They make *so* many of them too. I haven't planted cilantro in a couple years now (reasons not to do with the plant), and I use it a lot, but I'm still working through my last pile of coriander seeds.
Not actually true. Even the worst authoritarian communist regimes made a distinction between "private" (commercial, commodity) property and personal property.
In theory they did. In practice you had no autonomy in your house, and if you went against the state you were taken from you house and imprisoned. The whole point of private property is that it is a zone in which the state and corporate/industrial work demands of life are to a large extent held at bay. That doesn't mean you can pollute a pristine trout stream or murder someone without intervention by the state, but it does mean it ought to be a zone with maximum personal autonomy to express yourself, grow your own, food and construct the buildings you need to work on your projects. I am actually somewhat open to the Kropotkin vision of farms and factory under local worker control, but people also need a personal space to retreat to that is off limits to social control. And they also need land to be able to experiment and tinker on. It is this crushing of the entrepreneurial spirit of the home tinkerer that causes communist projects to fail in the long run.
My father was born in a communist regime. His family’s home was taken by the state. They were forced to pay rent they couldn’t afford and so forced off their land.
Also sounds like a rightism of the garden, as in G. K. Chesterton - I am pasting in below the comment that I made when you you announced the soon release of your latest book. Distributism also advocates worker cooperative enterprises.
Though the time to apply it was over 100 years ago. Here is a book recently published about how two generations ago academic studies had indicated the social health of a community was stronger when based on small scale ownership and how that information was kept from guiding regulations and laws . It was here where I live in the Central Valley and the communities studied are near me. Of course Industrial scale agribusiness is now pre- eminent here.
Relatedly, one thing I'm slowly learning how to do this year is incorporate "invasive species" into my diet. The earth is so incredibly abundant and we're conditioned into not even recognising most of what it offers as food.
On the other end of the spectrum is the lawn. I visited some gardens in the southern US recently; one of the placards discussed how a well-manicured lawn was a sign of wealth. One could afford to allow expanses of land to lay fallow and have servants devoted to maintaining it.
Now, where you are lucky enough to have land, the state and/or a home owner's association forces you to have a lawn and maintain it. Planting natives, edible plants, or allow it to grow and be host to insects and other life? You'll be fined or someone will mow it for you and force you to pay.
“What passes for leftism now is mostly just narcissists masturbating to sci-fi fanfic, imagining a glorious future where we’re liberated from the dirt and the bodies that compose us.” (Boom! Rhyd drops the mic)
Hmmm. What is called "The Media" overwhelmingly ignores real, legitimate left discourse and practices, etc., so that we (I'm one of 'em) are made invisible. Do you ever wonder why we are (apparently) so few? This may be a key reason for it. We're deliberately rendered invisible.
My own politics is about 85-90% anarchism, which historically emerged as a branch of socialism and socialist history. But here in the USA, where I live, most people don't know what socialism is, or anything about its history. What they think they know about anarchism is that it is a call for social chaos, madness and violence. It is not.
I'm a revolutionary anarcho-socialist. But the kind of revolution I want isn't a war or an insurrection. It would have no violence. It would, in fact, be the opposite of violence.
But such a revolution cannot happen in today's "The Media" environment, which renders such praxis utterly invisible. We cannot even have a conversation about it, because our minds are shaped by The Media and by conventional / mainstream "education".
I’m uncertain what this response is about, that is, how it’s connected to the comment, but I don’t disagree with you. In fact, I could see myself writing something similar. Peace!
I'm seeking to place what Rhyd said in a particular context, a context which could potentially prove fruitful somehow.
I'm saying I cannot disagree (by much) with Rhyd's portrayal of "what passes for leftism now," but that we need to consider "what passes for leftism now" as largely an artifact of a massive and mostly successful propaganda apparatus or machine. There's this notion called "the Overton Window". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window Political discourse and practice is largely decided by what's popular, and what's popular is largely shaped by popular media, which is OWNED by those who are deeply committed to maintaining business as usual (BAU) They do not want to disrupt BAU, nor would they like to see others manage to find a way to disrupt BAU.
Real, actual leftism is always, always, always disruptive of BAU, and can't gain any traction or 'ground' without disrupting BAU (within the capitalist-industrial system).
I'm saying that Rhyd is largely right in characterizing "what passes for leftism" as he does. But he's describing "popular" leftism as it is shaped as an artifact of the dominant culture's propaganda machine. And I'm saying there is another left, one which is rendered largely invisible as a result of that propaganda machine's doings.
We should talk about the sort of left politics we want to embody and enact, rather than disparaging "the left". Indeed, I believe this is precisely what this article from Rhyd is doing. He's advocating for another kind of left politics, and I agree with his view on it.
I couldn't agree more with the thrust of this, but...
My experience of "leftist' government is that private land and production is not desired and, even further, is seen as an enemy to collective progress and demonized as selfish and anti-collective.
Why is it that one of the first products of (modern) leftist revolutions nearly always seems to be the seizing of land (and often agriculture) by the state, typically for use in bloated, corruptly-managed state-run agriculture?
Didn't Lysenkoism kill millions precisely because the state decided consolidating agricultural land for use in production experiments run by scientists whose only qualification was "patriotism"- and, in turn, demonizing anyone who questioned "the science" as unpatriotic and selfish (sound familiar?)- as opposed to allowing private enterprise?
