Culturequake Journal

A Better Way of Making a Living

Making a living in our modern culture usually requires participation in the destruction of the earth. We can’t go back to the wild-tending Homo hunter-gatherer. Is there another way forward?

I call it the middle way of making a living between modern industrial culture and hunter-gathering. This subject deserves to have several books written about it.

Saving the World and Sustainability

The biggest problem with sustainability is the word itself and how we misuse it. Some believe sustainability involves living in a manner that does not diminish the prospects of future generations. That is an all about humanity definition that needs to be discarded.

Sustainability really means humanity continuing in some fashion without taking tens of millions of species down with us. Today our culture is solely responsible for the greatest mass extinction since the death of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. I say “our culture” because humanity lived in harmony with the earth for three or four million years, the problem is not humanity.

The problem it is our Agricultural Revolution culture, our population growth and how we make a living. Contrast how the Native American peoples lived in harmony with and tended the wild for thousands of years, while the Europeans trashed two continents that were virtually a garden of eden as little as 100 years ago.

True sustainability is really restoration, it has our species like the others, living in harmony with the ecosystem or Gaia. It is measured by the growth, not of human population, but of topsoil and biodiversity. These, plus the number of beneficial connections are the only evolutionarily proven measures of sustainability and have nothing to do with humanity’s success or failure. Bluntly, any species that does not build or stabilize top soil eventually takes itself out of the food chain.

Why do we need the other species? In short sight we don’t but in the long run we do. We need the full resilience of the earth’s ecosystems in the face of an every change world and climate. The true measure of humanity is not what we take or build but what we nurture and leave behind.

Yes, we may be the first to have reached this level of consciousness. The question is though, are we going to be the last or will we the mentors for those that will follow?

Honestly, for this to happen our modern monoculture is going to have to be replaced by a riot of earth friendly cultures. For example, there were a minimum of 500 Native American cultures in North America alone.

Tribal Way of Making A Living

A tribe is a group of people working together to make a living, sharing equally with no hierarchy. Profits, losses and finds are shared equally. Decisions are made by consensus. It appears that ownership, at least initially, is not so important when getting started. However, since private property leads to hoarding and is a disincentive to sharing, it should be avoided. All non-household assets should also be communal.

Generally, a band or tribe unit is fewer than 150 people. British anthropologist Robin Dunbar theorized this number of people to be the limit with whom we can maintain stable social relationships in which we know each person. He suggests that numbers larger than this require more restricted rules, laws and enforcement. A larger tribe can be a collection of smaller bands.

A New Ethic and World View

Here is where it starts to get interesting. We need to envision a new world view by remember the old one. Chief Seattle in his 1854 speech and Daniel Quinn in his book Ishmael taught that the world is a sacred place and humanity has a place in it. Another way of saying this is that humanity belongs to the earth, our ecosystem or Gaia.

This is the opposite of the world view that our ancestors created 10,000 years ago that humanity is flawed, we are sinners and the earth is a proving ground to see whether we are worthy to go to a better place when we die. This belief gave us a dominion which we have to relinquish if we and most of the other species are going to survive.

The Permaculture Way

Permaculture on the other hand, emphasizes perennial systems, allows succession to continue and mimics natural forest and old field mosaic structures. It is the only system that makes sense for a restorative and regenerative culture.

Permaculture is based on three central Ethics.

1. Care of the earth means that our number one priority is taking care of the earth, making sure we don't damage its natural systems. The earth will take care of our children when we are gone.

2. Care of the people means meeting people's needs to sustain their lives and have a good quality of life but without damaging the earth.

3. Accepting limits to population and consumption is realizing that as a human species we cannot continue to increase and also sustain the planet. Sometimes you will hear this ethic phrased as share the surplus, invest all of your means in the first two ethics. This means limiting your consumption so that you can invest your resources in caring for the earth and caring for the people.

