gardening

[bcbm]

someone on revleft mentioned the "one mile diet" in cuba. i googled it and it turns out to be popular in some womens magazines. they're encouraging their readers and offering tips and advice to start your own garden. i think this is something it would benefit a lot of leftist groups to start doing, encouraging members to have their own, or small communal, gardens, or some other practical projects. this would be a good way to spend more time with each other and discuss things in a friendly way, and would undoubtedly bring in interest from our neighbors, which is usually a good thing.

i think in general leftists might learn a lot from more analytically paying attention to what is going on in popular culture, especially what they're basically recommending as coping mechanisms for the misery of capital. it would give us a much larger pool of strategies and tactics to draw from, or at least help us understand how our enemies use them.

[Invincible Summer]

This diet (as well as the 100-mile diet) has been really popular around these parts lately. I think it just ties into the whole individualist-liberal-hippie thing where we can all change the world by going on this diet.

[ellipsis]

Shouldn't this be in diy or maybe practice and propaganda, not strategy?

But yes I think that we should all produce for ourselves as much as possible.

[bcbm]

This diet (as well as the 100-mile diet) has been really popular around these parts lately. I think it just ties into the whole individualist-liberal-hippie thing where we can all change the world by going on this diet.

obviously it ties in to that, but i also think going on a "one mile diet" as these magazines are advising will inevitably mean greater interaction with one's neighbors as you will be outside a lot, and if multiple people are gardening they will work out trades, etc. one of the magazines appeared to have set up a garden at their office, and given every employee a plot. in general i think they will have the side effect of fostering a stronger local community for those who get involved and its this aspect of their recommendations i'm more interested in than other benefits like having your own food, cost saving, etc. i think pro-revolutionaries could be undertaking and encouraging projects like this to foster good relations with our neighbors and experiment with it as a form of organizing against capital, as a zone of opportunity outside of the workplace.


Shouldn't this be in diy or maybe practice and propaganda, not strategy?

i don't think so. my intention in posting this isn't specifically gardening or diy projects, but to start adapting a revolutionary strategy to the 21st century by paying attention to how capital is organizing the means to sustain itself, and if we can appropriate their means to our ends. if lenin was correct about the capitalists selling us the rope to hang them with, then it seems to me we should be looking to pro-bourgeois sources for inspiration, ideas and methods just as much as, if not more than, traditional pro-revolutionary sources.

[Vanguard1917]

Shouldn't this be in diy or maybe practice and propaganda, not strategy?

But yes I think that we should all produce for ourselves as much as possible.

We should all live like feudal serfs, in other words? Small, self-sustaining, cut-off agricultural enterprises belong to the Middle Ages. While it may be a nice bit of fun for privileged Westerners with eccentric ideas and time on their hands, there really is nothing to celebrate about them as far as them being serious alternatives to the status quo. Ask impoverished farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, people who have no choice but to engage in subsistence farming.

For socialists, the only progressive alternative to capitalist agriculture is for agricultural workers to take over the most advanced means of producing food and expand them in the interests of all -- so that we can produce an abundance of food and so that no one has to endure backbreaking agricultural labour ever again.

[bcbm]

please stop derailing my thread.

[cenv]

i think this is something it would benefit a lot of leftist groups to start doing, encouraging members to have their own, or small communal, gardens, or some other practical projects. this would be a good way to spend more time with each other and discuss things in a friendly way, and would undoubtedly bring in interest from our neighbors, which is usually a good thing.

Yeah, this sort of thing has more potential than a lot of communists give it credit for. The way I see it, a lot of people try turning this into an economic issue when the psychological impact is the most significant facet of this kind of project. Modern capitalism is rooted in the increasing atomization of our communities, and our interactions/surroundings have become a function of economic activity (work, shopping, etc.) To transcend this upside-down, separated way of life, revolution is necessary, but to work towards revolution we need to build communal activity, interaction, etc. Moreover, in a society that systematically strips individuals of any sense of empowerment, the possibility of creating something as an autonomous community is the first step towards the collective self-confidence required for tearing down the power structures of capitalism. In this vein, I think community gardening can be part of a broader movement of social centers, neighborhood assemblies, etc. -- as long as we don't let these projects lose their radical character and fade into stasis.

[Sendo]

I've mentioned it, but I didn't mean the trendy do-it-yourself gardening. While good, I would rather have it be a government program.

And despite what Vanguard1917 believes, being environmental and being responsible with the limited production capacity of the soil is NOT regressive.

The short-range diet does not necessitate inefficient production. You can have a local collective or a farming collective shipping food from 3000 miles away.
But go ahead Vanguard1917, waste our resources so you can live in congested cities.

