are often tied up in land, buildings, and equipment, so even if a farmer's son or daughter wants to take over the farm, it's often impossible for him or her to do so.
 In addition, farming is defined quite specifically in terms of profit, acreage and other considerations; no clemency is given to those who hope only to grow their own food or to provide friends and neighbors with fresh produce.

How Things Could Be

What if people were allowed to exercise a Right to Subsist? To choose to forego most government aid and instead attempt to grow their own food to the greatest extent possible, free from unreasonable municipal and government interference?

What if two or more people could enter into a Subsistence Coalition, allowing them to function as a familial unit, bartering goods and services such as butchering, cheesemaking, the raising of animals and crops, and land access?

What if those who chose to raise animals under a Right to Subsist were granted at least a path to immunity from accusations of animal cruelty or nuisance and had only the animals' escape from their property to fear? If their neighbors were granted the recourse of confiscating or killing animals that came on their property?


What if those working their land under the Right to Subsist were supplied with a partial tax exemption, similar to that frequently extended to farmers in certain states and counties? What if they could also be exempt from the most expensive aspects of local building codes for outbuildings and even homes up to a certain size?


What if municipal ordinances against farm animals within city limits were lifted in favor of restrictions solely handled and enforced by landlords and HOAs? If the landlords and HOA's, in turn, could only restrict animal ownership based on weight and number, not species (So that a neighborhood that permits border collies would also permit miniature milk goats and neighborhoods with mastiffs also allowed full sized goats, and in order to restrict chickens a landlord would also have to restrict cats)?