That would be the same kind of "leftism" arguing for abolishing the family and vat-grown meat, which I don't think is leftist at all. Instead, borrowing from black Marxist Adolph Reed, those ideas are essentially "the left-wing of neoliberalism."
There's a much longer argument to be made here about how Lenin's interpretation of Marx's ideas created "scientific socialism," which is the Lysenko and "fully automated luxury space communism" idiocy. Essentially, these sorts believe that what socialists should do is take everything the capitalists did and then do it better. That's the same shit we see from "the woke": if we just make it so the 1% is composed of more trans, disabled, asexual BIPOC instead of white dudes, that's "liberation.
The key to why "garden leftism" is different is in the bit about mindfulness and relation. A gardener will always know a lot more than a technocrat about what her garden needs and now much more spinach she needs to plant. Technocratic management is basically capitalist management (think Taylorism, Fordism, and all the other capitalist management ideas to make humans more productive), and no leftism worth the name should include it.
RE: gardening skills, focus on the plants and watering techniques that will work in that environment.
If you're in the desert, it's hard there yeah. But not impossible. Summer squashes can do pretty well, and nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, etc) don't mind the heat as long as you can give them a little shelter from too much sun in the afternoon, or wind if that's a problem. Mediterranean herbs, especially Rosemary, also do really well in the american southwest (however analogous that is to your location). The main thing is just the watering. Drip systems and ground cover help a lot with preventing water loss from evaporation, or just water early morning/late evening.
If you're in a wetter area try subtropical plants. I've only done cold and wet, hot and dry and temperate so I'm not too familiar with those ones.
Thanks for this, I'm beginning to understand your meaning.
Can you speak more on one thing: is this an indictment of collectivism broadly (or at least a separation of collectivism necessarily from 'leftism')? Or are they not necessarily conjoined concepts (i.e., is leftism necessarily collectivist or are there multiple models)?
Also, "now much more spinach" -> "how much more spinach" :)
Yeah. Chris Smaje calls this technocratic psuedo-leftism "modernist leftism", which he contrasts with "agrarian localist" leftism. I'm strongly in the agrarian localist camp, and largely because it's likely the only way we have the potential to stop ruining ecosystems and the biosphere.
Having industrial products is one thing. Having every aspect of society be industrialized is another. Here in the USA, everything has been industrialized. We no longer have (overwhelming most of us) any direct relation to our food, water, clothing or shelter. The land - livelihood connection is broken here so badly that overwhelmingly most people have no intimate experience with this relation at all. The result is a mass psychopathology that most folks cannot name or understand. So its pathos is misuderstood and unaddressed.
The "disorder" I had in mind is a combination of NDD and LAED. LAED is livelihood awareness and experience disorder. It is NDD coupled with an almost, or perhaps total, lack of connection of one's livelihood with the natural world. Livelihood comes in cans, bottles, boxes ... from grocery stores (etc.) and one has no idea where these items are coming from, nor cares to know. Such things have no relation to soil or direct production labor. One simply swipes a card from the bank through some electronic device, and viola! Oh, wait... I mean voilà!
Getting violas! - materializing the instrument and the flower would be cool. I had the blessing of a rural upbringing with much of the food coming from the soil or the hunt and even the entertainment coming from the nonhuman world, the weather, animals, plants, birds, the sky, the waters, rocks were often my toys and drama and beauty. My soul and body was deeply fed to this day and I have managed to keep it going to an extent even in my charter school job.. Yep , three acres and a cow would be healing for many https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_acres_and_a_cow
Yeah. My adolescent years were in a beautiful and extraordinary rural place, abundant with wild places to explore and extraordinarily rich in wildlife... and rivers. I spent a fair bit of time tossing sticks into the river for my Labrador retriever companion to run after and bring back to me. She never tired of returning my stick. Or was it her stick?
I think you may like this quote, combine the below with your "agrarian leftism"
"What defines anarchism, then, is the refusal of state power, even of the revolutionary strategy of seizing state power. Instead, the focus of anarchism is on self-emancipation and autonomy, something which cannot be achieved through parliamentary democratic channels or through revolutionary vanguards, but rather through the development of alternative practices and relationships based on free association, equal liberty and voluntary cooperation."
Nice. That's where I'm coming from. But such anarchism is not for followers. It's for people who are already free or who have a desperate hunger for freedom... or liberty, or whatever the hell you want to call it. As I see it, liberty isn't worth a hill of beans unless it is a gift you are prepared to give to others. But I know when I say this that I may as well be speaking Swahili. The percentage of people who will know what I mean is, sadly, very tiny indeed.
Have you read Ursula K. Le Guin’s book, “The Dispossessed” a fictional portrayal of a working planetary anarchist society, not perfect but good and better than what we have.
I've not read much Marx, but I've read about Marx and Marxism some. If I understand correctly, mainline historical Marxism had this idea that to get to stateless socialism -- eventually -- an interim period would be necessary in which the state would be subsumed under "the dictatorship of the proletariat" (workers). The state would then own most, if not all, land, and it would be under the political control of this dictatorship.
As far as I know, no ostensibly socialist or communist nation or state has dismantled the dictatorship of the proletariat, as (ostensibly) was supposed to happen once certain preconditions were established. So the world has little idea what a genuine post-statist socialism or communism would look like in actual practice.
