Since the takeover of our nation and world society by the corporations, we are mov-ing back to a feudalistic society owned by the super-rich and served by peasants-the vassals of an uncaring upper class. How did peasants survive for so many centuries under feudalism? They survived in small, self-contained mutual-aid villages. Moderns oppressed by the money system of this society can survive and even thrive the same way today.
PERMACULTURE
Permaculture sounds like an agricultural technique, but it is actually a communal technique, a modern adaptation of village life. Permaculture villages have been functioning for at least 50 years in Europe. Now the movement gathers force in the U.S. It uses modern techniques for independent energy, sewage, water and money systems. A better name for permaculture would be "dropout." Permaculture offers a sustainable lifestyle for those who either cannot sustain themselves in our current society or are disenchanted with it.
Basically you need a piece of arable land for a group of houses, the ability to construct houses, persons to grow non-poisonous organic foods, persons able to construct modern alternatives to the systems which we depend on for electricity, water, and sewage. For money the village uses a credit system, an exchange of services for credits instead of the greenstuff. The credit books are balanced just as ordinary money accounts would be. According to their skills, persons set their own "credit rates." Those who desire or need cash dollars can set up their own small business enterprise for outside cash, such as computer work or whatever.
The theme is cooperation, self-help, and mutual aid within a framework of independent dwellings. The setting is rural but due to our electronic society, radio, television, computers, it is not necessarily cut off from the rest of the world.
Permaculture folk use the latest innovative technology. Here are some examples:
STRAW HOUSES
Even the government is sponsoring straw as the latest, cheapest, more fireproof and weatherproof method of house construction. The Straw Bale Builders of Santa Fe, New Mexico, work on a government grant. Insurance, mortgages, and even loans to build straw houses are available, depending on the area. They grow more available as agencies become aware of them.
How do you build a house of straw that those notorious three little pigs can't blow down? You use straw bales, preferably rice straw, a glut on the market as it is illegal to burn it and it is useless as fodder. You build a wood frame, fill it with straw bales, set your roof or second story on the top of the frame, run your wires or pipes between the bales, then finish off the outside with stucco or whatever siding you prefer and the inside with plaster. Result: a one- or two-story, well insulated house with complete electricity and plumbing, cooler in summer and warmer in winter with your heating bill cut in half. But straw burns? Not so. The straw house corporation declares it has tested these houses under intense heat, and they are far less burnable than wood. The same applies to resistance to wind. Straw houses given the wind test are more stable than wood. Rain? Your roof and the siding protect against rain.
Best of all, straw houses can be a do-it-yourself project. You may need experts for electricity and plumbing, but stacking up those bales can be your own or a family project.
Aging of the structure? Archaeologists dug up a seven-thousand-year-old straw house in Egypt and some early pioneer-built straw houses still stand in the U.S.
RUBBER TIRE HOUSES
Another group is busily building with cast-off rubber tires. They pack and stack and claim that the result is a good liveable dwelling with all modern conveniences.
ENERGY SYSTEMS
For electricity, a windmill is suggested as an alternative or addition to solar energy. Although solar energy is the usual source for heat and light, wind-power from one windmill alone, it is claimed, will furnish electricity for five houses.
As for solar, with the know-how, it is not expensive to set up oneself. Sewage? Individual home sewage mechanisms can transform that awful offal into usable fertilizer for the garden. The technique has been around for over 20 years but little utilized due to our dependence upon cisterns and modern sewage systems. In short, we have been wasting our waste!
Kitchen garbage goes into the compost heap to further enrich the soil and produce a larger, more nutritious food source for vegetables and fruit trees, or a greater abundance of flowers to beautify the scene.
WATER
For water it's back to the farm or Third World style. If there is no available clean-water well, or if more water is desired, the cistern can catch rainwater and pipe it into the house or out to yard or field. Modern filter systems can give you security about the purity of this water if used for household use. Better yet, that water will not drain off into a sewer and flow away uselessly but can be used to best advantage.
Permaculture settlements are a sharing society but unlike the earlier communes, rather than share your privacy, you inhabit your own home, do your own thing, and share only when you wish. On the other hand, inhabitants of such a village help each other with building or communal projects, but do it for credits, just as if one were being paid cash for the work. That greenstuff is not absolutely needed in order to survive in comfort.
It's the new wave, forward to the past, with modern accoutrements, security, no worry about the landlord or paying the rent, or being able to feed the family, no anxiety about pesticide poisons in your food, no trips to the supermarket, and no worry about getting a job, that dreadful process of begging someone else to allow you to work for him to sustain you. Those with a job they love could still continue to work outside, just as those with a home job can continue that employment, but dropouts can drop right out of the dollar system and at last live in peace! Overall, that is the aim of life, to live in peace, without anxiety or fear. Permaculture seeks to create this admirable life condition.
Contacts:
The Permaculture Institute (PIN) of Northern California can clue you in to other permaculture organizations in the nation or the world: Address P.O. Box 627, Point Reyes Station, CA 94956 . Phone (415) 663-9090. PIN provides consultants for interested groups and offers internships for service compatible persons who wish to experience the permaculture lifestyle to decide how compatible it may be for themselves and their own needs.
Straw Bale Builders, 31 Old Arroyo Chamiso, Santa Fe, NM 87505, Phone (505) 989-4400.
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