Is inefficient farming a virtue?

Posted by Guessedworker on July 22, 2005, 06:42 AM | #

Autarky?  Oh dear, John has found someone else to tease.  I hope you don’t drive Mr Rackell away because he has several fans here.

LRAM, by the way, is a fantastic institution.

Posted by Daniel P Dykes on July 22, 2005, 09:09 AM | #

I think these sort of articles are biased in their use of the word ‘inefficient’. It’s a loaded word, espescially given the current EU situation.

Consider the other side of the coin, the other interpretation. What if we considered the term ‘skill craftsmen’ instead of ‘inefficient’? People who are good at what they do. Real houses and real furniture all leading to real culture. Not the rubbish you buy at Ikea.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 22, 2005, 01:22 PM | #

Not the rubbish you buy at Ikea.

Oh, my you must be from the better part of town, what about that holy of holies of the temple of Free Trade: Wal-Mart.

Millions are proud owners of compressed sawdust furniture (pressboard) that snaps together.

Hey, no need to fight over great grandma’s solid oak table.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 22, 2005, 01:48 PM | #

GW,

What do you think of Prince Charles’ work at Poundbury?

Have you visited? Do people live and work there, as intended by the designers? Or is it a state funded amusement park, a white Elephant?

Posted by Fred Scrooby on July 22, 2005, 01:58 PM | #

John, this is an extremely important subject, one which I don’t know if you “get.” I can only dash off a brief line at the moment—am rushing out the door.  Prince Charles is right.  Look—money isn’t everything.  $$$ isn’t the god normal people worship.  I’m a conservationist—a green, if you like, though not an insane leftist wacko one.  I strongly support preservation of the environment.  Lumber companies could make lots more $$$ by clear-cutting but for lots of reasons, including that it destroys the environment, it’s wrong to clear-cut so we accept less effeciency in timber harvesting in order that the world be a more beautiful place.  It’s less efficient to have different national currencies in Europe but creating a single currency goes hand-in-glove with open borders and the free movement of labor to match the free movement of capital and so on—all the Tranzi dollar-worshipping claptrap—leading in turn to the effacement of the distinctness of the different European peoples and nations, which is an evil of incalculable proportions, so normal people, people with souls instead of flashing dollar signs in their breasts and blood instead of ice-water in their veins, will gladly accept the inefficiency of national currencies if that permit the continuation of the Ancient Nations of Europe in existence. So, yes, the answer is that ineffecient farming can be a virtue, definitely, in those situations where it ties in with preservation of precious, irreplaceable beauty and ways of life.  Rice farming is done way more efficiently in Carolina and other places outside of Japan but the Japs have rigged their system so that housewives and restaurants there buy Japanese home-grown rice in order that ... well, in order that the Japanese nation continue in existence as an organic whole, not a giant paved-over Tranzi parking lot surrounding some “Japanese” U.S.-owned “Walmart-San” factory outlet or something.  Do you get this, John?  Do you understand that in life there are more than just dollars and brightly-flashing neon-lit dollar signs, the ones that make all the Tranzis salivate so much?  (Sorry if that was disjointed or incoherent—Gotta run!)

Posted by Guessedworker on July 22, 2005, 03:47 PM | #

Geoff,

Here’s what it looks like today.

There’s no doubt that Charles did us a great service in articulating opposition to the crazed socialist elitism of the architectural establishment.  He didn’t stop modernism.  But he forced it to re-examine its navel.  It survived by blaming everything on the “international style”, and moved forward to post-modern architecture.

There is something to learn in this of the behaviour of elites when brought to book ... also of the power of one true voice to bring them.  On the latter, it is wonderfully evident that elitism is dry tinder when put to the flame of public ridicule and opposition.  It has no power in reality save that granted by our own thoughtless submission.

When we start to care the elite backtracks fast, looking first to its own survival and only second to the “principles” and “values” that it supposedly held in high esteem.

The same was apparent in the refusal of the liberal establishment to disappear when the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989.  Instead it took one large step back from classical, economic marxism and formally adopted the hitherto academic/far left politics of culture.

In both instances - architecture and marxist politics - the establishment escaped destruction.  We have to do things better.