I suppose the historical essence of the anarchist movement has been that it has been a form of socialism which would utterly dispense with the dictatorship of the proletariat as an ostensible stage toward an eventual stateless communism or socialism. Many historical anarchist philosophers predicted that the dictatorship of the proletariat would turn out to be yet another form of authoritarian hierarchy and oppression. And most folks would agree that this is precisely what happened in the former USSR, China, and other ostensibly socialist / communist states.
Obviously, in a post-state form of socialism / communism, the state would not own the land, as there would not be a state form of polity. None of the kinds of authoritarianism which is at the root of the state structure could exist in a post-state society. So what would this do to the notion of land as property? Land could not be held as private property in a stateless society, nor as public property. It becomes communal property (commons), and its use would be determined by those who live on any given set of acres or hectares.
This thought -- land without ownership -- horrifies vast numbers of people, as they fear their individuality would be subsumed under a faceless, nameless horde and herd -- a mass of people without agency, creativity... self-ness. But there are plenty of us who don't see it this way at all. We see individuals flourishing and truly embodying their agency in such a society.
I've written a bit about the inadequacy of the notion of public and private spheres (or domains) when these dyadic pairs are taken to be comprehensive in scope.
I have the rather uncreative outlook that policy that necessarily constrains human impulse will always require enforcement, which will always require state, which will eventually and unfortunately metastasize into leviathan. But, at least initially, there will always be a jarl and their thanes.
You'd have a very hard time persuading me to surrender my land to communal property. I can't- and, admittedly, don't want to- imagine a ceaseless tide of strangers doing what they will with it, and entering my home as they please. And I'm not wealthy by most measures.
I unfortunately lack the imagination to see beyond this dyad in a realistic way. But I appreciate your point of view.
Happy to see the reference to Hobbes (Leviathan). Hobbes is among my nemeses.
"You'd have a very hard time persuading me to surrender my land to communal property. I can't- and, admittedly, don't want to- imagine a ceaseless tide of strangers doing what they will with it, and entering my home as they please. And I'm not wealthy by most measures."
Why would you assume that any random stranger would be allowed to do whatever the hell they want on a piece of communally held land? I make no such assumption. Communally held land would be as regulated as privately or publicly held land is regulated. The difference is the nature of the regulators and the regulations. Commoning isn't a chaos of "whatever". It's not okay to for anyone to pour salt on the crops and burn down the barn, nor to hold children captive as sex slaves. Or pour toxins into the creek. Anarchism isn't an advocacy for stupidity and perpetual abuse!
My basically anarchist vision for what's possible with communal land regimes basically comes down to a radical form of decentralization of authority and decision-making power. My imagined version is radically democratic. Naturally, most folks would not like random people not to enter their homes without consent! The home would belong to its user, and would be held within the common land. Communities have boundaries, as do people (skin). The house has doors and windows. It would not be unclear that strangers have no right to barge into my home at will!
So I own the home, but not the land under it? And the barn? What about my cows and pigs? Or my dogs, that aren't livestock?
Who stops people from salting the field and burning the barn? What else are they empowered to stop people doing, and who decides that? How far can they go to stop people doing it?
It sounds an awful lot like police in a democracy (or something else). Aren't we right back where we started?
These are very excellent questions, and get right into the heart of the truly meaningful and useful questions about what a radically decentralized form of governance ultimately --- really -- comes down to in practice. Thanks!
There are thousands of perspectives on these immensely important questions, and there likely always will be, so long as there are humans to contemplate and discuss them -- and live them.
Personally, in my ideal world, you'd be free to live in whichever community you like, and free to move between them at will. As would I and Rhyd and everyone else.
The rules and regulations of any given community would be made democratically by those who dwell within the community. Like you, I'd want my community to respect my right to personal privacy in my home! Guests would be guests. I'd have a piece of ground around my home which would be under the control of the household (my partner and I). Anyone allowed within that land-circle would be precisely a guest, just as anyone entering my house would be a guest -- by invitation only (though I'd not keep true friends away, ever. So they'd have an open invitation into my household outdoor space.
Most land used for food, fuel and fiber production would be communally held and communally regulated democratically, with "democracy" not being majority rule but some form or another of consensus. Many forms of consensus decision-making exist, and not all of them require 100% agreement by everyone. Sometimes communities require 90% agreement. But the topic is as vast as any of the others.
Personal will doesn't get absorbed into a faceless horde in my form of anarchist communalism. If anything, personal will is much more empowered and delightful, full. If you lived in the same communal community as I, you'd be super happy there! I'd be there to assist, aid and protect you -- and so would our brothers and sisters. We'd prize your freedom! We'd celebrate and protect it.
Ultimately, in my version of the story, the house of anyone belongs to the community. But the community would have agreements about how to justly and fairly preserve and protect the justly established rights of privacy and ... well..., something like ownership. You'd not own the house outright, per se. But you could perhaps sell it at the value you've invested into it, but no more than that. There would not be much reference to "market value". And the community would not allow just anyone to "buy" it. What could be sold is merely the right to dwell in the house.
As for protecting the barn, the land from salting, etc., we'd all be the ones who decide these things and how it is to be done within our community. No one else would decide for us -- particularly not people living in Washington D.C. (Unless our community is set there.)
Your passion for the topic is lovely, and I thank you for the effort you put into articulating a response. This certainly isn't the first time a discussion of this nature has prompted me to ask these questions, but your clarity is among the best answers I've received.