These ethics translate to making a living in a way that does not participate in destruction of the earth. This means more than not starting a chemical or genetic engineering plant.

This may means that will have to shift back to giving support to get support instead of making things to get things. A healthy self reliant local community focusing on each other will provide greater cradle-to-grave security than our all about me, private property, competitive culture.

Localize Resources

If we are going to make products, they need to be consumed by the local community or within our bioregion or watershed. If products are made exclusively for export, the level of consumption will again lead to the depletion of local resources. I see this just driving around Oregon and Washington in the form of missing forests. At the time of this writing, 60 people in Peru died in clashes between indigenous protestors and police over drilling for oil and gas in the rainforest. Defending your local resources and bioregion from outside interests is serious business.

Produce what you need now and some reserves but not a large surplus that can be concentrated. If you concentrate resources or work within a hierarchy, you are encouraging competition, hoarding and take away the incentive to share.

Develop Community Self-Reliance

One of the keys to the success of the Amish is that they do not operate in a way that creates dependence on modern culture. Their aversion is more about the entanglement and not so much against technology. For example, old order Amish use wood wheels which they can manufacture and repair themselves. They do not use rubber wheels because they don’t want to be dependent on modern culture. The Amish have nothing against rubber, but they do not want to be dependent upon us.

No individual or even a small group of people is an island. It will take groups of enough diverse skills to reach some degree of community self-reliance. Maybe some will have to work a day job while others building skills and a tribal business with your friends. This will be a n evolution not an revolution. Remember though, petrocollapse will not follow to a gradual or delayed schedule for our convenience.

Self Care

Do what you love, you will become good at it and you will make the biggest impact with your life that way.

Eventually try not to work more than maybe 30 hours per week. This will not only allow for employment of more people but it gives you time to work on yourself, to study, grow, explore, self-care. At start-up though you may work twice that until you get established.

Right Planning

The biggest mistake you can make in your life is buying a house with a mortgage and signing up for a lifetime of wage slavery. You are far better off living in a yurt, tipi or hippie van on a small piece of good land with no debt. Read Rob Roy’s book Mortgage Free: Innovative Strategies for Debt-Free Home Ownership. Also take a Complete Cob workshop at the Cob Cottage Company.

People are worked so much and not given a holistic education to think for themselves. Develop your vocabulary, practical skills, arts, music, travel while fuel is still cheap and just self-actualize. Powerdown, give away a bunch of your stuff and community up.

How to Get Started

Based on my experience as an entrepreneur, I would say follow the path of least resistance and watch for the forks in the road that will change your life. At first, try multiple things at once and see which one sticks. Walk before you run, try your ideas part-time or as a hobby before committing. Start with your neighbors and each plant a different fruit or nut tree, exchange harvests in the fall. Start a local perennial vegetable nursery business, everyone will need them. The possibilities are endless. Have fun with it.

For example, at Restoration Farm we are growing a community of overlapping beneficial livelihoods. Our current livelihoods include organic heirloom seeds, blueberry and orchard u-pick, permaculture education and a Waldorf inspired elementary school. We are reaching out to like-minded communities to create other beneficial connections.

In regards to finding your tribe, try hosting a potluck to discuss neighborhood sustainability, see who shows up. Learn about permaculture and consider taking a Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) course.

Find a way to live your truth making a living doing what you love while restoring the earth. This is a journey of a lifetime.

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Chuck Burr is Author of Culturequake: The Restoration Revolution, director of the Southern Oregon Permaculture Institute at Restoration Seeds in Ashland, Oregon. info@culturequake.org. ©2009 Chuck Burr LLC, revised

Notes:

Peter Bane
Permaculture Activist

Susan Blackmore
The Meme Machine

Cob Cottage Company
Complete Cob workshop

Toby Hememway
Gaia's Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture

John Hostetler
Amish Society

Geoff Lawton
The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia

Jan Lundberg
As surely as the red sun rises: Rebelling against extinction

Daniel Quinn
Ishmael