This doesn't have to be a sciences and environment topic. This is a topic of social and economic organization. And for anyone who doesn't feel that this is important (V1917) read John Bellamy Foster's work (editor, Monthly Review). Marx clearly stated innumerable times, especially in Capital that metabolic rift is a huge concern. not simply the energy of agriculture good transportation, but also the soil nutrient exporting.

Where do you think the calcium in our bones, in our food comes from. Where does it go when we die?

If the majority of the world is sucking the nutrients out of remote areas and pooping and pissing it into the rivers and oceans and then preserving more of it in wooden coffins when they die, then we have a "contradiction". Something Marx spent his greater research focusing on...the contradictions of capitalism.

[Sendo]

Yeah, this sort of thing has more potential than a lot of communists give it credit for. The way I see it, a lot of people try turning this into an economic issue when the psychological impact is the most significant facet of this kind of project. Modern capitalism is rooted in the increasing atomization of our communities, and our interactions/surroundings have become a function of economic activity (work, shopping, etc.) To transcend this upside-down, separated way of life, revolution is necessary, but to work towards revolution we need to build communal activity, interaction, etc. Moreover, in a society that systematically strips individuals of any sense of empowerment, the possibility of creating something as an autonomous community is the first step towards the collective self-confidence required for tearing down the power structures of capitalism. In this vein, I think community gardening can be part of a broader movement of social centers, neighborhood assemblies, etc. -- as long as we don't let these projects lose their radical character and fade into stasis.

I like your points. It is important to remember the social-ideological impacts alongside the material impacts of such organization of our economy. Neither exist in vacuums.

[Comrade Gwydion]

Well, at least one thing I think needs to be said about this. Many within the leftist movement will critizise initiatives as 'lifestylism'. What they mean is that it's an illusion that changing your own lifestyle will change the world, because the mayority of polution and shit comes from governments and multinationals.
Because of this, they abandon 'lifestylism' and continue their lifes in this capitalist society by consuming as much as all the other sheep, munching on their fastfood and throwing their garbage on the street (both literally and figuratively).

Well, in that case, give me the 'bourgois lifestylists' anytime over the true 'revolutionairy' with the McBurger in his hand. I agree that 'lifestylism' isn't enough, but it is needed. We can't just talk the talk, we need to walk the walk. We need ecological gardening. We need to be socialists and share our produce. We need to stop consuming and acumulating.
And I think in this way, eco-villages or diy-gardening is very important. As soon as I have any piece of ground I can use, I will make a biological 'moestuintje' (dutch), to grow some vegetables.

[Sendo]

Well, at least one thing I think needs to be said about this. Many within the leftist movement will critizise initiatives as 'lifestylism'. What they mean is that it's an illusion that changing your own lifestyle will change the world, because the mayority of polution and shit comes from governments and multinationals.
Because of this, they abandon 'lifestylism' and continue their lifes in this capitalist society by consuming as much as all the other sheep, munching on their fastfood and throwing their garbage on the street (both literally and figuratively).

Well, in that case, give me the 'bourgois lifestylists' anytime over the true 'revolutionairy' with the McBurger in his hand. I agree that 'lifestylism' isn't enough, but it is needed. We can't just talk the talk, we need to walk the walk. We need ecological gardening. We need to be socialists and share our produce. We need to stop consuming and acumulating.
And I think in this way, eco-villages or diy-gardening is very important. As soon as I have any piece of ground I can use, I will make a biological 'moestuintje' (dutch), to grow some vegetables.

I like what youre saying, but I think you're perpetuating the false dichotomy.

It doesn't have to be enlightened middle class whites who start a lifestyle movement. The atomization has to end! I advocate more localized and visible farming with markets where people can connect.

Simple science dictates the biggest problems are the recycling of nutrients and long-distance farming.

backyard farming alone will not change that. We need to organize for compost collection and better use of sewage water to be used for fertilizer. Saving your own compost is good, but don't expect to morally or even rationally convince a large number of people to quickly adopt our examples. We need to radicalize by action! The Black Panthers could make a community instantly aware of them by putting armed guards at street corners by schools to make sure people don't run over black school children until the day the city hall relents and installs stop signs in the ghettoes. A food-garbage/compost collection would make people rethink their habits.

South Korea collects food waste separately and have a very high tolerance for recyclables, and because of that I have seen how slowly I make "garbage" when smelly food is taken out of the equation. Physical experience does far more than a book does sometimes.

[bcbm]

i'd like it if we could get the thread back on topic. again, my point in posting about this wasn't to encourage gardening because of any possible ecological or economic benefits it might have, but to examine this trend as something that could be used by pro-revolutionaries as an experiment in community organization and to promote the idea of looking to bourgeois sources for new ideas and tactics.

