this post was submitted on 18 Apr 2025
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I am a farmer living on the edge of nowhere; this just wouldn't work in a lot of situations.
The US homesteading is not the standard in a lot of places. Loads of places put all the houses together in a little village and the farmers go out to the fields instead of living isolated at their farm. Also, you have to remember that if we actually did outlaw private motor vehicle ownership, commercial transportation would explode. Much, much smaller towns would have access to regular bus and train schedules. Furthermore, the business landscape would change and your standard stores would again be more accessible in smaller towns.
Would there be some disadvantages? Absolutely. Would there be some advantages? Absolutely.
I consider the advantages to be more than worth it, even in the more trying situations.
I live in Japan and we do have little groupings of houses out from which the farms radiate, but it's like 10-12 houses and not what I might call a village. It's about an hour to the train station that runs once per hour (2-3 times on a weekday during morning rush hour, but oddly not the evening one). We have no continuous bus service (you can call and try to reserve it and it should come). The gaps are filled by taxis that, generally, stop running at 18:00 most nights and more like 20:00 on rare occasions. You could be waiting a long time to get one.
I guess I technically am a business as of this year, if that matters, though only a sole-proprietorship and not a corporation.
The problem it doesn't solve is that I'm not going to the farm supply store or home center and getting that stuff back on a train; loads of block, fertilizer, a wood chipper, etc. to go through a few of my recent purchases. Nor would any taxi here be willing to handle most of that.
Edit: just want to be clear: I still do use pedal-assist ebikes to do what I can as weather permits and my main vehicle is a 649cc kei car which, hopefully someday, I will replace with something electric. I am all for reducing car reliance and ownership, I just don't think it makes sense to do in 100% of cases.
You would probably have a small flatbed for your business, or rent one from a local, as needed. But it sounds like you have enough need that owning a vehicle would be worth it. I would imagine that, in practice, gaining access to a vehicle would be a business perk, kind of like how a lot of micro businesses will be generous with what they consider to be a business expense for tax purposes. Also, sure, in reality farm equipment would probably be exempt.
Anyway, society is filled with rules and design choices that create winners and losers. Right now, with the current motor vehicle standard, many people gain the convenience of having a car or truck for personal use. But it means we have to spend a lot on roads to carry all the extra traffic, lots of people die in accidents, we're polluting the air, we're dumping rubber into the soil and water (from tires), we're living more sedentary lifestyles, etc. Whenever someone purposes a change to society's rules, it is very common for people to only think of the current positives and the potential negatives, while ignoring the current negatives and potential positives.
Not that this proposal is ever gonna fucking happen.