Steve Furlong wrote:
Then let them. A self-sufficient subsistence farmer won't be bothered by the trade his neighbors are carrying out. [1] His farm can be a neolithic bubble as the world progresses.
What? You're talking nonsense here. Of course they make part of their living selling crops --- what's all the bs about "forging his own metals" etc. Total straw man arguement. The point was that they aren't "starving" for one thing, and, if it were up to them, they'd stay put. Look, I'll try to explain it in terms that perhaps even a city boy like you can understand. You don't have to go to the 3rd world, just go talk to small american family farmers. There are thousands of them out there who simply don't care that they aren't making lots of money -- the important thing is that they can keep their farms and do their own thing. What's wrong with that? You know what destroyed the small family farm in this country? Education -- ag schools and the county extension agent. Funded, for the most part, by large chemical companies. The old story of the country bumpkin getting conned by the city-slicker salesman. Kids went off to ag school, came home and told Dad to do things the "modern" way, factory farming with modern chemicals -- sure, go into debt, buy all those new tractors and fancy equipment and we'll be rich. And then, of course, that little trick the Fed Reserve and the banks pulled back in the 70's with manipulating the economy so that rural land prices went thru the roof, farmers who had been mortgage free for generations got duped into borrowing money on their land to buy that fancy new equipment that the ag schools and extension agents told them they needed, then bingo -- the Fed played some more tricks, land values dropped back down, and a whole lot of farmers lost their land. Is that what you call free-market economics? I call it fascism -- state and industry working in concert to whipsaw the masses and get more control over peoples lives. People who were very free and independant are suddenly wage slaves in the city because they listened to the "experts" from industry and government. And got duped. I know one heck of a lot of people who much prefer living in rural "poverty" to living in a city making big bucks. Although my wife and I have been making a whole lot more money in recent years than we ever thought we would, and live in a big fancy house in the city, we consider it a serious mistake. Money isn't everything. We were one heck of a lot happier when we earned about $4000.00 a year. We will soon rectify that. Why make a bunch money and feed the fascist machine? One of my favorite cartoons was one of Snuffy Smith and his wife --- she says "Pa, the world is passing us by." Snuffy replies, "It sure better!" Damn straight! "Tune in, turn on, and drop out." Now that's real free market economics.
If he _isn't_ self-sufficient, then he does care about the trade going on around him. That's been the case forever, and new trade always disrupts someone who was making his living with the way things were.
And if he wants to make use of metal tools, then he'll have to exchange as best he can for them. But, again, he's not self-sufficient, unless he can dig and forge his own metals. Complaining that the world isn't the way it was for Grandpa shouldn't get a sympathetic ear from anyone who uses metals, plastics, or medicine, or who eats fresh produce out of season.
[1] Assuming they don't pollute him out of raising his crops or livestock, tax or regulate his farm out of existence.
-- Steve Furlong Computer Condottiere Have GNU, Will Travel 617-670-3793
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly while bad people will find a way around the laws." -- Plato
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