[Code]

We should all live like feudal serfs, in other words? Small, self-sustaining, cut-off agricultural enterprises belong to the Middle Ages. While it may be a nice bit of fun for privileged Westerners with eccentric ideas and time on their hands, there really is nothing to celebrate about them as far as them being serious alternatives to the status quo. Ask impoverished farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, people who have no choice but to engage in subsistence farming.

For socialists, the only progressive alternative to capitalist agriculture is for agricultural workers to take over the most advanced means of producing food and expand them in the interests of all -- so that we can produce an abundance of food and so that no one has to endure backbreaking agricultural labour ever again.

I didnt read anything before this that said we should be like "feudal serfs"
Somehow this post reminds me of the GOP tea party people.
But anyways I think it's a good idea to garden and grow ur own stuff! But I think community based/wide gardens are better. Altho I will say that vanguard is right that mass farming should be primarily by farmers. Growing everything you'd eat is very hard. Esspecially in winter

[Ovi]

I didnt read anything before this that said we should be like "feudal serfs"
Somehow this post reminds me of the GOP tea party people.
But anyways I think it's a good idea to garden and grow ur own stuff! But I think community based/wide gardens are better. Altho I will say that vanguard is right that mass farming should be primarily by farmers. Growing everything you'd eat is very hard. Esspecially in winter
It doesn't matter. It doesn't have to produce much, the whole point is that it allows people to interact beyond the restrictions that this money society imposes on us (as wage slaves and brainless consumers). Anything that is against the total social alienation that we experience today is certainly a step forward.

[ellipsis]

I think it is a very viable strategy. Not only does it disrupt capitalist labor/social relations but it also both gives a man a fish and teaches him to fish at the same time. The alienation inherent in urban life must be attacked and we must know and help our neighbors. Also it creates lots of opportunities for comrades to interact with people and expose them to our points of view in a comfortable environment. Any way to make the anti-capitalist movement more visible is needed, especially if people are also being helped in the form of food, knowledge or voluntary labor.

[RED DAVE]

i'd like it if we could get the thread back on topic. again, my point in posting about this wasn't to encourage gardening because of any possible ecological or economic benefits it might have, but to examine this trend as something that could be used by pro-revolutionaries as an experiment in community organization and to promote the idea of looking to bourgeois sources for new ideas and tactics.It won't work. This was tried on every scale during the 60s from window boxes, to neighborhood gardens, to communes. It didn't change a thing. The alienation in communities can't be overcome by projects such as this.

The reason why Marxists look to the working class and organize in and with the working class is that at the point of concentration of labor and capital, in the struggle for surplus value, lies the political, economic, psychological heart of capitalism. This is where the primary contradiction is, and this is where the stuggle to overcome it takes place.

Not in a garden.

RED DAVE

[bcbm]

The reason why Marxists look to the working class and organize in and with the working class is that at the point of concentration of labor and capital, in the struggle for surplus value, lies the political, economic, psychological heart of capitalism. This is where the primary contradiction is, and this is where the stuggle to overcome it takes place.

Not in a garden.


i'm not suggesting gardening as something that should become the primary form of struggle to the detriment of organizing and agitating within the working class, but as another area where the class can be organized. working people have lives outside of the office, and i can certainly talk to a wider range of people from my class in my neighborhood and my job than just on the job. i think its also important to mount a counter-offensive against the "enclosure" of social life that the ruling class has been pushing since the development of capitalist relations. furthermore, i'm only using gardening as one example of the main idea i am trying to get across, not as the only possible form it could take.

[Sendo]

It won't work. This was tried on every scale during the 60s from window boxes, to neighborhood gardens, to communes. It didn't change a thing. The alienation in communities can't be overcome by projects such as this.

Not in a garden.

RED DAVE

Incorrect

What about the South Central Farm, LA? Some of the former farmers of this once community-owned urban farm have relocated to other land the government gave, but they've been holding nightly vigils for years to get the land back before ?? Horowitz can build a warehouse or whatever on it.

[Wolf Larson]

someone on revleft mentioned the "one mile diet" in cuba. i googled it and it turns out to be popular in some womens magazines. they're encouraging their readers and offering tips and advice to start your own garden. i think this is something it would benefit a lot of leftist groups to start doing, encouraging members to have their own, or small communal, gardens, or some other practical projects. this would be a good way to spend more time with each other and discuss things in a friendly way, and would undoubtedly bring in interest from our neighbors, which is usually a good thing.

i think in general leftists might learn a lot from more analytically paying attention to what is going on in popular culture, especially what they're basically recommending as coping mechanisms for the misery of capital. it would give us a much larger pool of strategies and tactics to draw from, or at least help us understand how our enemies use them.

