this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
201 points (100.0% liked)
askchapo
22768 readers
293 users here now
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
-
Posts must ask a question.
-
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
-
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
-
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Subsistence farming is very different from owning means of production and exploiting workers. Unless your two cows are a metaphor for owning land and cattle that are worked by peasants while you keep the surplus value literally nothing happens.
actual subsistence farming is pretty comfy too.
People have a bad image of subsistence farming because the only people who are subsistence farmers now are people in the 3rd world, where resources are directed towards cities and people in rural areas often lack clean drinking water (which is dirty due to the high population of said land)
Back in neolithic/bronze age times, the Indus civilization had an average height of 5'8" which meant they were eatin' good. (That's tall for the time). It's also known that the Indus sites lacked a lot of the social stratification found in Western Mideastern sites. The average subsistence farmer today is probably like 5'5" due to malnourishment and dirty water.
It's similar to how hunter-gatherers today are super malnourished people in shitty desert climates, even though there were hunter gatherers in lush green fields thousands of years ago
Subsistence farming with added modern luxuries under communism would be incredibly comfy and not at all oppressive
Ehhhh it depends what you actually mean by subsistence farming. Growing a good portion of your own food on a home scale? Sure, it can be simple and fun. Growing all of your calories and micro-/macro-nutrients for the year? Takes very intensive planning and management, and more physical labor than many are used to (even with technology). Of course it can still be a very rewarding lifestyle, but it's by no means easy or idyllic.
If you want to see what it takes to grow your own diet for a year, I highly recommend the book How to Grow Your Own Vegetables and the associated exercises from Grow Biointensive. It's an eye-opener, for sure.