The Primacy of Agriculture
Economics — Posted by Donald P. Goodman III on July 16, 2010 3:22 AMOf course, distributists pride themselves on being opposed to the consumptive economy and focusing on production. Indeed, the distributive state is defined, by Belloc, as that state in which productive property (not property simply) is so well distributed throughout society that the society as a whole takes on the character of one of owners, rather than of one of proletarian workers. Everybody, rich and poor, needs to consume, and consumption will therefore always be an important part of an economy. But we cannot consume what has not first been made; and as such, the producers, and those who control production, are the most important part of an economy.
But why, the Capitalist will object. Why would anyone produce if no one can consume? Why would I, a maker of widgets, go through all the trouble of producing those widgets if no one wants to buy them? But a still better question is, what is the man who needs widgets to do if I haven’t gone through all the trouble of producing them? The consumer is dependent upon the producer. If the producer cannot sell to this consumer, he can sell to another, or he can produce something else; the non-producer, however, simply has to wait until somebody else makes what he needs. That is why production is prior to consumption in an economy.
This primacy of production is even more pronounced in necessaries, particularly the most basic, like food and clothing. The producer of food will always need food; he is motivated to produce enough at least to ensure that he may eat. The consumer of food, on the other hand, is entirely dependent upon the producers of it. If the producers do not produce enough, or produce in too low a quality, the consumer dies. The same is true for a society as a whole: if that society fails to produce sufficient food, it must either import that food, compensating for that importation by some other valuable production, or simply go without, which clearly is not a viable option. Either way, it must produce rather than merely consume, and production is again seen to be primary; for without production, no consumption can occur.
Which brings me to my present topic: the primacy of agriculture. By “agriculture” here I mean, very loosely, the production of food; it includes farming, gardening, animal husbandry, hunting, fishing, and anything else that results in some food product at the end. It’s clear from the foregoing that agriculture is the most necessary of all productive industries. Agriculture is the oldest and the greatest profession. Without a healthy agricultural base, all economies are doomed, for workers cannot work if they cannot eat. Before we worry about whether we’ve got enough motor vehicles, good enough highways, fast enough computers, and big enough office parks, we need to worry about whether we’ve got enough food. We take it entirely for granted these days, but we shouldn’t. It’s the bedrock of all human endeavor, the root of all human production. Without it, we can do nothing.
Yet despite this, the farm and the farmer are treated with scorn. Farmers are stupid, uneducated yokels. They speak strangely and do weird things; frequently, even their relations with their livestock are called into question. Their children are either drunken jocks resigned to the inevitability of their descent into agricultural drudgery, or motivated geniuses studying their hardest so as not to have to endure a life of working in the fields. One thing is certain: nobody wants to be a farmer. Farmers are the ones who are stuck with it, especially illegal aliens, who do the work that Americans—you know, people who have gone to school and know better—don’t want to do.
This attitude comes with our increasing distance from production, our transformation into consumptive sheep incapable of producing anything on our own. Think long and hard; how many people do you know who are engaged in a productive endeavor for a living? How many people do you know who actually make things, instead of being one of the many links in the long chain passing them along the line? Even when most people think about starting a business, it’s rarely about starting a productive business; rather, it’s about starting a real estate firm, a law firm, a restaurant. It’s usually about providing services which utilize the valuable goods produced by others, rarely about producing valuable goods themselves.
Even our legislation tends to reflect this bias against agricultural production. When was the last time we in America had a real, popular debate about farming legislation? The Great Depression. The plutocrats so thoroughly control the Department of Agriculture and other farming-related wings of our government that such issues rarely see the light of day. Yet we live in a vast country, with some of the most fertile land on the planet. We unquestionably have far more land than we need to feed ourselves; even most of our individual states could easily feed themselves without importing much food from other areas. But are we importing only luxury foods, like pineapples and chocolate and other things that are not necessary and simply cannot grow in our own climate? No; we’re importing far more of our food than we need to import, and it’s exposing us to food insecurity and public health risks.
