Permaculture - Getting paid vs. Paying to do it

Discussion in 'The big picture' started by insipidtoast, Sep 10, 2011.

  1. greenman1

    greenman1 Junior Member

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    im sure the money goes into great things but yes for people who grew up poor in non community orientated (im being kind) places, who work just to pay rent, its almost impossible to get the kind of money people are asking for. ive volunteered a tonne, ive been lucky i studied in ireland for two years horticulture/permaculture. it cost nothing really, 180 per year!! i recommend ths course. theres also one in britain for a few thousand
    pounds with famous british permaculturists. i am very jealous of people who can afford to do loads of really cool stuff and i feel like i could be really useful to the cause if given half a chance. i decided tto try and do a degree in forestry but its proving hard to find funds.
     
  2. Tildesam

    Tildesam Junior Member

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    Young Ya Yas

    When I see threads about money and economy in Permaculture, I want to groan.
    Mostly because I want to vent as well.... so I'm going to, yahahaharr. (Hey, what are forums for? :D )

    I suspect Inspid and FinchJ are also about my age too so I can relate somewhat to their context.
    I've only been working for 2-3 years but I can already identify this sort of loop occuring where you must earn to live, but can't live without earning.

    From what I've read in the manual, and listening to talks from St Bill and St Geoff - work is an important part of creating abundance and sharing excess, and I think working hard and creating relationships go a long way to being able to live in such an environment; capital or personal profit are far from that notion I think.

    I think the flaw in this utopia becomes apparent for people starting from scratch, so to speak. People that may not have any debt, but also do not own any assets which can contribute to a "starting point" so to speak. I guess I'm referring to land mostly, or property which you can sell to put a significant amount towards land.

    Pemaculture is a nice thought if you've been working for a few decades and you want to switch the life you've got for something simpler; sell your house, and move somewhere different to start, or even transform what you have already... But it doesn't provide a realistic approach if you have no land, assets or cash to start - apart from slaving away at someone else's project until you can *catch a break*. Moreover, I don't think it explores how the ordinary individual can eat, clothe themselves and get access to basic medical care if they're not earning a taxable income (as income is considered in Australia).

    Those are my ya-yas.
    (I can hear my dad muttering scathing things about Generation Y as I type this...)
     
  3. greenman1

    greenman1 Junior Member

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    completely agree, im having to live at my gf parents house to save up at the moment. trying to save to do the pri internship. only just found a normal job. btw im free for work. he he
     
  4. greenman1

    greenman1 Junior Member

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    :angel:
     
  5. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    Or one could join a permaculture intentional community or join with others to create one. People join together to start businesses, there's no reason people can't join together to start permaculture businesses.
     
  6. Tildesam

    Tildesam Junior Member

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    Good point Ludi - Had to swallow my instinctual response of "but how could you trust anybody with..." - One thing I'm beginning to learn is that there isn't really too much room for that in permaculture, especially permaculture as a necessity.

    Between intentional communities, and saving up for your own piece of land, I think it's very possible to reduce one's living expenses to the point where "earning a living" as suggested by typical business structure wouldn't be needed, really. It'd just be "sharing the abundance".
     
  7. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    It's a good point, sammyjo! Our culture has taught us not to trust each other, and it rewards "cheating" behavior, so it's very very hard to overcome this in trying to live a different way. Sharing the abundance is hard if we don't know how to share.....
     
  8. deee

    deee Junior Member

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    Sammyjo, Permaculture is for NOW, not for maybe-later-when-I-already-have-enough. There are cheap, low tech, part-time PDCs (I teach one) that let you pay as you go and fit in around your job. Don't put it off till you're old and crusty! Permaculture isn't just about growing food - a good PDC will take you through a big-picture design, and that includes the ethics of how you live and how you make and use money. I've had students who live in tiny flats with shaded balconies. They still grow food, join community gardens, participate in community activities and permablitzes, make conscious choices to live simply, harvest the suburbs, etc.

    I am really grateful that I'm not 20 years younger, trying to get a foothold in the Sydney property market. But it felt impossible 20 years ago, too, when my husband and I had a combined income of less than $50,000pa and interest rates were 11%. I wish I'd done a PDC then. I wish I'd read books like Your Money or Your Life instead of wanky Property Investor magazines. I would have made different choices.

