Homesteading: How to Become a Powerless Peasant

Evaluating the “run away and live on a farm” strategy for the problems of modernity

Over the last few years, there has been a growing trend on the internet to encourage young people to homestead. Many young people reveal they are working toward buying a plot of land, and some animals, far from a civilization that is irreparably corrupt and sick. 

This Emerson ex-machina plan seems reasonable on the surface. The increased denigration of food quality via pesticides such as glycophosphates, and the unholy horrors of factory farming make it a logical solution to oversee the production of your own food thankyouverymuch. It is also challenging to access untampered food in regular supermarkets such as meat that is not polluted with rapeseed oil, fruits that are not covered in pesticides, honey that has not been heated and dairy that has not been diminished in quality via pasteurization. 

However, the decision to grow all your own food as the solution is a naive one that only think one step forward, not five. It neglects the most basic factor of war: when you retreat, the enemy follows. If they can poison large farms, what makes you think they cannot lobby to poison yours? Will you have the monetary or physical resources to enforce your right to determine what happens on your land long-term?

It was not the peasant yeomen who grew food who traditionally held power in civilizations, it was the wealthy warrior who could take what he wanted and move where he liked. Following the homesteading meme led by terminally online hippies will only lead you to a weaker strategic position. And the world is growing increasingly inhospitable to stupidity.

In this essay I will explain the reasons why Homesteading as a panacea for modern problems is not necessarily a way to freedom, but another type of prison.