Robert John Morton
Introduction
Basic Requirements
Utility Independence
Fractal Economics
Activity-Based Design
Terrestrial Dwelling
A Landshare Home
Other Designs
The Search for Land
Victims of a Scam
Satellite Survey
A Virtual Model
Pilot Community
An individual farmlet, alone in this hostile world, is not likely to survive for long. Even many farmlets, under an umbrella of mutual support, will be unable to survive if they are separated and distributed. They need to agglomerate into anthropological communities.
Although I have been unable to realise the model farmlet described in the previous essays in this series, I have no doubt that, eventually, a pilot farmlet of this kind will be realised by somebody. First one, then an intentional community of such farmlets, which will precipitate a proliferation of such communities in different parts of the world. Eventually all such communities in the world could become one single independent distributed sovereign nation in which each member of each community has full allodial possession of his landshare.
Of course, not everybody wants to live in communities of 4-hectare [10 acre] farmlets. It will probably be only those people with a personality disposition like mine who are likely to want to live this way. The natural personality profile of humanity has what probably follows a standard distribution from exigent psychopath through gregarious allism to introverted autism. Only people towards the latter side of the standard distribution would probably wish to live this way.
Notwithstanding, in a fair world, it is not just majorities who should have what they want: it should be everybody. An individual who finds himself, through circumstances he did not create, to be part of a minority should be equally valued and catered for as one who naturally finds himself to be part of the majority. This cannot be accomplished under a single type of regime. It requires the co-existence of independent alternatives. Different political constructs and lifestyle options should be available. The individual should be able to select, and live within, the one in which he feels most comfortable and fulfilled.
This requires that the world adopt what may be described as political Apartheid. But it is not based on race or class. It is based on the different values, interests and aspirations of people with different personality types and preferred lifestyles. Some like the noise and bustle of the social throng of a city. Others hate noise and disturbance. They prefer a life of observation and thought in a rural setting. The two don't mix well on a permanent or continuous basis. Some prefer more of one and less of the other and vice versa.
This Apartheid world would have to incorporate the politics of Proportionism. This demands that each human being born on this planet, by the fact of his birth, inherits his fair share of its land and resources. This does not necessarily mean that he puts it to immediate productive use. But it is his. He it is who has its permanent and untaxable possession as long as he shall live. His inheritance is thus, in effect, the whole of the planet's habitable land surface, and the resources which that land contains, divided by the current human population of the planet.
Such a world of non-antagonistic political diversity does not yet exist. We are stuck in a world of division and opposition, where each thinks all should live his way. Consequently, any such intentional community of farmlets can only be brought into being within the realm and rules of an existing sovereign State.
It is proposed that the Community comprise up to 100 adults + their children. It is to be an intentional community comprising individuals who share common or compatible values, aspirations and lifestyle. They will prefer a less densely packed life than that of a city or suburban housing estate. They will relish economic self-sufficiency. They will already have — or intend to acquire — the wide range of distributed knowledge and skills needed to build and maintain technically advanced living conditions.
The human life-form is a wholly dependent subsystem of the planet's biosphere. It cannot exist without inputs from and outputs to its environment. The labour of man cannot provide his needs of life unless that labour be applied — in one way or another, directly or indirectly — to the Earth's biosphere.
In a capitalist economy, a very small elite minority owns all terrestrial resources. Common man can apply his labour to those resources only by the leave of one of this small minority. But the members of this minority have no obligation whatsoever to employ any particular individual. So it is they alone who decide who is and who is not granted the privilege of gainful work. Thus, on the whim of this minority, any individual can be barred by unemployment from access to the means of turning his labour into his needs of life.
The objective of the Landshare Community concept is to short-circuit this psychopathic cat-and-mouse game, which pervades practically all socio-economies of the modern world, by affording everybody direct allodial ownership and access to the means of turning his work into wealth.
To this end, each individual must be given back the portion of this planet that is his self-evident inalienable birthright. Under the present population of the planet — about 7 billion human beings — this amounts to about two hectares [5 acres] of habitable land. If the Community's farmlets are assumed to contain, on average, two adults, a farmlet must comprise 4 hectares [10 acres] of habitable land.
Unfortunately, at least in the beginning, the Community has no choice but to see its first light of day within the bounds and under the laws of one of the world's sovereign States. And the laws of sovereign States do not look kindly upon who would actively take back his self-evidently inalienable birthright. The laws of a State deem that the land belongs to an established landowner. And the enforcers of the State's laws will apply whatever physical force may be necessary to remove whom they wrongly perceive as an unauthorised invader.