    Money is always a dog and we've been brought up with envy as a major motivator. Yes, the fact that some people charge loads more than me for a PDC winds me up if I think about it. It winds me up more that there seems to be some kudos attached to more expensive courses, which seems contrary to permaculture. I'd like to be free of my big fat mortgage. I'd like my husband to work less and stay at home more (and be my garden slave). But I have to face myself at the end of each day and I know I am doing what's right for me.
    D
     
  9. Pragmatist

    Pragmatist Junior Member

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    Th nub of the problem has only really been identified in the last few posts. It's not about the world owing anybody a living, it's about the permaculture community offering a viable path for a newcomer who has nothing to offer but time, energy and enthusiasm. Without this, permaculture cannot call itself sustainable in social or economic terms. To replace the existing financial power structures, we must offer young people an option that they can see as viable.

    Note that I said "viable path" not "free ride". Insipidtoast's opening post showed willingness and enthusiasm to work hard at whatever work is required. If this is not enough then permaculture is doomed to remain a small fringe activity for those downsizing after a lifetime of building an asset base. It's not even a question of "fairness" or anybody being owed a job. It's simply a matter of self-interest for permaculture. Our numbers cannot grow unless new people can join without existing assets and be able to feed, clothe and house themselves from their efforts.

    The crux of this is capital (ie. land) Without land, all the great ideas and good ethics mean nothing because you have no means of production or self-sufficiency. Short of creating our own nation state, the only way to get land is to play the capitalist game in the mainstream economy. The USA appears to have had prices fall a fair bit since the peak but here in Australia the land price bubble remains higher than the USA ever achieved. Therefore the only options to obtain land are inheritance or crushing debt. As has been pointed out already in this thread, for most workers, income is barely enough to get by for many people unless you already own the land with which to support yourself. Saving the sort of money it takes to buy land is not realistic for most workers.

    Here in Australia most blocks of land are at least $100,000 (plus transaction costs and equipment/building costs) and saving that sort of money is very tough for most people unless you have tertiary qualifications (student debt) and are lucky enough to have a decent job in your field. Even then, most people would have trouble putting away $15k per year so that's 6-7 years of working like a dog and saving hard to buy a remote block that may not even get much rainfall so supporting yourself from it may not even be possible. Of course you have no time or money in that period to actually learn about permaculture.

    This is not intended as a whinge at all. I'm fortunate to have a relatively well-paid job that covers our living expenses including rent on a suburban block with a garden I can play in. Saving for land big enough to sustain us is not an option right now and this is something that continues to frustrate me in a country as large and sparsely-populated as Australia.
     
  10. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    It seems as if people could join together to purchase land, or a land owner could offer to sell small parcels to like-minded people (if the land is divisible) or invite people to come and share the land.

    It looks like both Australia and the US have a strong ethic of "paddle your own canoe" and that sharing and working together, relying on each other is seen as individual weakness....
     
  11. insipidtoast

    insipidtoast Junior Member

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    Why should I have to pay to live on the planet I was born on? The very idea is a big disgrace. What a predatory system we've created and successfully maintained through our social darwinist programming that has infected us on such a mass scale. “You know you’ve got to earn your keep!” Such quotes echo throughout my life from parents and teachers and peers who have successfully swallowed the pill of conformity. We live in an infinite universe with infinite possibilities. WE are an expression of all possibility - of infinite potential, and yet we find ourselves squabbling over breadcrumbs. No I won’t be quiet! No I won’t shut up! The daily struggle of survival for many prevents them from contributing anything meaningful to the world. Get over your own indoctrination and realize you’ve been conned. It’s the only way forward.

    The sun doesn’t charge us to shine! The trees don’t make us submit to jobs so that they keep on producing oxygen. Birds don’t need a passport to travel.

    “We must do away with the absolutely specious notion that everybody has to earn a living. It is a fact today that one in ten thousand of us can make a technological breakthrough capable of supporting all the rest. The youth of today are absolutely right in recognizing this nonsense of earning a living. We keep inventing jobs because of this false idea that everybody has to be employed at some kind of drudgery because, according to Malthusian-Darwinian theory, he must justify his right to exist. So we have inspectors of inspectors & people making instruments for inspectors to inspect inspectors. The true business of people should be to go back to school & think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along & told them they had to earn a living.”
    -Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983)

    @Pragmatist
    It's like you read my mind. I just emailed my friend saying essentially the same things.

    If my generation (and future generations) does not have the opportunity to get on a nice, large plot of land and put their permaculture knowledge to good use, then there really is no hope. That should be the main focus - however it must be accomplished...unless we want permaculture to be a graveyard of good intentions.

    There used to be a time on this earth when there was no such thing as real estate.

