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Earning Our Survival?

Raising the Bar for Humanity Through Local Food-Based Economies

By Michael ThielmannPublished 6 years ago 4 min read
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Human beings are meant for so much more than what we have known in our painful history. Even with all the progress we have made in the last two centuries or so, we find ourselves in a time where our deepest needs and desires are covered up by a sophisticated system where we are required to earn our own survival.

When we peel this back a few layers in terms of basic necessities like food and water, we can start to see how fundamentally absurd this really is. How would our hunter/gatherer ancestors perceive the lives we live today? The planet provides everything we need, but over the course of history, we have found that even the basic survival instincts have been usurped by the greed of the few at the expense of the many.

The government attempts to fill in the gaps for people who have trouble meeting their own survival needs and this has been a double-edged sword at best. The obvious problems of monetarily enabling people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol and are caught in a cycle of self destructive choices is the most common criticism of the welfare state; the redistribution of taxpayer money from an ever-expanding government.

The classic liberal vs conservative style debates can rage on ad nauseum in terms of the government's role in helping those in need and the effects this has on the economy and society as a whole. The bottom line is everyone deserves at least the basics of daily survival. How we can achieve that in our local communities and beyond is where people have a range of different ideas.

The solutions I want to focus on involve, fundamentally, a shift in the way we perceive ourselves as human beings and our individual and collective responsibilities we have towards ourselves, each other, and the planet.

If we rely solely on governments to provide for us in times of need we will over time reinforce a sort of statist cycle of codependency. Governments in the west can be great at offering "free money" in order to buy votes from people. It is this kind of short-term instant gratification that can turn robust, creative, and adaptable human beings into beggars in a sort of Stockholm Syndrome situation with their own governments.

Empowering individuals and local economies is the key to break away from the cycle of poverty and government dependency. For instance, I am advocating in my town on Vancouver Island to begin a project involving growing as much local food as possible which would create jobs and lower food costs at the same time.

If a local government wants to invest money, a great place to start would be in projects that can empower people and create lasting, sustainable jobs that stabilize the economy as well as increasing morale.

Rather than giving people money for welfare it would make more sense to simply give them food, shelter, and basic necessities directly and work with them in terms of healing from any addictions, mental health issues, and other problems they face in life.

A good example of this principle involved a real interaction I had with a homeless man in my town. He asked me for some money to buy "a muffin and a pop." I somewhat reluctantly gave him five dollars and he went on his way. My wife suggested it would have been better to buy him something ourselves and give it to him directly. Later that day I saw the man drinking our five dollars with some friends behind the community centre.

I thought about my wife's idea of buying a meal rather than giving money. I then thought of the idea of creating job opportunities for able-bodied but afflicted individuals like the man in this anecdote. A core reason as to why people continue drinking or using drugs on the street is to mask the pain of being there in the first place.

A big problem is that when people are homeless and caught in an addictive spiral it is difficult to ever get back into the workforce, especially when governments and individuals like myself are so willing to hand out money without offering real solutions.

Food production at a local level is becoming more and more popular, even in urban environments. This creates a lot of low-skill jobs that can be offered to marginalized people as a means of rehabilitation and integration into a healthy community.

When I began working with people in a social work capacity I realized that one of the most healing and therapeutic things to encourage is gardening and working with the earth in general. If local governments could see the benefit of empowering people from the ground up, we can begin to gainfully employ the meekest among us and create more self-sustaining communities of empowerment and peace.

humanity
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About the Creator

Michael Thielmann

I am an addiction and mental health counsellor living in Salmon Arm British Columbia. I love engaging with people about overcoming any challenges in their life and being vulnerable and open about my own process as well. <3

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