With some exception, I find it a beautiful vision and one I'd enjoy. Most of your concepts of communalism are similar to those held by the Amish and Mennonite communities in our area (though they are not quite as utopian as many people imagine).
I think decentralized localism is an excellent idea. But Washington DC exists, and even if it didn't, Beijing, London, Berlin, and Moscow still do. It's not a simple thing.
Hey Rhyd, I offer instead of commentary the best salad dressing recipe you will ever try. It truly does go with everything. And as far as dressings go, it’s pretty damn healthy! I’m not a big salad eater, but this dressing makes me want salad.
Yeast (“Nooch”) dressing:
Ingredients
½ cup nutritional yeast, not brewer's yeast or baker's yeast ⅓ cup water ⅓ cup tamari, gluten-free soy sauce ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar 2 large cloves garlic 1.5 cups neutral vegetable oil, like avocado, sunflower or grape seed oil
Or quality olive oil (although you’ll need to leave the dressing out of the fridge if you do)
Instructions
* Combine all ingredients except oil in a blender. Process until completely smooth.
* With the machine running, pour the oil very slowly through the hole in the cap of the blender. The dressing will thicken and emulsify as you gradually add the oil, little by little.
* Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
Also feel free to add yeast or water to find your desired viscosity.
As always, reading your stack is always like a deep nourishing breath. Enjoy the dressing!
Great writing. I read in the news that the governments were becoming concerned about crowds with torches and pitchforks. They didn’t mean out looking for slugs in the night, which thankfully isn’t illegal yet.
and yeah, that’s convinced to buy your book. I’m lucky enough to have a house and a garden. It feels everyone around wants fake grass or stone chips. I want marginal plants, a shaded pond and some occasional abundance in zero miles fruit and veg. I agree, it somehow feels like a resistance against the zeitgeist.
"What defines anarchism, then, is the refusal of state power, even of the revolutionary strategy of seizing state power. Instead, the focus of anarchism is on self-emancipation and autonomy, something which cannot be achieved through parliamentary democratic channels or through revolutionary vanguards, but rather through the development of alternative practices and relationships based on free association, equal liberty and voluntary cooperation." The garden goal, oh to shift our society in this direction over time, perhaps an asymptotic goal that we never completely arrive at, but always draw closer to.
Thank you, Rhyd! You can count me among the many readers who have been moved by this powerful essay to purchase a copy of “Here Be Monsters.” In the meantime I have one open-ended question for you: What relationship do you see, if any, between the kind of leftism you envision here and the socio-economic program that typically travels under the heading of “distributism” or (more broadly) “Catholic Social Teaching“?
While I will never think of my garden as a political act, let alone a leftist one, I love everything else you wrote here.
Tip to those getting started: don't turn it into a job. It's great to watch Grow Your Greens or whoever is popular these days (I bailed on Youtube a long time ago, I've no idea), but don't think your first task is to maximize the health and productivity of your plants. Learn how they work - what they need to thrive, and how they do it - and then apply the theory.
Plan to make mistakes. Plants aren't a total mystery, and you don't have some esoteric curse, but they are a lot more complicated than the Machine would like you to believe (which is why industrial farming has been such a catastrophe...). Mourn the poor things when you mess it up, but don't beat yourself up about it. Living and dying is what they do, mostly over the course of a few months, and you'll get to plant some more.
Just try to learn what you did wrong and do better next time. Before you know it you'll be growing more than you know what to do with, even if all you have is a balcony or patio and a couple planter boxes.
Edit: oh yeah one more thing, you *don't need any fancy expensive gadgets or materials*. That's just the Machine trying to make you feel helpless and dependent on it.
You just need something to grow them in and some dirt. Learn a little about what kinds of dirt different plants like and how to arrange it (some like it wet, dry or well drained, some like it loamy, sandy, loose, packed, and some don't even need dirt - you can look all this up on the internet or get a good gardening book, but I promise it's not rocket science). Use old tins, boxes or bottles if you haven't got anything else (I grew a few herbs in chinese takeout boxes once).
I've never seen that, but it makes a lot of sense. They work really good in salads, too!
And the dried seeds, which are easy to grow in abundance, can be ground and used as a spice.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coriander#Seeds
They make *so* many of them too. I haven't planted cilantro in a couple years now (reasons not to do with the plant), and I use it a lot, but I'm still working through my last pile of coriander seeds.
Leftism at least in it’s communist form rejects the idea of private property like a personal garden. Are you sure you have the right ideology.
Not actually true. Even the worst authoritarian communist regimes made a distinction between "private" (commercial, commodity) property and personal property.
In theory they did. In practice you had no autonomy in your house, and if you went against the state you were taken from you house and imprisoned. The whole point of private property is that it is a zone in which the state and corporate/industrial work demands of life are to a large extent held at bay. That doesn't mean you can pollute a pristine trout stream or murder someone without intervention by the state, but it does mean it ought to be a zone with maximum personal autonomy to express yourself, grow your own, food and construct the buildings you need to work on your projects. I am actually somewhat open to the Kropotkin vision of farms and factory under local worker control, but people also need a personal space to retreat to that is off limits to social control. And they also need land to be able to experiment and tinker on. It is this crushing of the entrepreneurial spirit of the home tinkerer that causes communist projects to fail in the long run.
My father was born in a communist regime. His family’s home was taken by the state. They were forced to pay rent they couldn’t afford and so forced off their land.
