I teach self-reliance, the world’s most subversive practice. I teach people how to grow their own food, which is shockingly subversive. So, yes, it’s seditious. But it’s peaceful sedition.
Bill Mollison
When I first heard these words, spoken by David Holmgren, I had to look up the word “sedition.” Even as a person fluent in English, it was a new word. And then I became both scandalized and a little bit evil.
Sedition, as defined by Cambridge, means “language or behaviour that is intended to persuade other people to oppose their government.” In short, to be seditious is to be rebellious and even a little bit treasonous towards the authorities, especially if you persuade others to do the same as you are doing. The dictionary also gives “active resistance” as an alternative. I like that!
But how does Permaculture achieve all that?
- It deprives the government of tax revenue.
- It takes people out from under government/corporate control.
Rendering unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar – not what he requests!
Once you fully embrace Permaculture as a lifestyle, you soon realize that money plays an increasingly tiny role in your day-to-day life. Your food gets picked, milked, hunted or caught, or slaughtered, and you can mostly trade for whatever else you need, be it goods or services. Transport also becomes less of an expense as more of what you need gets discovered locally.
Let’s unpack that.
The government (ANY government) derives a huge part of its income from taxes and levies by individuals. The moment you leave your job with its regular payment (and its automatic tax deductions), you mess up their sums. Now you buy a property (with maybe some tax attached), vegetable seeds, fruit trees, and animals, and you decide to grow food, yourself. Yes, initially there are costs involved and equipment to be bought from stores, but good quality equipment would last a lifetime if properly cared for. After a planting season or two, it will be time to bid goodbye to VAT, and other sales taxes linked to food and other consumer goods, especially if said vegetables and fruit trees are fertilized by compost.
Next, you are considering buying an electric tricycle with a trailer attached and using it to transport yourself and your goods. Once more there are starting costs involved, but after a few months, the solar charging system has paid itself off and you realize you can travel short distances relatively quickly for minimal effort and for free. The government can’t tax sunshine, so there’s that! No car means no licensing fees, no fuel levies, or expensive replacement parts to pay tax on. Public transport tickets would give “them” a bit of tax income, but it’s not as if you plan to travel long distances daily.
For a lot of what you need, you scrounge, you innovate, you build, and you barter. Little to no money changes hands in that process – not nearly enough to arouse the tax man’s interest. There are also many opportunities to forage and hunt for food. That includes extremely fancy mushrooms.
Finally, you sell off your surplus production, but once again, that income would probably not arouse the interest of the authorities as you remain below the minimum tax threshold. However, the cash is probably enough to buy some more supplies for the next planting season and maybe a nice outfit or two.
Depending on what exactly you have growing on your farm, you will probably be living the “high life” as compared to most other people, but your tax responsibilities will be a fraction of theirs, and your income wholly (or mostly) disposable! And there’s nothing that the government would be able to do about that!
Freerange People
It is to any society’s benefit to have quiet, obedient members who do as they are told and follow the paths set out for them. However, Permaculture gardeners do not follow those rules. In most cases, they home-school their children, instilling their values into their offspring from a very young age. They also follow religious practices that might be at odds with those of their immediate communities.
But in my not-so-humble opinion, their biggest rebellion occurs when their behavior clashes with what the local authorities consider “civilized society.”
After all, who says a compost toilet system can’t be implemented and run hygienically? And who says everyone should be connected to the city power grid? And who are you to criticize the tomatoes that this gardener has planted at his front door? Are you perhaps jealous?
The problem is that these Permaculture people are a law unto themselves. They don’t conform to what others expect from them, and they don’t want to live like everyone else around them. That is one of the reasons why Permaculture gardeners move away from the cities and into the boondocks, where they may or may not form communities that adhere to their principles and ethics. It also means less control for the Authorities. And so the cycle continues.