I would add that Charlie boy is on the side of the architectural angels.  But he has more feeling for inanimate bricks and mortar than for the live natives of this land.  “Defender of Faiths” indeed.

Posted by ben tillman on July 22, 2005, 05:05 PM | #

What if we considered the term ‘skill craftsmen’ instead of ‘inefficient’? People who are good at what they do.

Yes.  They may well be efficent at producing what they want, even if want differs from what JR wants.

Posted by ben tillman on July 22, 2005, 05:10 PM | #

Should read:  “...even if that differs....”

Posted by Svigor on July 22, 2005, 08:47 PM | #

I’m in favor of efficiency.  The individualist in me says the individual shouldn’t rely solely on society to provide for an array of his needs, or at least there should be a good sprinkling of individuals who don’t.

I’m not into survivalism, but I think it’s a healthy hobby.  There is after all no guarantee the power will stay on and the trains will keep running.

I’m sure there are more good objections to efficiency-at-all-costs, I haven’t read the thread yet.

Posted by Geoff Beck on July 22, 2005, 08:57 PM | #

> Poundbury

Looks a little bleak, like few people live there. Too clean. Perhaps like Potempkin village. Attractive and very aesthetically pleasing, though.

Posted by Andrew L on July 22, 2005, 09:47 PM | #

You have to love the west of England, they Just tell them to all go and get stuffed, race , politics the whole lot, thats why there are not any coloured people there, they are not welcolm,unless they are tourists.Go the old English Mohogany furniture, I have a dinner table and chairs,but bloody French polished.

Posted by jonjayray on July 22, 2005, 10:24 PM | #

The Prince is of course expressing a widely-shared view—as the Monarchy generally does—but it is my view that those who want cute survivals of the past should reach into their own pockets to support such rather than forcing Joe Average to pay for it all

Posted by jonjayray on July 23, 2005, 01:41 AM | #

“Autarky?  Oh dear, John has found someone else to tease.  I hope you don’t drive Mr Rackell away because he has several fans here”

David is onto me!

But seriously, autarky has only ever been attempted by the far-Left and its results invite only ridicule

For centuries, trade has been the key to wealth and rising standards of living.

That was true even in Tudor times—with English exports of wool to the continent being a major focus of prosperity.

More broadly, it is just another extent of that great human trick:  division of labour

Posted by James Bowery on July 24, 2005, 02:18 PM | #

it is just another extent of that great human trick:  division of labour

Speaking of “that great human trick: division of labor”, something I just happened to be reading this morning:

“By the 1980s the consensus among economists was that the managerial class would act in the interests of the corporations and other organizations they managed because remuneration was linked to corporate profits.  However, a new image of this class as prone to free riding emerged from the series of scandals that afflicted the American corporate sector in the first years of the twenty-first century.  It was in the United States that the managerial class had achieved most autonomy and influence over mass culture and government.  In case after case it was collusion between elite managers, lawyers, and analysts both within and outside the corporation that enabled them to bypass controls and parasitize shareholders on a massive scale… In 2000 the 20 highest paid CEOs received an average ‘compensation’ of $112.6 million. These trends reflect a growing inequality between families.  In 1980 the top five percent of families earned 14.6 percent of all incomes received by US citizens.  By 1999 this share had grown to 20.3 percent.  Accumulated wealth was even more unevenly distributed.  In 1979 the wealthiest one percent of US families held 22 percent of the country’s assets.  By 1989 this had risen to 39 percent.”

-- Salter, F. “On Genetic Interests” p. 202

To which I’ll add:  I moved to the Pacific Northwest to escape the consequences of “that great human trick” (jonjayray has apparently never heard of eusocial insects) ripping its way through California—the State with the lowest long term State bond ratings to show for “that great human trick”.

Oregon however has its own problems.  The pioneer Anglo-Saxon families that settled this area have been “specialized” out of their farm lands.  Unable to navigate the welfare state’s minority-dominated bureaucracy Oregon’s rate of hunger has led the nation in most of the last decade.

People around here are very interested in undoing the damage done by the GI Bill’s seduction of their parents off the farm and into “that great trick”.  The problem:  Land ownership is now so centralized they can’t even get enough land to grow a garden.  Their landlords kick them out if they plow up even a small patch of land for food.

Guys like jonjayray are going to make a very tastey meal one of these days.