There’s a number of reasons why people want to, or ultimately decide to, homestead. Though it is often to seek self-sufficiency (I’m looking at you, Libertarians) or “prepping”, that is, preparing to survive some type of war – civil, world, nuclear – or other catastrophic event like a famine. For an aspiring liberal homesteader (or Progressive Homesteader), the catastrophic events are mostly the same. Who is going to grow food for liberals in cities during a civil war (or tariff war) when most farmers are Republican? Will they rely on imports from other countries? Additionally, there is the added layer of ideological difference in acknowledging that climate change is real and will likely affect industrial food farming. Did you even watch Interstellar? Embracing a liberal homestead is a practical solution in such uncertain times.
Liberal Homesteading for Climate Change
Even if the “big one” doesn’t come to pass, there’s other reasons for Liberals and Progressives to homestead. For example, reducing your consumption of manufactured goods, fossil fuels (particularly by reducing food miles), and industrially grown food rife with pesticides and herbicides. While this kind of falls in line with the prevailing Libertarian homesteading view of wanting to be self-sufficient, there’s a slight difference. Self-sufficiency is not achievable by all. So if you can be self-sufficient, I applaud you. However, other people might need some help. It is the duty of the self-sufficient to help others in need. Helping others in need could be achieved through donations to food banks, volunteerism, or even just paying a fair share of taxes.
There’s also an aspect of ecological regeneration that can be achieved with certain farming practices on a homestead. However, many libertarian homesteaders might not care about instituting practices for permaculture, regenerative agriculture, silvopasture, native plant gardening, and/or agroforestry. I think Liberals and Progressives are more inclined to grow food using regenerative practices due to their acknoledgement that climate change is real, and our industrial systems are the cause.
Land and Location, Location, Location
Property Rules
Clearly, the biggest hurdle to most aspiring liberal homesteaders is finding a suitable piece of property. This has led to the rise of urban and suburban homesteaders who tend to lean a little more left than their exurban and rural homesteading counterparts. Most inexpensive land is either in a red state or a red county in a blue state.
Though community may not be important to some reclusive people, the odds of figuring out how to start and grow a homestead go up dramatically when you get involved in your community. It’s not just about neighbors, but also schools, local government, and state government policies.
To me, it is better for a liberal to start a homestead in a red county in a blue state rather than a blue county in a red state. This is due to the protections that blue states afford their citizens. These include quality services, education, protection of workers’ rights, and the right to love who you love.
Homesteading Neighborhoods
Clearly, a blue county in a blue state is ideal for a liberal homestead. However, it tends to be expensive to find a decent amount of land in those areas because they are often suburbs of major cities. This is where communes and eco-villages can thrive. The pooling of resources of multiple people and/or families can make property much more affordable. However, the social dynamics can be more testing. I think, ideally, a commune would be a community of self-sufficient people who buy land together, but then divvy it up amongst themselves (i.e. no need to register the split with the town) into their own private parcels so they can practice self-sufficiency on their own terms, but still be part of a close knit community. Basically, just a neighborhood where everyone is a homesteader, but maybe with a community center in the neighborhood and smaller houses than you might typically find on large plots of land.
You Still Need Tools and Supplies
To be sure, getting a homestead set up will result in a spike in your consumption of tools (chainsaw – hopefully you go electric, drills, drivers, string trimmer/weedwacker – though I’ve basically stopped using mine, pruning shears, loppers/clippers, etc.) and building materials (wood, fencing, screws, nails, hinges, nets, etc). This also includes plants, and structures for any animals you plan to raise. Once this initial spike of consumption is over, your consumption of goods from outside your homestead should drop pretty significantly. Especially if you hoard and reuse materials like a true wild person in the woods – for example, when starting your garden don’t buy soil, compost, or fertilizer for your plants (make them yourself) and look into hugelkulture garden beds. Also, thrifting and sharing tools and raw materials between neighbors goes a long way.
Not to mention that most plants are easy to propagate. If you buy a mix of 10 or so different types of fruit and nut trees to begin with, you can create an infinite number of plants for yourself and your neighbors, friends, and family. You can also produce more plants for yourself to scale up production of your own fruits and nuts. Moreover, you can even sell some propagated plants if you want to. This buying and selling of fruit and nut trees and seeds is probably the most benign capitalistic activity. You can even grow rootstock to graft fruit trees onto to make disease resistant and dwarf fruit trees.
Liberal Homestead Micro-Economies
Obviously, reducing consumption goes against the capitalist economic model of infinite growth (in a finite world, how does that make sense?). See my poem “Violent Paperwork”. However, the world needs more people who are willing to be happy with a reduced consumption lifestyle to benefit the environment. Unfortunately, capitalistic ideas of mass consumption and conformity are pitted against environmentalism at every turn. This includes some of the industrial technologies that are supposed to help reduce climate change, like electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cells, solar panels, wind energy, and the like. Clearly, all of these technologies are better than fossil fuels. However, none of them are as good as networks of homesteaders, communes, and eco-villages that reduce overall consumption of resources. These afford a slower pace of life with reduced consumption and more time spent with other humans.
And you know what replaces consumption? Knowledge! Gardening! Community! Music! LIFE!