    "In 1851 Seattle, chief of the Suquamish and other Indian tribes around Washington's Puget Sound, delivered what is considered to be one of the most beautiful and profound environmental statements ever made. The city of Seattle is named for the chief, whose speech was in response to a proposed treaty under which the Indians were persuaded to sell two million acres of land for $150,000." -- Buckminster Fuller in Critical Path.

    Chief Seattle's Thoughts

    “How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.

    If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

    Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory and experience of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memories of the red man.

    The white man's dead forget the country of their birth when they go to walk among the stars. Our dead never forget this beautiful earth, for it is the mother of the red man. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters; the deer, the horse, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadows, the body heat of the pony, and man --- all belong to the same family.

    So, when the Great Chief in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land, he asks much of us. The Great Chief sends word he will reserve us a place so that we can live comfortably to ourselves. He will be our father and we will be his children.

    So, we will consider your offer to buy our land. But it will not be easy. For this land is sacred to us. This shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell you the land, you must remember that it is sacred, and you must teach your children that it is sacred and that each ghostly reflection in the clear water of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.

    The rivers are our brothers, they quench our thirst. The rivers carry our canoes, and feed our children. If we sell you our land, you must remember, and teach your children, that the rivers are our brothers and yours, and you must henceforth give the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.

    We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's grave behind, and he does not care. He kidnaps the earth from his children, and he does not care. His father's grave, and his children's birthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the earth, and his brother, the sky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His appetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.

    I do not know. Our ways are different than your ways. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. There is no quiet place in the white man's cities. No place to hear the unfurling of leaves in spring or the rustle of the insect's wings. The clatter only seems to insult the ears. And what is there to life if a man cannot hear the lonely cry of the whippoorwill or the arguments of the frogs around the pond at night? I am a red man and do not understand. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of a pond and the smell of the wind itself, cleaned by a midday rain, or scented with pinon pine.

    The air is precious to the red man for all things share the same breath, the beast, the tree, the man, they all share the same breath. The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a man dying for many days he is numb to the stench. But if we sell you our land, you must remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.

    The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. And if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred as a place where even the white man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow's flowers.

    So we will consider your offer to buy our land. If we decide to accept, I will make one condition - the white man must treat the beasts of this land as his brothers.

    I am a savage and do not understand any other way. I have seen a thousand rotting buffaloes on the prairie, left by the white man who shot them from a passing train. I am a savage and do not understand how the smoking iron horse can be made more important than the buffalo that we kill only to stay alive.

    What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.

    You must teach your children that the ground beneath their feet is the ashes of our grandfathers. So that they will respect the land, tell your children that the earth is rich with the lives of our kin. Teach your children that we have taught our children that the earth is our mother. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of earth. If men spit upon the ground, they spit upon themselves.

    This we know; the earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one family. All things are connected.

    Even the white man, whose God walks and talks with him as friend to friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We shall see. One thing we know which the white man may one day discover; our God is the same God.

    You may think now that you own Him as you wish to own our land; but you cannot. He is the God of man, and His compassion is equal for the red man and the white. The earth is precious to Him, and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator. The whites too shall pass; perhaps sooner than all other tribes. Contaminate your bed and you will one night suffocate in your own waste.

    But in your perishing you will shine brightly fired by the strength of the God who brought you to this land and for some special purpose gave you dominion over this land and over the red man.

    That destiny is a mystery to us, for we do not understand when the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires.

    Where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone.

    The end of living and the beginning of survival.”
     
  12. Unmutual

    Unmutual Junior Member

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    While I can agree that most bureaucratic things people do make little to no sense, exactly where would you get "free" land from? There may be unclaimed parcels of land somewhere in the world, but more than likely the piece of land you want belongs to someone already. There are more methods to buying land than just trading cash for it, but those opportunities are probably few and far between, Try bartering your services for land, and don't limit yourself to the perfect piece of land and don't limit yourself to just your native country. There may be people who will trade either permacultural services or simply hard work along with room and board for a few acres of desert or other marginalized/degraded land. Seek opportunity in the unwanted lands and you might be surprised. I'm not saying this will be easy, or won't require a lengthy research and negotiating period. But if you want to start off with no inputs, then you're probably dreaming. Even the native Americans had some inputs into their lands and the prosperity of those lands weren't free for the taking, and that hard work was usually over hundreds of years. Cash just makes things easier, but other methods are possible if you are willing to do the research.
     
  13. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    100% agree!
     
  14. Tildesam

    Tildesam Junior Member

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    It's all good and well that a small percentage of us are outraged at capitalism and the fact we have to buy land to bring it back to life, and that we have to own something we intrinsically own...

