What is self sufficiency and why should you care?

When someone tells you to be self sufficient you should know what it means. It does not mean working for someone else. That is a misapplication a misnomer.

(Note: this article is in progress — publishing as is for various reasons)

What self sufficiency means is to be able to subsist from your own work from your own labor. You are not free if you are forced to work for someone else.

The new definition people have used during the neoliberal period has meant to be independent of other people or social services. This is a misapplication. If you are surviving by working for someone else you are sufficient but not self-sufficient you are job-sufficient or work-sufficient or maybe self reliant.

From numerous materials before the age of neoliberalism, self sufficient meant living off the land:

Cabin Right — 400 acres of land

Self Sufficient — free and equal (Frontier Living)

Land was for the taking. Money held no value.

Settlements

cabins strung along both sides of a crick with a fort

Log cabin

So in the not too distant past citizens could be self sufficient. They could put up a cabin and live off the land. They could stake a claim and claim land (although not everyone) to live off of for free.

That’s what it meant. Land of the free was literally land for free. Free to choose, free to settle, free to live.

Loss of self sufficiency

Through various changes homesteading and settling was lost.

The following excerpt from this article describes the history:

We see the intentional creation of scarcity and withdrawal of subsistence living mainly for poor, rural and minorities:

The idea called proletarization and what some call wage slavery was the process of displacing and dispossessing people of their land to force them into the work force or labor market.

Was life better now than in the past before?

Is life better now than in the past?

In the excerpts from Prehistoric Myths in Modern Political Philosophy by Karl Widerquist and Grant S McCall (2018) we see a few claims that it is not for growing group of disenfranchised people, sometimes called the precariat, or the lower classes denied even the ability to be self sufficient:

Note: this article is in progress — published early for various reasons.