I advocate local self sufficient homegrown food as a way to free yourself from capitalism BUT freeing ones self is not enough. We need to collectivize the industrial means of production. Separating yourself from total dependence on the capitalist system is a good thing but we will always be connected to capitalism in one way or another until it is abolished.

I guess my point is- these things are good but should not be the only tool in the revolutionaries tool box.

[bcbm]

um, i didn't say anything about freeing yourself from capitalism, or that this should be the only focus for pro-revolutionaries. in fact, i said the opposite.

[Oneironaut]

I think community gardening is a great idea for a lot of reasons of which most have already been put forward. I would be particularly interested in having one set up where homeless people would be given plots of land to grow their own food in a collectivist fashion.

[FreeFocus]

Local farms are a tremendous way to build community ties, improve people's health, and decentralize things so as to build self-sufficiency and independence.

[Sendo]

It's hard, but maybe a good plan is to have a community pool some of the town dollars for a project like that. It would be a great way to organize and meet people. It would be hard to convince most people until some initiate shows people what it could be like. Most people are so apolitical it wouldn't be too hard to stand out at a town meeting.

[which doctor]

Way to open the pandora's box of lifestylism here bcbm, though I know that wasn't your intention, but when you yell community gardening, the nuts come running. So these comments will more address those like redson, sendo, wolf larson, free focus, etc.

First off, there's *nothing* progressive about growing your own food. People who have to grow their own food to survive, usually do it because they're trying to get into capitalist social relations, not out of them. Some liberal hippy in Vermont who thinks that being self-sufficient is a political action, is truly a ridiculous notion. In fact, it's more than ridiculous, it's regressive even. If you think that regressing to more primitive modes of production is a way to end capitalism, then you've already given up the project of Marxism, which is the emancipation of the working-class. Socialism became a realistic solution because of the opportunities industrial capitalism made possible, it doesn't work the other way around. Community gardens don't politicize people or raise their consciousness, but I think what bcbm is advocating in this thread is that these gardens allow for you to talk with the people you work with, thus politicizing them that way.

Growing your own food is about as 'freeing' as switching from an electric toothbruth to a manual one is.

[bcbm]

Way to open the pandora's box of lifestylism here bcbm, though I know that wasn't your intention, but when you yell community gardening, the nuts come running.

well, i was intending the thread to be a bit provocative, and i think it is certainly a box that might contain some things worth looking at.

i don't think anyone who has posted here is a "nut," though.


First off, there's *nothing* progressive about growing your own food. People who have to grow their own food to survive, usually do it because they're trying to get into capitalist social relations, not out of them.

could you elaborate on your second sentence here a bit?


Some liberal hippy in Vermont who thinks that being self-sufficient is a political action, is truly a ridiculous notion.

it depends how you look at it. i'll retract my earlier objection to going down this road, as long as we're heading down it anyway. is freeing up more time and resources by becoming self-sufficient necessarily a bad thing for pro-revolutionaries to pursue?


Community gardens don't politicize people or raise their consciousness, but I think what bcbm is advocating in this thread is that these gardens allow for you to talk with the people you work with, thus politicizing them that way.

it isn't just about "politicizing," though, but also fighting social atomization within our immediate, physical community.

[Across The Street]

Oneironaut: "I would be particularly interested in having one set up where homeless people would be given plots of land to grow their own food in a collectivist fashion."

I like that idea quite a bit^

[which doctor]

i don't think anyone who has posted here is a "nut," though.
I can't say I share that same sentiment :lol:


could you elaborate on your second sentence here a bit?
This was something a man I know who was grew up in the Ukraine related to me. His family had to grow their own food to supplement what they could buy, not because they had any sentimental or romantic notions of growing their own food, but because they had yet to be adequately integrated into capitalism. There weren't enough places to sell their labor to, so they didn't receive enough wages to adequately reproduce their family unit unless they grew their own (which takes a lot more time and is much less efficient than working for a wage to buy food from a store).


it depends how you look at it. i'll retract my earlier objection to going down this road, as long as we're heading down it anyway. is freeing up more time and resources by becoming self-sufficient necessarily a bad thing for pro-revolutionaries to pursue?
I don't see why the project of self-sufficiency needs to be pursued, nor do I think it frees up more time and resources. If anything, it seems like it would require more time and resources to be self-sufficient. Capitalism has built these huge, efficient, and integrated modes of production and distribution. These industrial advances in agriculture, among industries, require only a small fraction of the labor compared to subsistence farming.