Also sounds like a rightism of the garden, as in G. K. Chesterton - I am pasting in below the comment that I made when you you announced the soon release of your latest book. Distributism also advocates worker cooperative enterprises.
What do you think of Distributism?
https://dlp.org.au/about/distributism/#:~:text=Distributism%20is%20an%20economic%20system,the%20poorest%20and%20most%20disadvantaged.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
Though the time to apply it was over 100 years ago. Here is a book recently published about how two generations ago academic studies had indicated the social health of a community was stronger when based on small scale ownership and how that information was kept from guiding regulations and laws . It was here where I live in the Central Valley and the communities studied are near me. Of course Industrial scale agribusiness is now pre- eminent here.
https://www.amazon.com/Struggle-History-Politically-Scholarship-Californias/dp/1613321228/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1GWO0M6OSIH4C&keywords=In+the+struggle&qid=1689047648&s=books&sprefix=in+the+struggle%2Cstripbooks%2C234&sr=1-1
A bit of artwork G.K Chesterton and distributism, the slogan was 3 acres and a cow for all
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_acres_and_a_cow#/media/File:Three_acres_and_a_cow.JPG
Gerrard Winstanley said very similar things, but focussed on turnips.
This persuaded me to purchase a copy of Here Be Monsters.
I've written a bit on several of the themes in this piece.
e.g. -
Livelihood: a new and old idea
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-18/livelihood-a-new-and-old-idea/
Community, Belonging and the Polycrisis
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-04-06/community-belonging-and-the-polycrisis/
Chris Smaje also writes eloquently on these topics and themes.
e.g. -
Two Lefts
https://chrissmaje.com/2023/07/two-lefts/
sing John Ball, and tell it to them all!
Relatedly, one thing I'm slowly learning how to do this year is incorporate "invasive species" into my diet. The earth is so incredibly abundant and we're conditioned into not even recognising most of what it offers as food.
On the other end of the spectrum is the lawn. I visited some gardens in the southern US recently; one of the placards discussed how a well-manicured lawn was a sign of wealth. One could afford to allow expanses of land to lay fallow and have servants devoted to maintaining it.
Now, where you are lucky enough to have land, the state and/or a home owner's association forces you to have a lawn and maintain it. Planting natives, edible plants, or allow it to grow and be host to insects and other life? You'll be fined or someone will mow it for you and force you to pay.
“What passes for leftism now is mostly just narcissists masturbating to sci-fi fanfic, imagining a glorious future where we’re liberated from the dirt and the bodies that compose us.” (Boom! Rhyd drops the mic)
Hmmm. What is called "The Media" overwhelmingly ignores real, legitimate left discourse and practices, etc., so that we (I'm one of 'em) are made invisible. Do you ever wonder why we are (apparently) so few? This may be a key reason for it. We're deliberately rendered invisible.
My own politics is about 85-90% anarchism, which historically emerged as a branch of socialism and socialist history. But here in the USA, where I live, most people don't know what socialism is, or anything about its history. What they think they know about anarchism is that it is a call for social chaos, madness and violence. It is not.
I'm a revolutionary anarcho-socialist. But the kind of revolution I want isn't a war or an insurrection. It would have no violence. It would, in fact, be the opposite of violence.
See: https://rword.substack.com/p/revolution-20
But such a revolution cannot happen in today's "The Media" environment, which renders such praxis utterly invisible. We cannot even have a conversation about it, because our minds are shaped by The Media and by conventional / mainstream "education".
I’m uncertain what this response is about, that is, how it’s connected to the comment, but I don’t disagree with you. In fact, I could see myself writing something similar. Peace!
Shagbark -
I'm seeking to place what Rhyd said in a particular context, a context which could potentially prove fruitful somehow.
I'm saying I cannot disagree (by much) with Rhyd's portrayal of "what passes for leftism now," but that we need to consider "what passes for leftism now" as largely an artifact of a massive and mostly successful propaganda apparatus or machine. There's this notion called "the Overton Window". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window Political discourse and practice is largely decided by what's popular, and what's popular is largely shaped by popular media, which is OWNED by those who are deeply committed to maintaining business as usual (BAU) They do not want to disrupt BAU, nor would they like to see others manage to find a way to disrupt BAU.
Real, actual leftism is always, always, always disruptive of BAU, and can't gain any traction or 'ground' without disrupting BAU (within the capitalist-industrial system).
I'm saying that Rhyd is largely right in characterizing "what passes for leftism" as he does. But he's describing "popular" leftism as it is shaped as an artifact of the dominant culture's propaganda machine. And I'm saying there is another left, one which is rendered largely invisible as a result of that propaganda machine's doings.
We should talk about the sort of left politics we want to embody and enact, rather than disparaging "the left". Indeed, I believe this is precisely what this article from Rhyd is doing. He's advocating for another kind of left politics, and I agree with his view on it.
Gotcha. Appreciate it.
I couldn't agree more with the thrust of this, but...
My experience of "leftist' government is that private land and production is not desired and, even further, is seen as an enemy to collective progress and demonized as selfish and anti-collective.
Why is it that one of the first products of (modern) leftist revolutions nearly always seems to be the seizing of land (and often agriculture) by the state, typically for use in bloated, corruptly-managed state-run agriculture?