Clearly therefore, the 100 members cannot simply choose an unsettled piece of land and commandeer it for the Community. Unjustly, they are required to buy back their lost inheritances from those who stole them. The Community must therefore raise enough money to purchase the 400 hectares of land. But very little land is ever for sale. It is a finite resource which, for the most part, has been owned by the same narrow line of inheritance that disappears back into the mists of history. It is therefore necessary to find a country in which there is still land available for purchase. Even so, as we have already seen in the foregoing essays, buying land is ever a precarious business. It is easy to pay and end up with nothing.
To protect itself as much as possible from the host State, the Community is best constructed within a protective legal Container such as a limited liability corporation or pessoa jurÃdica. All members of the Community hereby become equal shareholders and voting directors of the Container. The Container buys and owns the full 400 hectares of land. The Container has no employees. The minimal work pertaining to the operation and maintenance of the Container is done by members of the community who, in this regard, have the status of volunteers. The Container is strictly a non-profit entity.
The Constitution of the Community forms the essence of the Articles of Incorporation of the Container. The Constitution is founded upon the Draft Manifesto, which is defined in the book 'The Lost Inheritance' by Robert John Morton YE572246C.
Government of the Community is by democracy. It is issue-based democracy, which does not involve the election of representative personalities. It includes all adult members in direct strictly moderated debate, which can be verbal or written. It adheres to the following directives:
A vote on an issue that can affect different members in significantly different ways must be unanimous.
Each person must vote according as he believes, in good conscience, will be best for everybody: not just best for himself or any sub-group.
No vote can be passed that can precipitate hardship upon, or worsen the condition of, any individual.
The prime — always available — means of communication between members of the Community is face-to-face speech. Nobody can insist on only accepting communication — or deem it to have taken place — by any lesser means [written, indirect or via artificial media], especially when face-to-face speech is available.
A telephone and written messaging system connects all homes in the Community. Notwithstanding, this must be used with mutual respect so as not to incommode or invade the privacy of community members. Likewise for data transfer and distribution. This can be done by buried twin wire or by Wi-Fi. However, I'd be cautious, about anything that requires corporate-dependent technology. A lower technology version of Wi-Fi could eventually be produced within a Landshare-type community through the specialised skills of members.
Each member of the Community is encouraged to develop a coterie of friends. This includes all members of his Community, plus half as many again from the world at large. This would amount to about 150 friends, which is the size of a generic anthropological community. This endeavour is aided by a program called 'cot.c', which is an adaptation of the EBS contacts management program 'mktr.c'.
Communication beyond the Community is to connect with other Communities and with isolated sympathetic individuals. It would require only a relatively low data rate. It should be implemented through means that do not rely on any national or corporate infrastructures such as the Internet. Instead, it should be done via a small-world network of nodes. A node is owned and operated by each Community member and by the isolated individuals concerned. Links between nodes can be by such means as HF radio, VHF relay or moon-bounce.
Internal production of the basic needs of life should be gauged to generously provide for 100 adults + their children. It should thereby be impossible for any external economic down-turn or crisis to impinge in any way upon the Community. Basic needs include a generous supply of food for a balanced diet, materials for building and maintaining homes and making clothes, plus the immediate and sustainable provision of water, electricity and other fuels. Specialisations, distributed among the 100 adults of the Community, should provide an adequate supply of its technological needs. See the program 'eco.c'.
Within the bounds of the Community, distribution is a trivial matter. I imagine the main means of distribution as being some form of well-maintained electric cart equipped with a lift and with highly developed robust safety features. The 'driver' would walk in front of it.
The Container has no choice but to interact with its host State. If it did not, the host State would exercise penal force that would destroy the community.
Notwithstanding, the Container must act so as to minimise its economic and civil interaction with the host State at both local and national levels. In other words, it only buys what it cannot produce internally and sells only to gain what it must pay in unavoidable tax and tribute.
I have written a computer program 'min.c' to handle this minimalist economic interaction. This can be readily adapted to the situations in different sovereign States. It seeks to minimise the number of trade and civil transactions per year, avoiding as much as possible interactions via banks.
The 400 hectare community must be essentially open. Boundaries of individual farmlets are unfenced but are marked adequately and unobtrusively by low spiles driven into the ground. A reasonably unobstructed view, albeit through wooded areas, must be provided. Homes are of a smooth design with minimum impingement on the planet's surface. Being essentially off-ground, houses are difficult to enter by unauthorised intruders.