it isn't just about "politicizing," though, but also fighting social atomization within our immediate, physical community.
But I think the project of fighting social atomization has already been fought. In fact, it was industrial capitalism that completed, with perhaps a few hiccups along the way, the fight against social atomization. Only when the workers moved into dense cities, worked in huge factories, and attended massive schools, could an idea like Marxism ever had taken hold throughout the European proletariat and pose a serious thread to capitalism, which it once did at a point. The idea took hold on a mass scale precisely because the industrial proletariat had been formed at an international level, and put into contact with each other. This is why cities tend to have more progressive consciousnesses, because people are in such dense quarters.

Living in small villages, isolated and chained to the family unit, a social formation typical of subsistence farming; that is social atomization

For instance, what is commonly referred to as the 'gay identity' could never have come about without the advent of industrial capitalism, which created the free worker (that is, not bound to a specific social unit or career), and congregated these free workers in huge cities, could they interact with each other, and thus form a 'gay identity,' something that had never existed prior to the formation of the city. Only by breaking down barriers to social atomization, could industrial capitalism have allowed for the creation of what we now know as 'gay identity.'

[bcbm]

I don't see why the project of self-sufficiency needs to be pursued, nor do I think it frees up more time and resources. If anything, it seems like it would require more time and resources to be self-sufficient. Capitalism has built these huge, efficient, and integrated modes of production and distribution. These industrial advances in agriculture, among industries, require only a small fraction of the labor compared to subsistence farming.

i don't think it needs to be pursued, but i don't see it as an oppositional project and can certainly see benefits to, if not total self-sufficiency, some combination of agricultural work and a general communisation of resources.


But I think the project of fighting social atomization has already been fought. In fact, it was industrial capitalism that completed, with perhaps a few hiccups along the way, the fight against social atomization.

from the beginning the project of capitalism has been the destruction of communal social life and the reorganization of society into disconnected and atomized individual or family units.


Only when the workers moved into dense cities, worked in huge factories, and attended massive schools, could an idea like Marxism ever had taken hold throughout the European proletariat and pose a serious thread to capitalism, which it once did at a point. The idea took hold on a mass scale precisely because the industrial proletariat had been formed at an international level, and put into contact with each other. This is why cities tend to have more progressive consciousnesses, because people are in such dense quarters.

i don't think this is true. by the late middle ages the working classes already possessed a strong sense of class consciousness and a desire for the destruction of class relations culminating in the various heretical revolts and ultimately the peasant's war. the ruling classes had been on the retreat for centuries, attempting to reorganize to subdue the class struggle and it was ultimately through primitive accumulation that they mounted their most brutal attack on the forces arrayed against them and laid the ground for capitalist development. the threat the working class organized to form several centuries later was another expression of the same needs earlier workers had fought for and it too ultimately led to a reorganization by the ruling class.


Living in small villages, isolated and chained to the family unit, a social formation typical of subsistence farming; that is social atomization

and a more apt description of the conditions prevailing after the crushing of the class struggle than what preceded it.


For instance, what is commonly referred to as the 'gay identity' could never have come about without the advent of industrial capitalism, which created the free worker (that is, not bound to a specific social unit or career), and congregated these free workers in huge cities, could they interact with each other, and thus form a 'gay identity,' something that had never existed prior to the formation of the city. Only by breaking down barriers to social atomization, could industrial capitalism have allowed for the creation of what we now know as 'gay identity.'

capitalism allows the creation of any identity, precisely because it is a form of social atomization and control. i am gay, you are straight, she is an anarchist, he is a republican, all "individual," easily recognized and neutralized.

[Wolf Larson]

um, i didn't say anything about freeing yourself from capitalism, or that this should be the only focus for pro-revolutionaries. in fact, i said the opposite.

Just giving my personal take. I wasn't criticizing you. :)

[Wolf Larson]

Way to open the pandora's box of lifestylism here bcbm, though I know that wasn't your intention, but when you yell community gardening, the nuts come running. So these comments will more address those like redson, sendo, wolf larson, free focus, etc.

First off, there's *nothing* progressive about growing your own food. People who have to grow their own food to survive, usually do it because they're trying to get into capitalist social relations, not out of them. Some liberal hippy in Vermont who thinks that being self-sufficient is a political action, is truly a ridiculous notion. In fact, it's more than ridiculous, it's regressive even. If you think that regressing to more primitive modes of production is a way to end capitalism, then you've already given up the project of Marxism, which is the emancipation of the working-class. Socialism became a realistic solution because of the opportunities industrial capitalism made possible, it doesn't work the other way around. Community gardens don't politicize people or raise their consciousness, but I think what bcbm is advocating in this thread is that these gardens allow for you to talk with the people you work with, thus politicizing them that way.

