Homesteading: A localised, conservative response to Brexit and recession
Traditionally defined, homesteading is a property of house and surrounding land that is employed for the purposes of self-sufficiency through livestock and crop. This constitutes a higher and ideal form of homesteading.
In the discourse of today, who could not have heard the terms ‘Brexit’ and ‘coronavirus’? They’re everywhere, given the untimely concurrence between a short and temporary alleviation from the destructive pandemic and the United Kingdom’s exit from the European Union.Traditionally defined, homesteading is a property of house and surrounding land that is employed for the purposes of self-sufficiency through livestock and crop. This constitutes a higher and ideal form of homesteading.
Both, in their own rights, have fragmented public opinion – although the former has come with the unseasonable loss of British lives and unthinkable damage to the domestic economy. The deepest recession we have ever witnessed has been forecast. No doubt, there will be a corresponding increase of ‘national debt’, although this term disingenuously frames the real nature of the debt – through hyperisation of government spending – and likely a corresponding period of stagflation.
It will concordantly be left to future generations to repay this. But this piece is not about the positives and negatives of monetary or fiscal policy, debt, or public opinion. Instead, it is to examine an oft-unheard term: homesteading; further, to ask: What is it and of what benefit could it be?; finally, to answer in such a way that promotes its many virtues and potential to ease the pangs simultaneously of exit from the EU and recovery from the pandemic. It is a practice which is conservative by its nature, and therefore merits some light in contemporary times.
To begin, it is worth mentioning that the current state of domestic agriculture in the UK is dire. Most of these developments have been the direct result of mass expenditure, resultant from a contrived ‘subsidy’, at the hands of the EU. Most notably, it has taken the form of the Common Agricultural Policy.
This policy, in particular, has caused untold damage to the domestic agricultural market in two distinctive ways: the first, by generally funding and thereby encouraging wasteful overproduction, in which business a farmer would not typically engage; the second, by the cartelisation of large agricultural businesses, its aggrandisement into a transnational State structure, and its subsequently unnatural concentration of land ownership.
If so-called ‘public funding’ is hinged on the acreage of owned land, what else was supposed to happen?
Although such sale of land by smaller farms – most probably on recognition that they will inevitably lose out to such a fraudulent policy – is to some extent voluntary, the sheer disingenuity of its nature becomes apparent. Whilst using the ‘public purse’ in such an unscrupulous manner is in itself a sin, it doubles as salt on the proverbial wound when it is apparent that it has also concocted the mass disenfranchisement of otherwise organically-created, localised, private businesses. Clearly, their concern was not with protecting property or liberty therefrom.
With this in mind, what is a sensible and conservative solution? Fundamentally, it must be to return agriculture to domestic hands; of this, Brexit should take some care; yet there are still some other suitable methods which come down to the attitudes of individuals, families, and communities. This answer – albeit submerged in the passages of time relative to modern standards – is homesteading.
Traditionally defined, homesteading is a property of house and surrounding land that is employed for the purposes of self-sufficiency through livestock and crop. This constitutes a higher and ideal form of homesteading.
But, in the current situation, this is unfeasible for a great many people; therefore it is realistic to treat the definition in varying degrees, and therefore make it more widely applicable.
For instance, one can now grow vegetables in a container which can be sat upon a windowsill, or in a bag on a balcony or back-garden. The core principle of homesteading – self-sufficiency – is gravitated toward, just in a more urbanised context. The appeal of such would be to ease the conscience somewhat of potential food supply shortages resulting from the coming recession.
If we further treat self-sufficiency as a form of liberty, gravitating toward such fulfills conservative virtue: these actions reintegrate our sense of connection to land and property: with the food that we grow, we have the right to keep and consume, sell or exchange, or give away, and we are better-informed about the food upon the table.
Such also implicitly necessitates localised production and exchange – one of the most organically conservative appeals and equally facilitative of liberty.
In conclusion, the obvious statement: the explanation above has been simplified. But it is only so to drive home the point that domestic agriculture, land-orientation, and sense of property is hugely disjointed, owing to the hands of unconsented and thereby fraudulent State expenditure – particularly
that of the EU.
Although conservative solutions, in its ‘broad-church’ context, would vary, it makes sense to reassert traditional principles, conservative values, and alternative suggestions which bolster the aforementioned. Coalescing these things and encouraging their discussion should be central to a conservative path. As such, it is sincerely hoped that localising land-based production and exchange, as a conservative value, will find its way to the table: its benefits need to be unleashed.
