LOPIN: A Manifesto For Sustainable Occupation and Development Of Land

From COVID-19 stems both hardships and opportunities. While thousands of businesses are going bankrupt a handful of farseers are making top dollar providing cures, remote collaboration tools and home makeovers to the gullible and the desperate. In this new reality the same old adage rings true: the poor get poorer and the rich get richer.

Historically one safeguard against inequality was inheritance. A homestead with a 250 acre lot would sub-divide it for their children, empowering the next generation with a place to build a house, harvest firewood and harbour wealth from turmoil. Unfortunately much like our health systems in the face of COVID this culture has been in decline for decades.

On one hand most young people have simply lost interest in agricultural and forest development. Our grandparents often blame this on Starbucks, iPhones and fidget spinners. But topping the inflated success of the Greatest Generation is only possible with massive government subsidies, hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans and astronomical luck. Before COVID the current generation of farmers and forest developers was already plagued with never-before-seen rates of bankruptcy, depression and suicide. Safe to say that all X-Box Live subscriptions aside that sort of entrepreneurial deathtrap isn't for everyone.

Woods too are gentrifying. With no successors game enough to pick up the baton many retired landowners see no other option than selling off the land. After all sub-dividing means hurting its industrial productivity. In an ultra-competitive global market agriculture and forest development can only get bigger. Anything smaller is charity. This leaves the poor devils with nothing but aspirations of living on or owning a woodlot locked out by sky-high prices and limited financing options.

The real estate bubble was never going to stop at the inner cities. Since the mid-2010s I've seen land that our ancestors had spent hundreds of years painstakingly clearing, labouring and nurturing being sold for parts to mega corporations and rabid realtors that package it up and sell it off to investors gearing up for condominiums and luxury cottages. Finding it impossible to finance their projects while sinking in debt many people give up ambitions to return to the land. They grind out their days hitchhiking from apartment to apartment while day-dreaming about moving into an overpriced house on a microscopic lot in the picketed elephant graveyard their relatives all settled into.

After all suburbia has become the commoner's Beverly Hills. While the same can probably be said of other provinces I speak for Quebec when I say that American illusions of prosperity have largely supplanted traditional values of minimalism and living off the land. Success is no longer measured by making the most out of nothing to achieve self sufficiency. Success means owning the largest house possible filled with meaningless collections of plasma TVs, leather couches and action figures, not to mention the largest garage possible with as many new cars and 4-wheelers and skidoos as possible. Instead of chopping dead trees into firewood to leave enough sunlight for the saplings to grow, home owners fuss over tempos to shelter the cars that don't fit in their garages in time to drive down to Florida or fly to Cuba for the winter. Summer days are no longer spent surveying the land and maintaining trails. It's all about cashing in on tenants while driving a speedboat around an artificial lake 15 minutes away from the nearest liquor store. After years of pushing papers at a government office these Elvis Grattons retire with fat federal pensions. They use the money from selling real estate to finance their hoarding habits in a high-end elderly home. That is until a stroke cuts them out of their own free agency. A few more years down the road an inoperable cancer transfers them to an end-of-life facility. Left alone with nothing but a life insurance policy and mountains of debt to their name, they wonder why their children hate them.

If the French revolutionaries saw us they would turn in their graves. The feudalism they bled and shed blood to eradicate is turning up again. Simply replace fiefdoms and serfs with gig economies and student loans. The end result is essentially the same. I fear that in a few years occupying a piece of ground will be like choosing an ISP. If a real-estate developer turns you off with exorbitant prices you might still cling to the belief that you can get back at them by going to the developer next door. You'll find that the prices are the same no matter where you go.

That's the whole point of monopoly. The company that pisses on your budget in the beginning is the one that wires the optic fibre into your home at the end of the day. "Competitors" are all owned by the same handful of individuals. There is no freedom of choice beyond the jingle of their commercials and the colour of their logos.

I don't know about you, but that's a world I don't want to live in. While the future looks bleak rest assured: at the time of writing I still have hope. The window of opportunity is getting smaller but it's still open.

Let this be on record: on July 1st 2021 I'm going off grid, or at least moving onto a woodlot. It's more than possible. All I have to do is figure out a plan of action, wing it and see if something works out.

If you have ideas, objections or just feel like having a conversation please reach out. In the meantime I will be logging my progress on this website. I don't just believe that going off-grid is doable. I believe that anyone who takes their causes seriously, be it ecology, small government or minimalism, can also get out there and make it happen. There is strength in numbers. We have a better chance of achieving our objectives and preserving our respective heritages by working together.

If you still have doubts don't ask "why", ask "why not." The usual reasons for staying in and around cities are falling apart. No party, activity or tourist attraction is safe with COVID-19 and unrest flying around. Companies are finally realizing how much money they save with remote work. Now everyone is stuck in their overpriced flats wondering why the fuck they moved into the city in the first place. If you grew up in rural homes it's never too late to come back to your roots. If you've never set foot in a forest you have everything to gain from venturing outside. No matter where you or your parents come from there's plenty of space for everyone.

If we don't take care of the earth some corporation is going to ruin it for us. You like progress, equality, dreams? Start on an individual level, with your goals, on your own terms. Let's make a support group out of it. I'll set up a Discord channel, we can all introduce ourselves and let each other know what (and how) we're doing with our woodlot/self-sufficiency/off-grid projects. DM me on Twitter if the Discord channel interests you.

Till then, hold my beer.