Growing your own food is about as 'freeing' as switching from an electric toothbruth to a manual one is.

You should re read my post. Also, the anonymity of the internet must make you feel, well, empowered doesn't it? Calling people "nuts" for advocating a more agrarian approach is absurd. Land reform is a big part of the socialist tradition- especially in South America and throughout the so called third world. Seeing as you're into people worship you're going to have harsh words for the countryside since Marx told you so. Dogmatic child. Try reading Scott Nearing.

[which doctor]

You should re read my post.
I did and what I fail to see is how freeing yourself from dependence on capitalism is good thing. That's not anti-capitalism, it's para-capitalism.


Also, the anonymity of the internet must make you feel, well, empowered doesn't it?
Yes, yes it does, among other things.


Land reform is a big part of the socialist tradition- especially in South America and throughout the so called third world.
Socialist land reforms have nothing to do with people growing their own food. And I really don't see myself having anything much do with so called 'socialism' in South America or various third-world attempts at it. Remember the land reforms in Cambodia? Those went over well, didn't they?


Seeing as you're into people worship you're going to have harsh words for the countryside since Marx told you so.
I'm into people worship? That's news to me...I don't have harsh words for people in the countryside, but I will be glad to admit that I think they generally belong to more regressive social formations.


Dogmatic child.
keep 'em coming! :rolleyes:

[Wolf Larson]

Land reform is a means of expropriation putting autonomous collective farms in the hands of indigenous people who have the potential to both produce more food for themselves with less work and put capitalist enterprises out of business if they have access to technology. Even if they don't have proper teach they don't have to labor all day to provide sustenance for themselves. Right now the opposite is happening. More and more land is being taken from people around the globe and this propels them into the capitalist system where they must work 15 hour days while struggling to attain proper food/shelter. A system which, by design, does not give them equal access to the means of life nor equal outcome.

I'm not proposing everyone labor on a farm in feudal era conditions I'm proposing farmland be held in common under no central command economy. Melding the city and countryside. I more so advocate autonomous communities who trade with other worker controlled communities/industries in where the work place and political system is combined into one. We're not there yet so people who cannot afford food should in fact grow it themselves if they can. Look at South Central Farms. This gave the people a small amount of autonomy before the capitalists took back the land- If private property weren't holding back South Central LA type farms they would flourish, especially with the application of technology. Food production would skyrocket and would not be dependent on capitalism nor a central authority who may or may not fudge things up as has historically happened in Russia and China.

Look at the Russian famine 1929-1933. What caused that? What caused the Soviet Famine of 1947? A corrupt centralized authority and other mistakes made. People need to be autonomous but must work together not in privatized capitalistic land holdings but collectivized municipalities. Human beings should not be tied to one central authority nor dependent on it. Food is freedom as is worker control of all other means of production. With autonomous collectivized [not private] farms people could be free of both capitalism and the ills which arose in the Soviet Union and China. Millions of people died because of the mismanagement of few people. Look at what happened with the 'Great Leap Forward'- how many deaths? 20 million? Collectivized but autonomous food production is necessary for liberty as is collectivized but autonomous production of everything else. Too many people are unwilling to admit the flaws in a universal command economy.

Free market capitalism or any form of capitalism is deplorable .Humanity should not be motivated by self interest we must operate with mutual aid as the basis BUT mutual collective aid not under a universal command economy. I don't think a revolution will be based in people growing gardens in their back yards I believe the human revolution will be based in mutual aid within various autonomous technological communities which will specialize in producing various commodities under worker control with no central authority while depending on trade between the various communities. Giving a minority class control over food production or production of anything in general has always ended up in tyranny which is why I'm a libertarian socialist. Too many Marxists have their hearts in the right place but have not learned from history. Eisenstein said the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over expecting different results and you've come into this thread calling people crazy but it is you who advocates things which have failed in the past. Tell me what has happened with food production under a universal command economy. I advocate autonomy not private property, capitalism,wage labor nor the rule of a manager class. We're also going to have to leave much of our consumer culture in the past as you cannot create suburban American style abundance for the entire globe. We would need 4 earths just to create one earth of capitalistic abundance.

[bcbm]

Humanity should not be motivated by self interest we must operate with mutual aid as the basis BUT mutual collective aid not under a universal command economy.i don't think there is any way around the fact that humans, like pretty much every other creature, are self-interested as a basic survival instinct. i don't see why this is viewed as a problem. capitalism is, quite clearly, not in the self-interest of humanity- the majority of our species is exploited and existing in dire conditions on a heavily abused planet. our self-interest universally lies in the destruction of capitalist relations and the realization of communism.