The USDA estimates that America imported $71.9 billion worth of food in 2009. Our farms and herds only produced about $282.1 billion of food. About a fifth of the food that we produce is, therefore, imported. A nation with nearly a billion acres of farmland imports a fifth of its food supply. Both our plutocratic parties claim to be concerned about our dependence on foreign oil (though in typically plutocratic fashion they never do anything about it); why do they never express concern about our growing dependence on foreign food, a much more fundamental and necessary good?
The state which cannot produce its own food is the state which is forever dependent upon others. It is time that our society restored agriculture to its proper primacy, and its practitioners to their honored place in our states.
Praise be to Christ the King!
Digg It
Bookmark
Stumble
19 Comments
The Catholic Church is strong on this primacy of agriculture point. A distributist approach is particularly relevant to agriculture, because without a high eyes-to-acres ratio, meaning more farmers and more small farms…sizes more compatible with what a farmer can handle on his own in his own rural community, then the land’s ability to provide can be compromised.
Earth was created to provide, so the adopted form of agriculture is extremely important. Distributist’s like Fr. Vincent McNabb have a lot to say about this subject as well. There needs to be a clear distinction made between industrial agri-business (the current model), which is highly extractive and ecologically abusive, and agriculture (the traditional model), which is more considerate of earth’s natural capacity to provide, not to mention more motivated to ensure that it remains naturally high.
Modern society is proving itself adept at exhausting it’s arable land base, a danger which cannot be overstated. Gratefully the Church has been magisterially on top of this for quite some time, now if we can just operationalize that sentiment. Thanks for drawing our attention to this, it’s been ignored long enough.
“One thing is certain: nobody wants to be a farmer.”
Well, unless I’m nobody, I’m an exception to that rule. I’m a 22 year old male in college living in the city of Denver, Colorado and I would like nothing more than to live the life of a farmer. I would also like to be able to bring my future children up in that environment.
One thing is for sure: The tiller of the soil is closest to God and His magnificent Creation.
I believe Mr. Goodman was being facetious.
facetious or not, he’s actually very close to the truth, especially among the young and college educated. Two semesters ago, I was sitting in a World History course and the class topic was the agricultural revolution. The professor asked the class who would want to be a farmer? I was one of two out of 50 students who raised their hand in the affirmative. After that we had to listen to the others give excuses as to why the would dislike the agricultural life. “It’s boring” was the most common answer.
Great article, but like a lot of Distributist stuff I have read, it seems too vague and general. We all agree that agriculture should be restored to its “proper primacy”, as you say, but how specifically do we do it? What does this mean? Do you simply mean that what we now import should be home grown or do you envision something further? What about the farmers who will go under if we all went to home production? Prices would invariably go up, since we wouldn’t be getting the cheap, Chinese crap, people would cut back their consumption (I would if food prices went up) and farmers would be hurt?
Regarding legislation, what specifically needs to be changed and how?
I love the ideals of Distributism, but they need to be more worked out if they are to ever be practically implemented.
+AMDG
The article is a simple, non-technical overview of why production is prior to consumption and why agriculture in particular is prior to other production. It was not intended as proposed legislation. You’re basically criticizing a mule for not being a horse. It’s true, of course, that he’s not a mighty steed that a knight would like to ride into battle; but he’s still a decent mule.
I can think of many measures to help implement small-scale, more localized agriculture, and I can think of some reasons why some of your negative effects would be mitigated or nonexistent if we did so. (E.g., yes, people would cut back consumption, but much of their consumption is preprocessed frozen foods and TV dinners, which means they’d be spending more on raw products of the sort that localized agriculture can more easily produce.)
It’s very tiring to hear the “distributism’s great, but how?” argument. Presenting a very detailed plan for instituting medieval Mongolian as the official language of the United States would be great, but it’s useless unless you’ve first convinced people that instituting medieval Mongolian as the official language of the United States is a good idea. There is room for both theoretical and practical argument.
