I saw something really interesting. By the subway, I saw someone selling fruits and vegetables. They were there several different days.
They almost definitely didn't have a State permit. I was surprised nobody called the police. Usually, if someone operates a business without a State license, some license-holder calls the State thugs to violently shut down the competition.
I was wondering if the produce was grown on some non-corporate farm? That would have been promising, if it were a 100% off-the-books operation. I assume they weren't paying taxes.
Last summer, I saw someone selling furniture out of a truck. I told my parents about it, and they made a purchase!
I considered buying some of the fruits. I figured my parents would object, so I told them about it first. Their reaction was interesting. My parents said "OMFG! You can't buy food from a non-State-licensed seller! That food is almost definitely tainted somehow! If you buy from a State-licensed seller, they have a physical store you can sue. If you buy from those guys, and the food is poisoned, then you'll never see them again!"
That was very interesting. My parents automatically assumed that someone without a State permit is probably selling damaged goods. My parents expressed similar hostility when I try buying stuff on the Internet.
Actually, someone without a State permit has a greater incentive to behave honestly. They don't want disgruntled customers complaining to the police!
As the State economy collapses, there will be more entrepreneurs like that agorist food seller. They weren't there last year! This is a promising development, even though I didn't buy from them. The food seller was a partial agorist, and probably didn't even know about it!
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Agorist Farmers?
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3 comments:
Perhaps a large number of people could club together and buy a large amount of land a long way away from ass clowns and thugs.
Then farm and live off the land.
With enough money wind turbines and solar panels could be purchased. Maybe even some assemble some flat-pack houses.
The fallacy is:
No matter where you live, you owe property taxes.
All the decent farmland is already claimed by some State.
I raise my own food. It doesn't take much land to do so. I don't use synthetic pesticides or fertilizer either. My food tastes better.
However, if I try to sell any of this, that is illegal. For example, it is now illegal to use natural fertilizer that hasn't been composted in a large specialty composting oven, which can only be built or purchased by large operations and requires substantial investment. There are all sorts of new laws in the last few years to prevent small farmers from existing against corporate chemical agriculture.
There's also a system called NAIS, national animal identification system. Supposed to be "voluntary" but it's not, and becoming more mandatory each year. Small producers can't afford (and don't want to) track each individual animal and file breech reports with the feds - each time your free range chicken crosses over to the neighbor's yard you are legally required to file an incidence report with the USDA. Of course large producers are exempt from most of the requirements, they can just get a "herd id" and skip the individual animal tracking requirements.
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