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Patrick Cleburne
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Comments by "Patrick Cleburne" (@patrickcleburneuczjsxpmp9558) on "1975: \"Crank Peasant\" JOHN SEYMOUR on SELF-SUFFICIENCY | Living on the Land | BBC Archive" video.
Why isn't it feasible? Isn't Seymour proof of the extent to which it is possible?
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@xanmontes8715 Yeah, but historically people have commonly had to move to more affordable areas (e.g. moving west across America) to be able to afford land, too, and I'd guess Seymour moved to the property in this video from another area for the same reason. That's especially true when, like you say, large percentages of the population have congregated around a limited number of large cities.
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And there aren't enough resources for everyone to live the modern American/British life either. But for every youngish person in the US/UK/etc. that has had an experience of the lifestyle Seymour lived enough to spark a desire to live that lifestyle and has a philosophical commitment to back it up and isn't physically handicapped and isn't already a debt slave and isn't already married to someone unwilling to make the move with him, there is land for a small homestead for every such person.
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@celticfiddle7605 And if you're an American or a Brit and really want to live that lifestyle and aren't handicapped (physically or with debt or by old age...) you don't have to move to another country or continent. It's probably harder in the UK than the US, but plenty of people are continuing to follow a path more or less like Seymour's in the UK. For as few people as actually want to pursue that lifestyle, there's more than enough land for those people. And if the whole world decided overnight that it wanted to feed itself through peasant farming then it would obviously be a much more challenging transition than just some people gradually making changes at the margins, but there's certainly enough land in the world. Peasant farming feeds more people per acre than conventional farming, largely because conventional farming carries so much waste with it (turning grain into fuel, feeding grain to animals better suited to eating grass, not being able to make use of spaces that are too small or awkward for big machinery, not making use of the same space for multiple uses...)
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