Didn't Lysenkoism kill millions precisely because the state decided consolidating agricultural land for use in production experiments run by scientists whose only qualification was "patriotism"- and, in turn, demonizing anyone who questioned "the science" as unpatriotic and selfish (sound familiar?)- as opposed to allowing private enterprise?
Am I misunderstanding?
That would be the same kind of "leftism" arguing for abolishing the family and vat-grown meat, which I don't think is leftist at all. Instead, borrowing from black Marxist Adolph Reed, those ideas are essentially "the left-wing of neoliberalism."
There's a much longer argument to be made here about how Lenin's interpretation of Marx's ideas created "scientific socialism," which is the Lysenko and "fully automated luxury space communism" idiocy. Essentially, these sorts believe that what socialists should do is take everything the capitalists did and then do it better. That's the same shit we see from "the woke": if we just make it so the 1% is composed of more trans, disabled, asexual BIPOC instead of white dudes, that's "liberation.
The key to why "garden leftism" is different is in the bit about mindfulness and relation. A gardener will always know a lot more than a technocrat about what her garden needs and now much more spinach she needs to plant. Technocratic management is basically capitalist management (think Taylorism, Fordism, and all the other capitalist management ideas to make humans more productive), and no leftism worth the name should include it.
Have you heard about the ... "Wrecking ball-sized buoys on the Rio Grande. Razor wire strung across private property without permission. Bulldozers changing the very terrain of America’s southern border"? -https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/texas-uses-disaster-declarations-to-install-buoys-and-razor-wire-to-stop-migration-on-border
Consider that the climate refugee thing is only just getting started. Sigh.
RE: gardening skills, focus on the plants and watering techniques that will work in that environment.
If you're in the desert, it's hard there yeah. But not impossible. Summer squashes can do pretty well, and nightshades (tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, etc) don't mind the heat as long as you can give them a little shelter from too much sun in the afternoon, or wind if that's a problem. Mediterranean herbs, especially Rosemary, also do really well in the american southwest (however analogous that is to your location). The main thing is just the watering. Drip systems and ground cover help a lot with preventing water loss from evaporation, or just water early morning/late evening.
If you're in a wetter area try subtropical plants. I've only done cold and wet, hot and dry and temperate so I'm not too familiar with those ones.
No problem, I hope it was helpful as opposed to unwanted!
Thanks for this, I'm beginning to understand your meaning.
Can you speak more on one thing: is this an indictment of collectivism broadly (or at least a separation of collectivism necessarily from 'leftism')? Or are they not necessarily conjoined concepts (i.e., is leftism necessarily collectivist or are there multiple models)?
Also, "now much more spinach" -> "how much more spinach" :)
Yeah. Chris Smaje calls this technocratic psuedo-leftism "modernist leftism", which he contrasts with "agrarian localist" leftism. I'm strongly in the agrarian localist camp, and largely because it's likely the only way we have the potential to stop ruining ecosystems and the biosphere.
Having industrial products is one thing. Having every aspect of society be industrialized is another. Here in the USA, everything has been industrialized. We no longer have (overwhelming most of us) any direct relation to our food, water, clothing or shelter. The land - livelihood connection is broken here so badly that overwhelmingly most people have no intimate experience with this relation at all. The result is a mass psychopathology that most folks cannot name or understand. So its pathos is misuderstood and unaddressed.
Smaje's article -Two Lefts -- https://rword.substack.com/p/two-lefts
“The result is a mass psychopathology that most folks cannot name or understand” So true, I call it NDD - Nature Deficit Disorder.
NDD is very real, and a very important phenomenon.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_deficit_disorder
The "disorder" I had in mind is a combination of NDD and LAED. LAED is livelihood awareness and experience disorder. It is NDD coupled with an almost, or perhaps total, lack of connection of one's livelihood with the natural world. Livelihood comes in cans, bottles, boxes ... from grocery stores (etc.) and one has no idea where these items are coming from, nor cares to know. Such things have no relation to soil or direct production labor. One simply swipes a card from the bank through some electronic device, and viola! Oh, wait... I mean voilà!
Getting violas! - materializing the instrument and the flower would be cool. I had the blessing of a rural upbringing with much of the food coming from the soil or the hunt and even the entertainment coming from the nonhuman world, the weather, animals, plants, birds, the sky, the waters, rocks were often my toys and drama and beauty. My soul and body was deeply fed to this day and I have managed to keep it going to an extent even in my charter school job.. Yep , three acres and a cow would be healing for many https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_acres_and_a_cow
Yeah. My adolescent years were in a beautiful and extraordinary rural place, abundant with wild places to explore and extraordinarily rich in wildlife... and rivers. I spent a fair bit of time tossing sticks into the river for my Labrador retriever companion to run after and bring back to me. She never tired of returning my stick. Or was it her stick?
I think you may like this quote, combine the below with your "agrarian leftism"
"What defines anarchism, then, is the refusal of state power, even of the revolutionary strategy of seizing state power. Instead, the focus of anarchism is on self-emancipation and autonomy, something which cannot be achieved through parliamentary democratic channels or through revolutionary vanguards, but rather through the development of alternative practices and relationships based on free association, equal liberty and voluntary cooperation."
Nice. That's where I'm coming from. But such anarchism is not for followers. It's for people who are already free or who have a desperate hunger for freedom... or liberty, or whatever the hell you want to call it. As I see it, liberty isn't worth a hill of beans unless it is a gift you are prepared to give to others. But I know when I say this that I may as well be speaking Swahili. The percentage of people who will know what I mean is, sadly, very tiny indeed.
