Agrarians are back to save America from consumerism and empire — Transition Voice.
Twentieth-century America witnessed the blossoming of Agrarianism as an intellectual and cultural movement. Its roots lay within the mythos of the early American Republic, which cast the self-sufficient yeoman farm family as the foundation of ordered liberty. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1785:
Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country and wedded to its liberty by the most lasting bonds.
Similar early celebrations of Agrarianism came from Jean Hector St. John de Crevecoeur (Letters from an American Farmer, 1782) and John Taylor of Caroline (Arator, 1813). Such paeans to the largely self-sufficient family farm reflected certain realities of that era. In the fateful year of 1776, about 90 percent of all Americans resided on farms and plantations. Despite the rapid growth of factories and cities in the next century, the number of farms and persons on farms continued to grow, reaching peaks – respectively – of 6 million and 31 million in 1917.
– See more at: http://transitionvoice.com/2014/11/a-two-century-fight-for-the-small-the-local-and-the-beautiful/#sthash.am4iiO4I.dpuf
