Infrastructure

the underlying foundation or basic framework (as of a system or organization)

[from Merriam-Webster Dictionary]

Infrastructure is a publicly maintained support system that creates/allows/incites certain potentials actions/structures/forms/spaces for both individuals and groups . The success of any environment or institution is directly related to the strength and relevance of its infrastructure. Infrastructures also determine the amount of independence afforded an individual. Rigid, inflexible infrastructures dictate how one is to operate and limits the body politic from enacting structural change.

The Future Farm is fundamentally an infrastructure [support system] that allows individuals to be self-sufficient by creating a flexible physical structure that has the capability to adapt to changing economic, social, and environmental conditions. Additionally, The Future Farm's educational mission is an infrastructural resource that places individuals in control over the production of their own primary survival resources [see post below].

Democratization

Premise:
The single, fundamental drive of an individual is survival. As such, our lives are ordered by the dual needs for food (immediate survival of the individual) and sex (long-term survival of the species). In contemporary culture, the three primary resources for survival are food, water, and energy.

According to Karl Marx, political power is dependent upon control over the means and methods of production. For example, a capitalist system places control in the hands of the individual, while a communist system in the hands of a ruling elite. Thus, an individual that is unable to control the production of his own primary survival resources is effectively rendered powerless.

    Proposal:
In our current political/economic system, people do not have the leverage or space to maneuver for political, economic, or social change because they depend upon that system for their primary means of survival - food, energy, and water. Our dependance upon the grid [food, water, and energy production and distribution] to which we are attached forces us to accept it, regardless of its inefficiencies, inequalities, and environmental effects.

But what if we were able to detach ourselves from the grid and from the systems of production, distribution, and control that curtails the grassroots foundations of a democratic state? What if individuals were given the infrastructure in which to produce their own food, water, and energy and, consequently, the space and leverage to rally against the controlling bureaucracies?

The Future Farm will be the vehicle through which individuals reclaim their independence from the corporate-controlled systems that dictate their very means of survival. Control over what, when, and how will shift from the elite few to the empowered many. As such The Future Farm will be a catalyst for political action, as the newly empowered populace, removed from the yoke of controlling bureaucracies, will have the leverage to demand social and economic change.