    But the current fact of the matter is that until "important" individuals in the world also think this too (think billionaires, insanely large land-holders, politically powerful individuals) then we're yelling into the wind.

    So what do we do? Protest? Shove information onto unwilling individuals? Threaten the government? Get land illegally? It's likely whatever we're aiming for will be labelled something to hate if it begins to go against the grain in a big way (as humans are wont to do) ... Is that not what happened to Communism, Socialism, Fascism? justification -> normalisation -> more problems

    So what else is there? I'm just going to put on my capitalist hat and suit and go do whatever they want until I can scrape up enough to survive. I'm 100% willing to join with anyone who's willing to work just as hard, happy to learn and share and receive and give, I mean we're social animals, I don't think we can live without it really.

    Ugh now I'm depressed so I'm going to eat some chocolate. Some non-organic chocolate in fact. That I earned with my capitalist money.
     
  15. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    People might be more willing to work and share with you if they didn't know you think they suck. I mean, I'm a human, and according to you I suck! It's not a happy thing to be 100% sucky. :(

    Personally I think humans are human, capable of being sucky but also capable of being lovable. At least that has been my personal experience of the human species. :)

    I think people often confuse our culture with "humanity" and see our culture's behavior as "human nature" even though there are examples of human cultures which behave differently than ours. Here's an old video everyone has already seen which discusses this:


    Toby Hemenway - How Permaculture Can Save Humanity and the Earth, but Not Civilization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nLKHYHmPbo

    I hope you feel better soon....
     
  16. Tildesam

    Tildesam Junior Member

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    *shifty eyes*

    Shhh you never read that, Capiche? ;-)
     
  17. Ludi

    Ludi Junior Member

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    Eat some chocolate! :D
     
  18. pebble

    pebble Junior Member

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    You don't need to own land to practice permaculture. You don't need to own land to make a living, from permaculture or otherwise.

    If someone gets permanently stuck, they're not practicing permaculture. There may be crucial structural reasons why someone can't practice permaculture.

    Native peoples that don't have western models of land ownership do still have rules around how land is used. Are there any human cultures where one can have land to oneself and be supported without having to earn one's keep? I can't think of any.

    If you can't make a living from permaculture where you live, do something else. There are many other worthwhile things to do in the world. If you are banging your head against a brick wall, then stop.
     
  19. sweetpea

    sweetpea Junior Member

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    The thicket is not gone, the eagle is not gone, so you don't need to worry about that. One needs to give back to society, your society, the one that gives you roads and policemen to protect your family and firemen to protect your house, and groceries and gas and utilities and schools and libraries and vehicles and toilet paper and water coming out your faucet without you lifting a finger...... not just take, take because you were born here and expect to be handed everything. I've never heard such a self-centered, selfish diatribe in my life. Honestly, insipid, how do you think it all happens? And you don't need to contribute? please.
     
  20. Pragmatist

    Pragmatist Junior Member

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    Wow - all that hate floating around out there :(

    The OP never demanded the world handed to him/her on a silver platter, just the reasonable ability to sustain oneself by working. As observed, permaculture doesn't seem to offer that unless you bring with you significant existing assets (primarily, land).

    Compare this to the current capitalist model in which we live. I have many issues with the current system (one reason I'm on this site) but it offers the following:
    • The reasonable chance for every person to sustain themselves through labour alone.
    • Essentials (food/shelter/clothing) generally available in exchange for the wage most people can earn through their labour.

    If permaculture is to displace the current social and economic structure then it needs to outcompete it at a personal level and that means offering at least the equivalent of these two key offerings of capitalism. All the great ideas of permaculture are fantastic but are no replacement for food in your belly. If the basics of survival are not available to the landless then the movement is, by definition, unsustainable.

    Nobody said anything about free land (except those accusing OP of demanding it) What is required is access to land, not necessarily the ownership of it. Without access to land, a person cannot even sustain themselves, much less generate surplus to distribute to the community.

    Land is different to other assets for a number of reasons and it accumulates all the true wealth of society to those who own it, if it is all privately owned with no commons. For a more complete discussion on the role of land ownership in the wealth and fairness of communities (and how it could be far-better managed), check out the Georgist policies of Prosper Australia and Earthsharing Australia Earthsharing Australia

    For a brief history of the commons, Noam Chomsky wrote this recent piece in Al Jazeera that covers it nicely: Destroying the commons

    The acknowledgement and discussion of these current weaknesses with the practicalities of permaculture are uncomfortable but necessary if this is to be more than a fringe activity for those lucky enough or old enough to already own land.
     

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