Perhaps there was a time in this nation when there was such a thing as self-sufficiency. I remember going to a quilt exhibit in Indiana in the late '70's and seeing, in among the modern quilts, a 19th century quilt made by a woman who grew the plants from which she spun the thread to make the quilt, as well as the plants from which she made the dye for it. Then she made and dyed the quilt herself. THAT is self-sufficiency. (And even then, she might have had a midwife to help her give birth to her children, so health care, such as it was back then, was not always ??Do It Yourself. ? )
Today, when someone lauds the virtues of self-reliance, I think of the Unabomber, alone in his Montana shack, building his bombs. Yet even he biked into town once in a while for a sack of flour. If you believe the government accounts, the assassin is always a lone gunman. And I have never read a story of an old lady living alone with a lot of cats that made mention of her being on welfare. At least once a year, I read a story of someone who was discovered dead days, weeks, months, and in one case, two years after passing, without family and unmissed by neighbors or tradespeople. That's the gold standard of self-sufficiency.
We are not independent; we are interdependent. And though it costs us something to see that our neighbor is taken care of in times of need, we also benefit from our community's members being as strong and healthy as possible so that they all can contribute their time and effort in providing goods and services to the community according to their inclinations. That's where freedom comes in: freedom of choice in what we do with our lives. I fail to see freedom in people working a job, or two or three, just because it was what they could get to pay the bills.
In this, Karl Marx was correct: ??From each, according to his abilities. To each, according to his needs ? should be the guiding principle of economics.
??That's Socialism! ? you cry in horror. Yes, it is. So what? We are all members of a society. That is something the self-sufficiency fetishists have forgotten.
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