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Yes, we are not talking about the same kinds of jobs. But since the at rev most people in most areas through most of the millennia were 'employed' on the land, and there can still be many 'jobs' available there.

And there is all sorts of 'consumption' that doesn't require lots of materials. Once you have enough people supplying enough food and basic necessities, the rest can be either teachers or students or writers or entertainers, etc. We just have to get away from the idea that raping the earth and raping society of its community structure is what our economy should ever be centered around.

But unless we have some kind of universal revelation that Ibon is hoping for, we will likely just go on exploiting ourselves and the earth, in the process, turning both into toxic offal.

h2 wrote:personally I blame the excesses on the sociopathic youth, where they were raised by tv, cable, and now 'smart' (sic) phones...

Nice rant. I knew I'd get one of those. If you hate tech so much, why are you using the internet?

dohboi wrote:Yes, we are not talking about the same kinds of jobs. But since the at rev most people in most areas through most of the millennia were 'employed' on the land, and there can still be many 'jobs' available there.

How are the urban dwellers going to get to the land to work and back each day? Are we going to move them to the land? Where will they live? There are no services to support them out "on the land." Think about it.

Organopónicos

Shaved Monkey wrote:Organopónicos

Si, es possible.

There is lots of opportunity for urban ag, and this is an area that is already rapidly developing in many cities; but yes, some people will have to be enticed (preferably) to live further afield. People have lived in the country with limited services for millennia. In Cuba during the special period, they enticed many people back to farms by guaranteeing wages similar to those of doctors for farmers. After all, doctors only keep us alive (sometimes) if we happen to be sick; farmers keep us alive every single day!

Sharon Astyk in "Nation of Farmers" and Richard Heinberg in the linked essay, among others, have written about this. http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006- ... on-farmers

No one is saying any of this will be easy or painless, for X's sake. Just perhaps slightly easier than mass starvation and near universal unemployment.

During the depression people were put to work on rural projects of various sorts all over the country. It's been done before, it can be done again.

And of course we could change the work week to 30 hours or even 25, still guaranteeing full health coverage, and we would quickly be back to (real) full employment.

Our 'economic' problems are mostly the result of the way we have chosen to structure the economy to benefit mostly the rich and f everyone and everything else.

dohboi wrote: People have lived in the country with limited services for millennia. During the depression people were put to work on rural projects of various sorts all over the country. It's been done before, it can be done again.

Limited services? There are no services in most of rural America anymore. All the small towns are ghost towns.

How much of our soft-bellied population would or could go back to the land?

I guess the question arises, when would one try to implement such a move? Now? Or when a crisis hits?

Astyk herself mostly lives off her husband's living. You really can't earn much of a living from farming.

ennui2 wrote:You really can't earn much of a living from farming.

I guess that's why there are so many millionaire farmers out here in farmland.

MonteQuest wrote:

ennui2 wrote:You really can't earn much of a living from farming.

I guess that's why there are so many millionaire farmers out here in farmland.

Yep, Mr. Cargill and Mr. Monsanto.

BTW "farmers" have the lowest life expectancy of any profession, probably due to the exposure to pesticides.

Mama, don't let your babies grow up to be farmers...

http://www.ufw.org/_page.php?menu=resea ... ry/12.html

http://sciencenetlinks.com/science-news ... esticides/

ennui2 wrote:

MonteQuest wrote:I guess that's why there are so many millionaire farmers out here in farmland.

Yep, Mr. Cargill and Mr. Monsanto.

No, guys I went to high school with. Some are making 1 to 2 million a yr. Hogs, sheep, and cattle are mostly gone. Row crops of corn and soybeans are the main things grown. Most farmers in the areas where I am at are very well off. They pay cash for new cars and tractors. The drop in commodity prices is reeking havoc with crop projection this year, though.

ennui2 wrote:BTW "farmers" have the lowest life expectancy of any profession, probably due to the exposure to pesticides.

Almost no one uses pesticides anymore. That's old school. GMO crops, herbicides and no-till.

MonteQuest wrote:There are no services in most of rural America anymore. All the small towns are ghost towns.