[black magick hustla]

I can't say I share that same sentiment
But I think the project of fighting social atomization has already been fought. In fact, it was industrial capitalism that completed, with perhaps a few hiccups along the way, the fight against social atomization. Only when the workers moved into dense cities, worked in huge factories, and attended massive schools, could an idea like Marxism ever had taken hold throughout the European proletariat and pose a serious thread to capitalism, which it once did at a point. The idea took hold on a mass scale precisely because the industrial proletariat had been formed at an international level, and put into contact with each other. This is why cities tend to have more progressive consciousnesses, because people are in such dense quarters.

Living in small villages, isolated and chained to the family unit, a social formation typical of subsistence farming; that is social atomization


Capitalism's alpha and omega is atomization. The division of labor and increased formalization of production atomized anybody. However regressive and/or repressive was the outlook of old communal farming, people were not necessarily atomized. Just because I take the bus doesn't mean I care an iota for the man sitting besides me. And If I care, I don't find the words to start a conversation.

[black magick hustla]

You should re read my post. Also, the anonymity of the internet must make you feel, well, empowered doesn't it? Calling people "nuts" for advocating a more agrarian approach is absurd. Land reform is a big part of the socialist tradition- especially in South America and throughout the so called third world. Seeing as you're into people worship you're going to have harsh words for the countryside since Marx told you so. Dogmatic child. Try reading Scott Nearing.

Its not dogma. "Agrariarism" is ahistorical in certain parts of the world and the project is completely dead. People who advocate agrarianism in the americas are p. silly to be honest. I can think of a billion better ways to fight social atomization than these projects, which generally end up in cultural ghettoes because only certain types of people find anything useful about those projects. Land reform was a big part of state-capitalist curricula because it gained a hold in some very agrarian countries.

[Wolf Larson]

Its not dogma. "Agrariarism" is ahistorical in certain parts of the world and the project is completely dead. People who advocate agrarianism in the americas are p. silly to be honest. I can think of a billion better ways to fight social atomization than these projects, which generally end up in cultural ghettoes because only certain types of people find anything useful about those projects. Land reform was a big part of state-capitalist curricula because it gained a hold in some very agrarian countries.

I really want to know, in great detail, what you think caused the Russian famine 1929-1933 the Soviet Famine of 1947 and the millions of deaths during the Great Leap Forward in China? Also, check this out: http://www.revleft.com/vb/venezuela-creates-peasant-t129875/index.html

[Glenn Beck]

i'd like it if we could get the thread back on topic. again, my point in posting about this wasn't to encourage gardening because of any possible ecological or economic benefits it might have, but to examine this trend as something that could be used by pro-revolutionaries as an experiment in community organization and to promote the idea of looking to bourgeois sources for new ideas and tactics.

Absolutely, why the hell not? If there is a movement for people to supplement their livelihood by growing their own food, we should be up in there piggybacking on that motherfucker, making affordable, sustainable, and healthful eating accessible to workers. I think reclaiming "lifestyle environmentalism" (which is not necessarily just a vanity movement but also a manifestation of the increased standard of living and a factor in the better health outcomes of wealthier classes) as something that can and should be accessible to the working man is a laudable goal that radical and progressive movements can integrate into their programs. Community gardens that allow workers to enjoy food they normally wouldn't by pooling labor and sharing produce (and as a bonus, getting people involved in their communities) would be one way to do this. Carpooling could be another.

[ellipsis]

Carpooling could be another.

YES! Particularly in rural areas lack of car is a huge barrier to finding meaningful employment or employment at all. Also having and maintaining a car to drive up to 1.5 hours to work (yes people do this in Vermont) is very expensive. If you get people together in a car, you can make them listen to NPR/Democracy Now! and use it as a launching point for other conversations.

[black magick hustla]

I really want to know, in great detail, what you think caused the Russian famine 1929-1933 the Soviet Famine of 1947 and the millions of deaths during the Great Leap Forward in China? Also, check this out: http://www.revleft.com/vb/venezuela-creates-peasant-t129875/index.html

shit planning? i dont see how that relates to starting agrarian communes in the US.

[FreeFocus]

Way to open the pandora's box of lifestylism here bcbm, though I know that wasn't your intention, but when you yell community gardening, the nuts come running. So these comments will more address those like redson, sendo, wolf larson, free focus, etc.

