Sometimes, I see on the internet men advising that men must be self-sufficient to be considered a man. I don't see this as a necessarily virtuous or optimal goal for civilization. I can understand a homesteader being self-sufficient, but does he not still buy some supplies to work the farm, or is the expectation that he makes his own tools and everything else he uses? The Soviets called those who were self-sufficient kulaks and had many of them killed. So, doesn't one have to be not just self-sufficient but also participate in broader society, or at least prevent oneself from being dragged to the gulags by having a strong network?
Is a thief self-sufficient because there will always be people to rob from? Is a government official self-sufficient because there will always be people to tax? Is a banker self-sufficient because checking accounts are almost necessary with how payments are structured in the modern era? Is a mobster self-sufficient because he has people to extort?
Cultivating a society that values virtue is the best masculine attitude in my opinion because large groups can be turned against those who are self-sufficient and will kill those who are all alone.
This is the advice thread that I am referring to for what that is worth (https://nitter.net/MasculineSage/status/1560589430729183232#m):
You're articulating a very extreme version of self sufficiency, and taken to that extreme I agree that it's bad advice. Even if you could do things like grow your own food, make your own tools, etc it would be retarded to do so. Anyone who's taken a intro level economics course knows what comparative advantage is. Even if you can do everything on your own you're better off doing what you do best and making mutually beneficial trades to get things you need but others are better at making. That way everyone saves the time and energy it would take to do everything.
A more common version of self sufficiency that I see people advocate is making enough money to enough to support yourself without being financially dependent on anyone else. That is very good advice. If you're financially dependent on someone then they have leverage against you and you're not really your own man. That's what the tweet you link to is getting at. For example, a lot of men make the mistake of becoming dependent on their girlfriend/wife to help pay the mortgage or rent on a more expensive place than they could afford on their own. Once a man does that she has him by the balls, because even if he somehow manages to avoid getting divorce raped he can't afford the place on his own. Plus if the divorce court does get involved she'll inevitably get to live there while he foots the bill. So yeah, self sufficiency is a good way to avoid being in a codependent situation. You're really not free unless you're financially independent.
I know this is an extreme view, but you are never financially independent if you are reliant on a currency that could be hyper-inflated (and no this is not advocating for crypto currency, I have my own issues with that).
Taken from https://www.thefreedictionary.com/self-sufficient:
"able to supply one's or its own needs without external assistance."
Perhaps, I am being pedantic, but I define "needs" as food, water, and shelter and "external assistance" as any help to obtain these items from any other source other than oneself. Maybe the term independent (as much as one can be) is better than the term self-sufficient. I don't think self-sufficiency exists, or the term simply doesn't sound right to me.
Conflating self sufficiency with total isolated independence. Farmers sell food instead of eating all of it because they need things that food itself can't provide. Even before a medium of exchange existed farmers were bartering their food in communities, and to detach yourself from society probably meant death (or at least a high sacrifice and risk). When we talk about self sufficiency today we are expressing something related but in a context so extreme that it disfigures what we mean. Today we would like the robber baron's entire sword arm removed from our arsehole. And only a little bit, in some instances, even if we were to leave it in at the wrist it would be a modern victory for the centuries, literal Ceasar level legend material. The level of interaction between us and the state today is entirely unprecedented and there has been zero stymie, no relief and no regression of the arm's procedure into the ass.
If we were left alone today only to be pestered once a year for literal wheat by a tax man, society "as we know it" would collapse into base social traditions and expectations. There is a problem with scale in comparing freedom and independence today to those concepts as they existed for our ancestors many centuries ago. It is like talking about inches and feet and then jumping straight into talk about lightyears with no segue or asterisk. Illustrated in a chart, an axis would be broken to "skip to" a feature at its extreme. Two entirely separate charts would organize it better: Antiquity & Today.
I think I am confused by the common definition of self-sufficiency as "able to supply one's or its own needs without external assistance." "Without external assistance" implies to me isolated independence inherently (unless external means outside of one's community rather outside of oneself).
"If we were left alone today only to be pestered once a year for literal wheat by a tax man, society "as we know it" would collapse into base social traditions and expectations."
I would love nothing more than a collapse or reformation to good values. I think it is inevitable. It is simply a matter of debating the number of generations it will take. I want virtue back, and I strive for that.