Joel Salatin, Food Freedom, and Ron Paul

Saw Joel Salatin speak this weekend. Great motivator and energizer.

He spoke about how food, like liberty, brings people together.

He is very well read in libertarian ideas and economics, not just in breadth but in depth. The real magic is that he is astute enough to know how to talk with the left "progressive" crowds who usually show up to see him speak.

For example instead of using the term "property rights" he uses the phrase "value creates stewardship". Which I guess works the other way to turn libertarians and "rightists" on to "environmentalism" too.

We had lunch with him and it just so happened my wife and I sat directly across from him. Everyone in within his earshot was chatting him up, saying things like, "I know so-and-so. You should get together with so-and-so and make a plan for the climate." or "I'm so-and-so and I do this-a-that for the BLM or other government-whatchmacallit; I'd like you to help us come up with some new rules".

My wife and I just ate our lunch and looked at each other smirking. Then in a lull in the conversation, Joel looked up at us and said "You two are libertarian aren't you?" He had picked up on our reactions to some of his comments during his talks over the weekend and figured us out.

I said we were. He said it was unusual to find libertarians at his talks, which I found strange.

I think having sensed some libertarian support in his midst he may have felt a little more emboldened. He said "I distrust pretty much any government agency."

My wife then said "Joel I get the sense that the plan" -since everyone was chatting his ear off about coming up with a "plan"- "you support is not having a plan, but supporting individuals to go out and do their own thing".

"Absolutley!" he said.

Needless to say, most everyone did a 180 and began hooting and hollering about how they too distrusted the government and thought we should have less regulations etc., It was quite funny.

We talked about how there hasn't been a free market in this country for at least 100 years. How governments subsidize and legalize pollution.

The beautiful part is that during this weekend we took the opportunity to ask him somewhat leading questions and he specifically mentioned Ron Paul twice as an example of someone leading a movement of individuals determining their own future.

We gave him some rowdy ra-ras for that, which turned heads.

It was a great motivational weekend. And it is amazing that someone like Joel Salatin is a self-described libertarian & Ron Paul supporter because he knows how to talk with the left progressives who (rightfully) demonstrate intense interest in organic foods. He had enlightened the whole seminar on the evils of government regulation by the end of the weekend.

He shared stories about how Michael Pollan has changed his mind on so many things because of meeting Joel. Even the editor of his new book called him to tell him that his manuscript converted her from a self-described liberal to a self-described libertarian! (The new book coming out Oct. 1st is called Folks This Ain't Normal.

If you want to see a model of how different things could be read his stuff, visit his farm, or go see him talk! My wife and I are planning on starting a family farm - it is the path we think we are most capable of doing to support liberty. Local politics just wasn't for us. Food is powerful and sacred. And a free food system is the backbone of a free society. Joel talked repeatedly about the "Jeffersonian intellectual agrarian" as something to strive for. We agree.

If enough family farms can cooperate to feed a region (Joel supplies meat to over 5000 families) then there is support for those people to leave their jobs in the Patron State's subsidiary economy and revive latent industries. There are organic, open-source farms...but what about open-source mining, smelting, saw-mills, etc.,?

Joel talked a bit on this too, and demonstrated (to me at least) the sophistication of his economic understanding. His farm makes use of multi-use mid-scale and small-scale machines. Which is in contrast to the capital intensive single-use machinery present on most corporate farms (and corporations in general).

These single-use machines are so capital-intensive that the entire organization must be made subservient to them. Finances, labor hours, production runs, all subservient to the fancy machine in order to get a production run that can adequately amortize it. So the farmer (or the laborer) becomes either beholden to the machine or the bank.

A free and open society would likely use machinery in the way Joel has...multi-use light-medium machinery capable of multiple functions. Once a certain production run for a certain product adequately supplies demand or uses up local inputs, the machinery is changed over to a different production run. Then the cycle repeats. These cycles respect the production-price signal feedback loop. See Kevin Carson's Organizational Theory for more on this if you like.

Needless to say, Joel is a very well-spoken freedom advocate and it's great to have someone like him out there who can change people's minds for liberty.

If you think so too, consider supporting the Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, which helps small farmers defend themselves against legal harassment and assault. (Like Rawesome foods just so recently experienced for selling raw milk). ($100 donors will receive Joel's new book!)

And keep in mind, if you are struggling with how to connect with left-leaning potential Ron Paul supporters FOOD FREEDOM is likely your easiest way in!