First off, there's *nothing* progressive about growing your own food. People who have to grow their own food to survive, usually do it because they're trying to get into capitalist social relations, not out of them. Some liberal hippy in Vermont who thinks that being self-sufficient is a political action, is truly a ridiculous notion. In fact, it's more than ridiculous, it's regressive even. If you think that regressing to more primitive modes of production is a way to end capitalism, then you've already given up the project of Marxism, which is the emancipation of the working-class. Socialism became a realistic solution because of the opportunities industrial capitalism made possible, it doesn't work the other way around. Community gardens don't politicize people or raise their consciousness, but I think what bcbm is advocating in this thread is that these gardens allow for you to talk with the people you work with, thus politicizing them that way.

Growing your own food is about as 'freeing' as switching from an electric toothbruth to a manual one is.

I disagree completely. Growing your own food allows you to actually know what's in your food, and it will improve your health and equip you with vital survival skills. Anytime you can become more independent and knowledgeable, it's pretty progressive. The action in and of itself is not revolutionary, it's not building a movement, it's not overthrowing capitalism. It is, however, a great way to build up communities, improve health and learn skills, which are a good base for other actions.

[Wolf Larson]

shit planning? i dont see how that relates to starting agrarian communes in the US.
You don't? Instead of replacing capitalism with a centralized command economy which is fallible because of just that, shit planning, perhaps we should be working to form autonomous socialist communities. I'm on a Berkman, Proudhon, Bookchin kick right now. Read them and you'll smell what I'm cooking :)

[khad]

Jacobinist, I'll give you some leeway since you are new, but spam posts like that are not allowed in serious discussion threads.

[Across The Street]

Started my garden yesterday, planting a whole lot of food tomorrow.

[ellipsis]

This past saturday I started working in a free community garden that also coordinates a free farm stand every sunday. Beside getting out of the house and working in the dirt, I met many neighbors and potential friends, made a potential organizing contact and lined up some free ammo reloading lessons too. And that was just the first day!

[which doctor]

Capitalism's alpha and omega is atomization. The division of labor and increased formalization of production atomized anybody. However regressive and/or repressive was the outlook of old communal farming, people were not necessarily atomized. Just because I take the bus doesn't mean I care an iota for the man sitting besides me. And If I care, I don't find the words to start a conversation.
I'm really not sure where you get the idea of atomization being the alpha and omega of capitalism, since the opposite is in fact true. I'm not even quite sure what 'social atomization' even is, but I imagine people were far more 'socially atomized' in feudal times, where division of labor was not as acute and you had to practically do everything yourselves. What gives industrial capitalism it's emancipatory potential is how the division of labor in fact leads to the socialization of labor, and when the proletariat becomes self-conscious of this reality, they then are in the position to push capitalism to its highest stage, the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the impulse for the labor movement, by positing their collective labour power as a single commodity, they (the organized workers) are then in a position to negotiate the terms of sale for their labour power. Communism isn't about fighting 'social atomization,' but about affirming the collectivity of labor that already exists under capitalism.

[syndicat]

For socialists, the only progressive alternative to capitalist agriculture is for agricultural workers to take over the most advanced means of producing food and expand them in the interests of all -- so that we can produce an abundance of food and so that no one has to endure backbreaking agricultural labour ever again.

what is "advanced"? capitalist industrial agriculture is causing soil erosion, poisoning farm workers and polluting bodies of water, and leads to poor nutrition...e.g. stuffing cattle with corn that they were not designed to eat to fatten them more leads to fattier meat, creates flatulence (a greenhouse gas).

anyway, the point to farm workers taking over control of the land in a revolution would be to change the nature of agriculture, not use the technologies the capitalists have developed.

it's true that social organizations are a way to meet others. if this is bcbm's point, this could be anything...could be a church for that matter. gardening takes time and not everyone has the time these days...unless they're unemployed. And it's not a form of struggle. Of course there might be a struggle around defense of the communiy garden...the fight over the South LA Farm is an example of that. Defense of what was perceived as a community asset in the midst of a rather degraded industrial belt.

[ellipsis]

What people need to realize about the urban farming movement in regards to efficiency etc. There is an abundant amount of fallow and or overgrown land in all cities, people who do have free time and do like to grow food, and people who need that food. The "free farm" that I work at was started in January on the site of a church that burned down 15 years ago. People work there two days a week for around five hours and it is already producing food. The guy who runs it take food from there and picks up food from other gardens and gives it away every sunday in a working class Latino neighborhood.

Now I wish this group was more political and used either the farm or the stand as a political education point. BUT they are teaching people skills, feeding them, strengthening the community and breaking down walls of alienation between neighbors. If an anti-capitalist group could do something like this, imagine the potential.