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Re: British Beef Situation
In article <31744D6B.7C12@ACSWORLD.NET>, Jiva Goswami dasa
<JivaGo@ACSWORLD.NET> writes
>
>In fact it is not cookoo. Maybe to get from here to there would be
>impossible, but the ideal is based on sound reasoning. The UnaBomber may
>be a crackpot, but the idea of every one living in small low-tech
>hamlets is a darn good one.
Particularly if you are wealthy and everyone else does that nasty work
and lives at subsistance level.
>If it was 120 years ago, you would be a wacko for suggesting that that
>the all but 1 or 2 of the 5 brothers and and the 4 cousins move off the
>big family farm to the city.
Lets see. That's 1875. Without looking it up I would have thought that
was well into the UK industrial revolution, when that DID happen.
Particularly as the conditions of work and wages were way better in
industry than on the farm.
>Life on a well managed farm at that time
>was good and prosperous.
Oh yes? You know what and why 'gleaning' occurred, don't you?
>It was hard work and certainly there were ups
>and downs. But that's also true of the auto industry, the financial
>industry and many other "modern" enterprises. No doubt that modern
>technology has made numerous improvements to agriculture, but on the
>other hand many of the modern advancements of crop rotation, soil
>enrichment etc. were already there in ancient cultures (like India).
>Just because North Americans didn't know these things is no big suprise.
>And all these fancy chemicals used today in agribiz are questionable at
>least.
Eh? Turnip Townsend turns in his grave.
So do the very early English who had well organised rotations based on
their strip farming methods.
>So you have all those brothers and cousins move off the farm and into
>tenements in the city. They go to work making nuts and bolts to make
>tractors. The brother or two left has to buy a tractor to do all the
>work. He needs all kinds of attachments and buildings and fuel, etc.
>Of course to pay for that, he has to dramaticaly increase yields he has
>to give up the old heirlooms and buy pricey hybrids (and every year too!
>can't save those seeds!) Then he's got to buy high tech fertilizers and
>herbicides, insecticides etc. etc. (all of which stop working after a
>while and you need newer, more powerful, more expensive ones) Then
>there's the payments on all the loans needed to foot the bill on this
>mammoth. He still is having trouble being profitable, so he has to buy
>his neighbors land (who went bankrupt under a huge debt load!). What to
>speak of all his relatives now living hundreds of miles away and his
>extended family being splintered. It the quality of his live really
>better?
Some truth in this. Who ever said farming was easy?
>Oh, I forgot. He's got MTV now. That makes it all worthwhile.
Lucky him. I have not got MTV or satellite either.
>The brothers and cousins in the city can't eat nuts and bolts, so they
>have to buy plastic wrapped, frozen food in the grocery store. After a
>few generations, some of them have been upwardly mobile; they're a
>university professer or a prosperous merchant. Is the live of a
>university professer today that much different than in 1870 (in relative
>terms)? Is a prosperous merchant today that much different? And the
>ones still making nuts and bolts, is the quality of their lives better?
>
>I live in Amish country. Their farms are (typically anyway) well kept
>and organized. Their clothes are well made with quality materials. The
>ladies' dresses have a simple elegance which no doubt will be high
>fashion within 5 or 10 years (then again 30 years after that, on and
>on). Their barns are full of hay and various feeds. The root cellars
>are full as well as their canning shelves. Their horses are strong and
>spirited; the buggies are sleek, shiny and have their own kind of snaz.
>In fact, one of there worst problems for them are the taxes which are
>based on a nuts and bolts economy, and not on simple living.
Ah, now this is something else entirely. They live within their means.
They do not demand things they cannot afford and can survive very well
on very low incomes. They have strict rules to stop any tendency to
leave the lifestyle they have chosen/been born into. I suspect they may
use some modern conveniences (steels, bearings, nails, screws etc) but I
don't know what their regulations are. If you remove rent, rates, taxes
and require little then you can live on a very low income indeed *if you
know how*.
>An Amishman usually also has a personal integrety and fortitude that is
>often difficult to find in modern society's representitives.
Well, for *all* the farmers I know their word is indeed their bond. A
few seasons of bad weather, animals dying and all the other trial and
tribulations of farming means you had better have a lot of fortitude or
you are going to find out why farmers have the highest suicide rates in
industry.
>Anyway, pardon my lack of succinctness, hopefully somebody gets my
>point. Modern society ain't what its cracked up to be. There are
>groups of people all around the world who live a simple, animal powered
>agrarian life and they're doing darn well!
A whole heap of 60's and 70's goodlifers have unfortunately gone bust,
losing everything. Don't think it's easy, it ain't.
>From here to there might be a problem, but it isn't "cookoo".
Dead easy. Sell house along with half a dozen like minded families, buy
farm, do the stuff. Now that's the easy bit 'cos nature is a very, very
hard taskmaster and cares not a jot for humankind (or anything else) at
all.
-------------------------------
'Oz "When I knew little, all was certain. The more I learnt,
the less sure I was. Is this the uncertainty principle?"
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