Capitalism is a creed (yes, creed!) which makes the pursuit of money all that is acceptable. People and other living beings are only considered with regards to their worth as a part of the economic system. The fullest expression of the lack of concern for the welfare of the people can be seen in the accommodation which the people who create the wealth have to deal with, and the contrasting living conditions of the Ruling Class and the celebrities who gain wealth by serving as propagandists for them.
We are forced to live in ever smaller flats and houses, in ever larger towns and cities. We now live in conditions which previous generations would have been shocked by. Cities exist for the benefit of the economic system, keeping the wage slaves in close proximity to the consumer goods which they have to purchase in order to keep the Ruling Class rich. We wage slaves are often forced to travel vast distances to the places of their servitude, damaging our health and eroding our time away from our places of employment. The capitalists only care about their profits and ability to hold on to power. Our well being doesn't factor into their system of thought except with regards to keeping us distracted by their controlled entertainment system or when that fails, beaten down by their legal system.
Architects in the 1960s designed high rise blocks of flats which they referred to as vertical streets. The idea was that they were simply streets turned on their side and made to travel upwards instead of along. These vertical streets had no gardens, even though it would have been perfectly easy to have had each floor extended outwards to provide the residents with a small garden or yard space. The failure to include access to nature reflected the belief of the people who commissioned the architects that the Working Class do not need gardens. Older streets in industrial towns long ago dispensed with any connection to nature, with the fictional Coronation Street of the television being modelled on them. Since the time of the Industrial Revolution we have been herded into accommodation which is unfit to live in. We are treated like battery hens by the Ruling Class who see us as less than human.
To walk through any town or city is to see squalor. A natural result of forcing people into housing which is no more than a space to sleep and to recover after a period of work (or to shelter in the absence of work) is to create a loathing of the surroundings. Cities are places of high crime, vandalism, littering and anti-socialism (collectivised yet perversely individualistic anti-Socialist behaviour) because they are places in which humanity is a side issue. People are a part of nature but cities are apart from nature. Breaking the links which keep us safely anchored in the natural order can only lead to behaviour which is against the natural order.
SMPBI is agrarian in foundation. By this we aim to hand back control of the basics of food and shelter to everybody. But that doesn't mean that we are Pol Potists! This point has to be clarified right now. Our Agrarian Socialism has absolutely nothing to do with the murderous barbarianism of Pol Pot. Pol Pot was a Capitalist stooge who destroyed Cambodia in order to incorporate the nation into the US-dominated Global Capitalist menace. His fake agrarianism has been highlighted as 'proof' that Socialism does not work. An interesting piece on how Pol Pot was a Capitalist tool, can be found at this link: https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/pol/khmerrouge.html
Our vision of a coming Socialist Republic is one in which the cities are divided into small self-sufficient towns. That would allow for the development of local culture within the national framework. The Urban Working Class has become disconnected from nature. This is a logical result of years of forcing people away from the country and in to the cities. This began with the Enclosures Acts right back in Tudor times, but especially the Enclosures Consolidation Act of 1801.
The Land Belongs to the People and the People Belong to the Land.
SMPBI will break up the cities, end rabbit hutch housing conditions, and in its place we will live in homes which are fit to live in, with land which reunites us with nature. The landed gentry and the rich have homes which are conducive to good physical and mental health, but we have to live in conditions which they would never submit to. Socialism isn't about reducing everyone to the lowest level, but of gaining the best for everyone. The only people who benefit from city-living are the landlords who extract money from their tenants, especially those who charge ground rent and get money for literally nothing. Council Tax isn't that different to Ground Rent, and we would abolish that too.
The Working Class have paid with our labour for all the wealth of the Ruling Class and their Middle Class agents. We want nothing less than that wealth and the living conditions they enjoy, for ourselves. They can hand over what they are stolen, or we will take it. But have it, we will.
With the development of automation, there is no reason why the mass production of such consumer goods as are necessary can't be concentrated in specially designated areas overseen by the smallest number of workers necessary, whilst people live outside of these areas in villages and comunities that sit organically within nature. Those who need to work in these production areas would commute to and fro by high speed rail link, or some other comfortable means of transport.
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