Parallelism and Homesteading

Problems with homesteading as parallelism.

Homesteading is realistically the only way to go off grid and un-plug oneself from the system, an admirable aim, but it may not be the basis for building a parallel economy.

Firstly food self sufficiency is certainly desirable, and everyone can take meaningful steps towards it. However, total or near total food self sufficiency requires a significant amount of time, money and effort to achieve. These precious resources can be spent on another business that could form a more important part of the parallel economy. This leads to my main gripe with homesteading, which is that it may not necessarily become part of a parallel economy as may be - to some degree - a retreat into isolation. A homestead that is a self sufficient entity, which produces some excess food to be sold locally, would not qualify as part a parallel economy as it does not interact with other dissidents. This is why I prefaced this critique of the homestead with the proposition that the time and money spent on a homestead could be spent creating something that would be truly integrated into a dissident parallel economy.

I must make it clear that I am not denying the value or benefits that a homestead can provide to its denizens, but merely stating that it does not necessarily form part of a parallel economy. It may well provide the ideal basis for a business, or even just the people who would go on to interact with the dissident parallel economy.

I also believe that there are problems with homesteading related to the creation of a vanguard, specifically it results in the physical dispersion of dissidents. The main issue here is that a wide spread adoption of homesteading can reasonably be expected to result in dissidents being dispersed over a wide geographical area. The prospect of having a community of homesteaders - particularly in the UK where land is expensive - is slim as having multiple people with the means of buying a suitable plot of land is unlikely. This probable dispersion of dissidents has several disadvantages pertaining to the formation of a vanguard when compared to a local concentration of dissidents. It inhibits the formation of real world bonds, the larger the distance between individuals the more difficult real world interaction is, granted the internet can be used to communicate, but this has it’s limitations. Another issue is the reduced ability to carry out collective action quickly, imagine if the Bolsheviks has not been concentrated in urban centers during the Russian Revolution, but were instead dispersed around the country side. Finally an artistic avant-garde acts in a similar way to a political vanguard and all of these have come from a small group of individuals often in a city and often even frequented the same café or other such establishment, this leads to a flourishing of ideas, but also attracts interested individuals who can then be converted. I see a similar thing necessary in the case of modern political dissidents. I hope I have made clear my argument for the physical concentration of dissidents, it would probably be most fruitful in a major city. You may argue that the internet eliminates the need for physical proximity, whilst it certainly reduces it, I do not believe that it is reduced so far as to be an irrelevance, and real world action requires real world proximity. I need not go into the nearly endless problems with the contemporary city, I recognise these as real, but see them as something that must be overcome for an effective vanguard - physical proximity is a non-negotiable.

What Would a Parallel Economy Look Like?

Now that I have explained by criticisms of homesteading as a parallel economy, I am now left to ask questions about what a dissident parallel economy can and should be.

There are already some examples of fully functional dissident business, for example the numerous publishers, Academic Agent’s courses, Grandma Towler’s Tea, among many other’s. These are clearly a long way off from being a fully fledged parallel economy, but these few example’s show that dissident business are possible and can thrive. Obviously there are significant limitations on what dissidents can do with their resources that are insignificant compared to the multinational’s that produce almost everything. Complex mechanical and electric goods are not feasible. Goods that can not be easily transported by mail or couriers are also a challenge given the current dispersion of dissidents. This leaves us with a much reduced list of goods that could form a parallel economy. However the room for internet services are almost endless, education, entertainment, can all be provided online. A inescapable part of any economy is its financial apparatus, there must be a dissident bank, payment process and other things of this ilk for a functional parallel economy to form.