Have you read Ursula K. Le Guin’s book, “The Dispossessed” a fictional portrayal of a working planetary anarchist society, not perfect but good and better than what we have.
No. I haven't read it. But maybe I will. You've attracted my attention to it.
I've read a little of Le Guin. And I met her in Oregon once, long, long ago when I was a young man. We had a nice conversation. She was a fine person.
I've not read much Marx, but I've read about Marx and Marxism some. If I understand correctly, mainline historical Marxism had this idea that to get to stateless socialism -- eventually -- an interim period would be necessary in which the state would be subsumed under "the dictatorship of the proletariat" (workers). The state would then own most, if not all, land, and it would be under the political control of this dictatorship.
As far as I know, no ostensibly socialist or communist nation or state has dismantled the dictatorship of the proletariat, as (ostensibly) was supposed to happen once certain preconditions were established. So the world has little idea what a genuine post-statist socialism or communism would look like in actual practice.
I suppose the historical essence of the anarchist movement has been that it has been a form of socialism which would utterly dispense with the dictatorship of the proletariat as an ostensible stage toward an eventual stateless communism or socialism. Many historical anarchist philosophers predicted that the dictatorship of the proletariat would turn out to be yet another form of authoritarian hierarchy and oppression. And most folks would agree that this is precisely what happened in the former USSR, China, and other ostensibly socialist / communist states.
Obviously, in a post-state form of socialism / communism, the state would not own the land, as there would not be a state form of polity. None of the kinds of authoritarianism which is at the root of the state structure could exist in a post-state society. So what would this do to the notion of land as property? Land could not be held as private property in a stateless society, nor as public property. It becomes communal property (commons), and its use would be determined by those who live on any given set of acres or hectares.
This thought -- land without ownership -- horrifies vast numbers of people, as they fear their individuality would be subsumed under a faceless, nameless horde and herd -- a mass of people without agency, creativity... self-ness. But there are plenty of us who don't see it this way at all. We see individuals flourishing and truly embodying their agency in such a society.
I've written a bit about the inadequacy of the notion of public and private spheres (or domains) when these dyadic pairs are taken to be comprehensive in scope.
See:
On Commoning
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-10-24/on-commoning/
More on 'public' and 'private'
https://rword.substack.com/p/more-on-public-and-private
Thanks for the thoughtful response.
I have the rather uncreative outlook that policy that necessarily constrains human impulse will always require enforcement, which will always require state, which will eventually and unfortunately metastasize into leviathan. But, at least initially, there will always be a jarl and their thanes.
You'd have a very hard time persuading me to surrender my land to communal property. I can't- and, admittedly, don't want to- imagine a ceaseless tide of strangers doing what they will with it, and entering my home as they please. And I'm not wealthy by most measures.
I unfortunately lack the imagination to see beyond this dyad in a realistic way. But I appreciate your point of view.
Happy to see the reference to Hobbes (Leviathan). Hobbes is among my nemeses.
"You'd have a very hard time persuading me to surrender my land to communal property. I can't- and, admittedly, don't want to- imagine a ceaseless tide of strangers doing what they will with it, and entering my home as they please. And I'm not wealthy by most measures."
Why would you assume that any random stranger would be allowed to do whatever the hell they want on a piece of communally held land? I make no such assumption. Communally held land would be as regulated as privately or publicly held land is regulated. The difference is the nature of the regulators and the regulations. Commoning isn't a chaos of "whatever". It's not okay to for anyone to pour salt on the crops and burn down the barn, nor to hold children captive as sex slaves. Or pour toxins into the creek. Anarchism isn't an advocacy for stupidity and perpetual abuse!
My basically anarchist vision for what's possible with communal land regimes basically comes down to a radical form of decentralization of authority and decision-making power. My imagined version is radically democratic. Naturally, most folks would not like random people not to enter their homes without consent! The home would belong to its user, and would be held within the common land. Communities have boundaries, as do people (skin). The house has doors and windows. It would not be unclear that strangers have no right to barge into my home at will!
So I own the home, but not the land under it? And the barn? What about my cows and pigs? Or my dogs, that aren't livestock?
Who stops people from salting the field and burning the barn? What else are they empowered to stop people doing, and who decides that? How far can they go to stop people doing it?
It sounds an awful lot like police in a democracy (or something else). Aren't we right back where we started?
These are very excellent questions, and get right into the heart of the truly meaningful and useful questions about what a radically decentralized form of governance ultimately --- really -- comes down to in practice. Thanks!
There are thousands of perspectives on these immensely important questions, and there likely always will be, so long as there are humans to contemplate and discuss them -- and live them.
Personally, in my ideal world, you'd be free to live in whichever community you like, and free to move between them at will. As would I and Rhyd and everyone else.
The rules and regulations of any given community would be made democratically by those who dwell within the community. Like you, I'd want my community to respect my right to personal privacy in my home! Guests would be guests. I'd have a piece of ground around my home which would be under the control of the household (my partner and I). Anyone allowed within that land-circle would be precisely a guest, just as anyone entering my house would be a guest -- by invitation only (though I'd not keep true friends away, ever. So they'd have an open invitation into my household outdoor space.
