Down on the Farm

As a libertarian, I have nothing against people enjoying the rural lifestyle, seeking self-satisfaction above profits and promoting what they enjoy and believe to be true—as long as they don’t impose their values and beliefs upon others through coercion (taxation, regulation, mandatory “buy local” policies, etc.). Personally, I couldn’t wait to get out of this lifestyle (my parents produced maple syrup and apples as sideline activities and I had chopped more wood by the time I was twelve than most people will in a lifetime). Some of us, and I suspect most human beings if you look at rural exodus historically, just feel more at home in cities and would rather enjoy the best the world has to offer, especially if this is better for both the economy and the environment as I believe to be the case.

Reviewers Sarkar and Chatfield are right to award Thomas F. Pawlick’s The War in the Country: How the Fight to Save Rural Life Will Shape Our Future and Brian Brett’s Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life high marks for giving us compelling stories about farming and rural life. These stories are keepers and reminders of the countryside that was at the turn of the 21st ­century.

However, Pawlick’s attempt fails to turn his collection of stories from his own rural community into a call to action and a guide to save this rural way of life. His analysis of the causes that underlie his war is too shallow. I misunderstood these diverse clashes in the countryside until I read Jane Jacobs’s Cities and the Wealth of Nations years ago, particularly her musings about the countryside and its relationship to cities. She did not refer to the wide-open spaces beyond our city limits as countryside, rural, exurban or even country. Her term was “hinterland.” I reread that part of her book many times—eventually accepting her reasoning.

The economy of the hinterland depends totally on wealth generation in the cities to which the countryside is connected—the stronger the connection, the more robust the rural economy. I don’t like this, but I accept it. And not far behind economics is culture: the stronger the connection, the more vital the rural culture.

Pawlick wants an independent economic and cultural future for the countryside. For this reason, he includes a to-do list and introduces the reader to organizations with agendas that try to minimize the urban influence in the countryside. Good information—but only if you believe that the countryside can be strong without the economic and cultural support of the city. I don’t.

Both Brett and Pawlick hold out a false hope if they urge countryside folk to expend their resources on an independent rural future. There is room for some managing of the all-pervasive urban economic and cultural juggernaut. Broadly based alliances of rural interests are the best hope but even these are likely to be dependent on their connections to cities to be successful.