Why put statements like that (with no citations) into the middle of an interesting conversation, where you are making some valid points?

Unless you are willing to define services, and demonstrate how NONE of them are provided in most of rural America, the first point clearly doesn't hold.

How do you define small towns? How do you define ghost towns? I know of a LOT of small towns within an hours drive of where I live that are doing just fine. (Source, my own eyes, and the eyes of friends). Lots of retirees with solid pension income like to live there. There are schools and parks, Post Offices and libraries (speaking of services), cable providers and mechanics (speaking of other services), etc. I don't think the second point is even remotely is true, even if you try using definitions far from the norm.

Just to ensure this isn't just a central KY phenomenon, the following story/link is based on census data, and was written in May of last year. And yes, I know that the overall trend is for people moving to cities. However, that doesn't mean that rural America is even remotely close to gone.

http://blogs.census.gov/2015/05/21/grow ... n-america/

MonteQuest wrote:

ennui2 wrote:

MonteQuest wrote:I guess that's why there are so many millionaire farmers out here in farmland.

Yep, Mr. Cargill and Mr. Monsanto.

No, guys I went to high school with. Some are making 1 to 2 million a yr. Hogs, sheep, and cattle are mostly gone. Row crops of corn and soybeans are the main things grown. Most farmers in the areas where I am at are very well off. They pay cash for new cars and tractors. The drop in commodity prices is reeking havoc with crop projection this year, though.

My wife worked for a stock broker for a while in a largeish rural town,farmers would come in in sweaty, dirty tattered clothes, and buy a $1mill of shares.

Outcast_Searcher wrote:

MonteQuest wrote:There are no services in most of rural America anymore. All the small towns are ghost towns.

Why put statements like that (with no citations) into the middle of an interesting conversation, where you are making some valid points?

Unless you are willing to define services, and demonstrate how NONE of them are provided in most of rural America, the first point clearly doesn't hold.

Fair enough. In the Midwest where I live, smack in the middle of the corn belt, all the small towns of say 150 to 1000 people, and there are many of them, no longer have schools, grocery stores, hardware stores, gas stations, banks, restaurants, doctors, dentists, etc. Within 7 miles of me, there used to be 5 towns that had all these things when I was 16. Now, you have to drive 25 miles to buy even gas or any food. Not one business remains on main street, except maybe crop services or a post office. There used to be 4 farmer families per section (square mile 640 acres) now there is hardly one per section; some none at all. Farmers now farm large acreages of 800 to 1,200 acres instead of 160 acres. The population is gone and all the services that supported them.

Now, this may be much different in other small towns areas of America for sure, but this is where much of the food is grown, and we were discussing where people could return to farming the land. Sorry for not elaborating further at first.

Shaved Monkey wrote: My wife worked for a stock broker for a while in a largeish rural town,farmers would come in in sweaty, dirty tattered clothes, and buy a $1mill of shares.

You got it. Millionaires in rags or bib overalls.

In capitalist systems, efficiency means greater productivity at the same or lower costs, and that in turn means more goods and services available. But to profit from sales of goods and services, there has to be more consumers with more money to buy or pay for them. And that can only happen if there are more jobs.

You re-populate the country, services will follow. And if you plan a bit, you can have a better chance of the people and the services gettin there at about the same time. People are moving back to the country and to small towns all the time. It's not just a one way street toward the city.

Again, is it easy?

No.

Is it better than massive unemployment and starvation?

I kinda think so. But ymmv.

dohboi wrote:You re-populate the country, services will follow.

When would this happen?

en wrote: "Astyk herself mostly lives off her husband's living"

I hadn't hear that. Do you have some link on it, or is that just your wag?

"When would this happen?"

Look, it all almost certainly isn't going to happen. But people have moved back to the land for various reasons in various numbers and waves in various places over the millennia. Yeah, probably everyone is just going to die in situ as things collapse. The point is that a tiny bit of planning could make things a lot less horrific for at least some people. But planning is 'socialist,' so, yes, all but the top .001% are almost surely going to die slow excruciating deaths and most of those who remain living will envy the dead. Is that grim enough for you, or should I continue?