Praise be to Christ the King!
+AMDG
I was being facetious, and lamenting the fact that this facetious statement is all too true. I hope you are, Brandon B., able to become a farmer. I once wished to do so, as well, and now wish that I hadn’t given it up.
Praise be to Christ the King!
Chesterton once wrote an article called “Fun in the Field” which dealt exactly with what some might consider snobbery toward the rural life. As you quite rightly point out, it still exists today.
I’ve actually encountered Christians of various stripes tell me that should I desire to move to the country, I would be failing to perform my evangelical duties, as any move to the country is “evading real life.”
Dear Phillip,
Throughout the work of The Distributist Review one will find many solutions to the social and economic problems we decry, and certainly on this new site you will find future articles with more specifics, but this is not a think tank.
I concur with my colleague. In order to restore society the first step is to convince others that it needs restoring. And practical as well as theoretical arguments go hand in hand.
As we progress, we will see that “think tank” materialize, but as this movement is grassroots, I would only ask that you give us time. We will not disappoint.
Donald-
I can respect that you were trying to provide a brief overview; that’s fine. But the reason people make the “Distributism’s great, but how?” argument so much is because there is a real tendency among Distributists (such as I have read) to deal only in generalities. I’m not expecting “legislation” (that would be probably too complex!), but it would be nice to read a follow up that laid out, say, the top five things we could do to make this vision a reality.
I have been studying Distributism now for about three years and still feel like I haven’t gotten any thorough plan (reasonably thorough) for transitioning to it.
I look forward to the “materialization of the Think-Tank”, as Richard Aleman put it in his comment. Thank you.
I too look forward to the materialization of a think tank, although that seems to remain further in the future for now. In the meantime, in order for the Distributist philosophy to catch on, people have to know about it. To that end, it would be wise for this blog and any others to comment on and critique political news on a daily basis from a distributist perspective and offer some (even if they are vague) alternatives. Connecting Distributism to specific headlines and legislation would make it relevant. I imagine a distributist version of “the Economist”. This would put Distributism on the map and allow more specific plans to gradually materialize. By the way, I am 18 years old and planning on running for political office one day as a Democrat on a Distributist platform.
Dear William,
Excellent points. Perhaps we could add something, like a “daily blog” section, so that our contributors can offer brief responses to relevant news items.
Richard & William-
Well, if the materialization of a think tank is still further in the future, I wonder how much more in the future, since Distributism (depending on how you reckon it) is now over 100 years old. How long does it take?
But, Richard, perhaps I should call my own bluff. I said there needs to be more think tank stuff, so maybe I should pitch in. Suppose I write up a scholarly and thoughtful proposal on 5 concrete steps we could take to move agriculture in a more Distributist direction – proposals that are down to earth, policy, think-tank stuff; if I submit it to you and it passes muster, will you consider posting it here?
(forgive me if you are not the webmaster – I always see your Distributist stuff on FB and assumed you were)
One thing off the top of my head — get to know local producers of food, patronize farmers’ markets and CSAs.
Dear Phillip,
I would welcome this. Direct your submission to distributism@gmail.com. I’ll be happy to review any proposals.
Will do, Richard! Thanks. Give me a week or so.
Hmm, an American version of ResPublica sounds quite appealing, Mr. Aleman.
The article links a research site which actually appears to state that the US exports $26.7B more than it imports ($98.6B of exports compared to $71.9B of imports). I agree with the general thrust of the ariticle, but I do not think it is accurate to describe the US as running an agricultural trade deficit. Did I miss something in the referenced data sets?
+AMDG
I don’t think I described the US as running an agricultural trade deficit, just that we’re importing a whole lot more than we ought to. Rereading it, I think that’s accurate. What made you think I was asserting an agricultural trade deficit? Let me know and I’ll correct it, because that’s certainly not true.
Praise be to Christ the King!