Most land used for food, fuel and fiber production would be communally held and communally regulated democratically, with "democracy" not being majority rule but some form or another of consensus. Many forms of consensus decision-making exist, and not all of them require 100% agreement by everyone. Sometimes communities require 90% agreement. But the topic is as vast as any of the others.
Personal will doesn't get absorbed into a faceless horde in my form of anarchist communalism. If anything, personal will is much more empowered and delightful, full. If you lived in the same communal community as I, you'd be super happy there! I'd be there to assist, aid and protect you -- and so would our brothers and sisters. We'd prize your freedom! We'd celebrate and protect it.
Ultimately, in my version of the story, the house of anyone belongs to the community. But the community would have agreements about how to justly and fairly preserve and protect the justly established rights of privacy and ... well..., something like ownership. You'd not own the house outright, per se. But you could perhaps sell it at the value you've invested into it, but no more than that. There would not be much reference to "market value". And the community would not allow just anyone to "buy" it. What could be sold is merely the right to dwell in the house.
As for protecting the barn, the land from salting, etc., we'd all be the ones who decide these things and how it is to be done within our community. No one else would decide for us -- particularly not people living in Washington D.C. (Unless our community is set there.)
Your passion for the topic is lovely, and I thank you for the effort you put into articulating a response. This certainly isn't the first time a discussion of this nature has prompted me to ask these questions, but your clarity is among the best answers I've received.
With some exception, I find it a beautiful vision and one I'd enjoy. Most of your concepts of communalism are similar to those held by the Amish and Mennonite communities in our area (though they are not quite as utopian as many people imagine).
I think decentralized localism is an excellent idea. But Washington DC exists, and even if it didn't, Beijing, London, Berlin, and Moscow still do. It's not a simple thing.
Hey Rhyd, I offer instead of commentary the best salad dressing recipe you will ever try. It truly does go with everything. And as far as dressings go, it’s pretty damn healthy! I’m not a big salad eater, but this dressing makes me want salad.
Yeast (“Nooch”) dressing:
Ingredients
½ cup nutritional yeast, not brewer's yeast or baker's yeast ⅓ cup water ⅓ cup tamari, gluten-free soy sauce ⅓ cup apple cider vinegar 2 large cloves garlic 1.5 cups neutral vegetable oil, like avocado, sunflower or grape seed oil
Or quality olive oil (although you’ll need to leave the dressing out of the fridge if you do)
Instructions
* Combine all ingredients except oil in a blender. Process until completely smooth.
* With the machine running, pour the oil very slowly through the hole in the cap of the blender. The dressing will thicken and emulsify as you gradually add the oil, little by little.
* Refrigerate for up to 2 weeks.
Also feel free to add yeast or water to find your desired viscosity.
As always, reading your stack is always like a deep nourishing breath. Enjoy the dressing!
Great writing. I read in the news that the governments were becoming concerned about crowds with torches and pitchforks. They didn’t mean out looking for slugs in the night, which thankfully isn’t illegal yet.
and yeah, that’s convinced to buy your book. I’m lucky enough to have a house and a garden. It feels everyone around wants fake grass or stone chips. I want marginal plants, a shaded pond and some occasional abundance in zero miles fruit and veg. I agree, it somehow feels like a resistance against the zeitgeist.
"What defines anarchism, then, is the refusal of state power, even of the revolutionary strategy of seizing state power. Instead, the focus of anarchism is on self-emancipation and autonomy, something which cannot be achieved through parliamentary democratic channels or through revolutionary vanguards, but rather through the development of alternative practices and relationships based on free association, equal liberty and voluntary cooperation." The garden goal, oh to shift our society in this direction over time, perhaps an asymptotic goal that we never completely arrive at, but always draw closer to.
Thank you, Rhyd! You can count me among the many readers who have been moved by this powerful essay to purchase a copy of “Here Be Monsters.” In the meantime I have one open-ended question for you: What relationship do you see, if any, between the kind of leftism you envision here and the socio-economic program that typically travels under the heading of “distributism” or (more broadly) “Catholic Social Teaching“?
Thank you Crazy cilantro dude!
While I will never think of my garden as a political act, let alone a leftist one, I love everything else you wrote here.
Tip to those getting started: don't turn it into a job. It's great to watch Grow Your Greens or whoever is popular these days (I bailed on Youtube a long time ago, I've no idea), but don't think your first task is to maximize the health and productivity of your plants. Learn how they work - what they need to thrive, and how they do it - and then apply the theory.
Plan to make mistakes. Plants aren't a total mystery, and you don't have some esoteric curse, but they are a lot more complicated than the Machine would like you to believe (which is why industrial farming has been such a catastrophe...). Mourn the poor things when you mess it up, but don't beat yourself up about it. Living and dying is what they do, mostly over the course of a few months, and you'll get to plant some more.
Just try to learn what you did wrong and do better next time. Before you know it you'll be growing more than you know what to do with, even if all you have is a balcony or patio and a couple planter boxes.
Edit: oh yeah one more thing, you *don't need any fancy expensive gadgets or materials*. That's just the Machine trying to make you feel helpless and dependent on it.
You just need something to grow them in and some dirt. Learn a little about what kinds of dirt different plants like and how to arrange it (some like it wet, dry or well drained, some like it loamy, sandy, loose, packed, and some don't even need dirt - you can look all this up on the internet or get a good gardening book, but I promise it's not rocket science). Use old tins, boxes or bottles if you haven't got anything else (I grew a few herbs in chinese takeout boxes once).