A while ago I wrote an essay in which I argue that one way to fight poverty is bring back the “poor farm”. Each state could buy up an entire small town and some surrounding farmland, bring in a lot of homeless people, and have them strive for self-sufficiency as a community. That’s kinda communistic, isn’t it?
If certain people can’t make it in normal society, what makes you think they can make it (or would even be interested in) your pre-fab, fake society that mirrors the society they can’t handle?
If the o.p. really wanted to be a real Communist, though, he’d also support putting fluoride in the water. “That’s the way your hardcore Commie works.”
Ah, yet another modest proposal.
Regarding communes, they don’t seem to function very well even in the best of circumstances, i.e. with people who are there voluntarily and are at least nominally mentally balenced. I don’t know of the o.p.'s upbringing, but I’d invite him to come down to L.A.'s Skid Row or out to Santa Monica to see what real homeless people–not just ones played by Robin Williams–act like. It’s pretty clear that expecting the average street person to be functional enough without some pretty significant mental health support and rehabilitation is a futile task.
However, there was this idea I saw in a movie once. See, you take Manhattan Island, surround it with a fifty foot high concrete wall, and mine all bridges and waterways…
Well for starters, members would have to be motivated enough to move to a rural area and make a go of it. Obviously it’s not for everyone. Certainly there’d be counseling and other methods to coax a modicum of responsibility and community spirit from the members. You want to strike the right balance between being adequately motivating and being non-coercive.
As a final touch, I’d have a series of signs on the highway leading into town:
*If you build it
I’m all for helping the destitute, even with tax dollars which are currently being squandered on war and pork, but your idea seems pretty flawed. I don’t think you can take people off the streets, who are often mentally ill, unskilled, and have substance abuse problems and physical ailments, and throw them into a rural environment. I doubt if many of our functioning employed urban or suburban citizens, even doctors or accountants, could farm effectively. Farming is a complicated and skilled job. I think youd be better off with mental health treatments, job training and placement.
What your argument is lacking is an understanding of why people become homeless. Homelessness is not just some issue of folks not having a home. I volunteered for several years at a shelter and at least 80% of the men and women there were mentally ill. Often it was a dual diagnosis compounded by drug and alcohol addiction. Most of them were rotating in and out of the penal system which did nothing to address their mental issues.
Merely throwing them onto a farm and telling them to be self sufficient is not going to work and if you think about it, it’s just as if not more cruel than what our society does with them now.
You know, farming and ranching, since I guess some of the homeless will want meat, isn’t easy.
Or cheap.
The only thing such a plan has going for it is that it is the ultimate NIMBY plan. We will packup and ship the homeless to a distant location so we won’t have to look at them anymore. Yes, kids, the homeless went to a farm. Where they are happy and have plenty of food and can run around all day.
Looking around this very moment in the downtown public library in which I work, I’m laughing my ass off. Dude, if these people had any ability or desire to work, they’d be working. They’re not. They’re pretending to read the paper and waiting for it to be time to wander down to the free lunch at the church. A few of them are drinking and washing their clothes in the men’s room.
Some of them aren’t working because they’re crazy, some of them aren’t working because they’re disabled, and some of them aren’t working because they don’t want to work. None of these people are gonna want to work on your farm, trust me.
I have never been homeless but I have been sent to do farm work by collectivist government, and I must say that I wish this post was in the pit so I can tell you all the many, many, ways in which I would like you to take your ideas and use them upon your person.
The system would be highly organized–run by states’ welfare departments–and prospective members would be subject to screening. Mentally ill people would not bu suitable unless dedicated facilities were included to address their needs. Those with chemical dependancy problems would be subject to testing.
And membership would not be drawn just from the homeless, but also from people who would rather give this a try than spend 2/3 of their income on crappy, crime-ridden inner city housing.
(Thanks for the responses so far, but some teensy-weensy acknowledgement that folks have read the essay and not just responded to the OP would be nice.)
I missed the edit window and I realize my comment is innapropriate and uncalled for, please accept my apologies.
And now to give you my take on your essay. This might sounds like circular argument, but the reason your plan won’t work is that it hasn’t worked. Even among people who are highly motivated and willing to sacrifice collectivist enterprises fail, mostly because human beings are human beings. Sooner or later someone will want to slack off, or work less hard, and someone else will see that and do the same, and pretty soon you either have to coherce the people to work or your enterprise fails, because it is dependent on willing workers.
“Hmmm…Soylent…red? No, sounds too much like blood. Blue? Too medical. Orange? Too citrus-y. Yellow? Purple? Oh, yes, I’ll have a piece of Key Lime pie, thank you. Oh, I got it! I know what we’re going to call it! Gentlemen, I introduce…”
Of course, the flesh of the homeless might be unfit for human consumption - it might be too tainted by intoxicants of one sort of another (lighter fuel, ink eradicator, mothballs, I don’t know what), in which case it would be not only inedible but a proximate cause of demise.
And then we’d have to call it “Soylent But Deadly”.
Your idea looks interesting on the surface, sqweels, but I think it needs one more item to be viable:
A CAMERA CREW.
Turn this into a reality (non-competition) show! The ad revenues alone should cover costs. Just let the camera crew film the bums in your commune 24/7, document their efforts to survive on their own, get their confessionals, etc, etc. (Hey, if Kid Nation got filmed, this should, cause these are adults.)
