Wendell’s Wisdom

Wendell Berry is one of my most favorite writers and thinkers alive today. His book The Unsettling of America had a large part to do with my conversion to organic farming from conventional. I always enjoy reading Berry, and while he may be a bit of a theological liberal at times, I believe that all people who consider themselves “conservative” and Christian could learn a great deal from this man. Berry is the most eloquent defender of Agrarianism in our time. I recently came across an interview from Sojourners magazine, a magazine I am not at all familiar with. It was a very good interview and I thought I would share some of it with you.

On subsistence economies

When you take away the subsistence economy, then your farm population is seriously exposed to the vagaries of the larger economy. As it used to be, the subsistence economy carried people through the hard times, and what you might call the housewife’s economy of cream and eggs often held these farms and their families together. The wives would go to town with eggs and cream once a week, buy groceries with the proceeds, and sometimes come home with money. Or they’d sell a few old hens, that sort of thing. So that’s the first lesson to learn about agriculture, as far as I’m concerned: It needs a sound subsistence basis. People need to feed themselves, next they need to feed their own communities. That’s what we’re working for now. We want to develop a local food economy that local producers will supply and that the local consumers will support. It’s ridiculous that we should be importing food into this state while our farmers are suffering.

On GMOs and economics

I think that the real reason for genetic engineering is to put absolute control of the food system into corporate hands. They don’t want anybody – farmer or urban consumer or anybody else – to have anything whatsoever that they don’t buy from a corporation at the corporation’s price. In other words, economic totalitarianism is the goal. And I don’t think the difference between political totalitarianism and economic totalitarianism is worth lingering over. If you’re not economically free, if you don’t have economic choices, you’re not free.

On economic choice

BERGER: It seems like it always comes back eventually to the individual’s choice. Does one choose to live in an economy of grace, based on generosity, or in an economy of scarcity based on acquisition?

BERRY: You have to realize that people are working very hard to remove that choice, to make it impossible to make such a choice. And they can do that simply by putting the land entirely under corporate control. It can happen. We’re pretty well advanced into a corporate or capitalist totalitarianism. And it’s a very strange thing to see happen, because we were lately so much afraid of communist totalitarianism. You can remove that choice we were talking about simply by making it impossible for small economic enterprises to survive.

You can use Wal-Mart as a weapon, for instance, to destroy the economic centers of small towns and small cities.

On the practice of faith

Any religion has to have a practice. When you let it go so far from practice that it just becomes a matter of talk something bad happens. If you don’t have an economic practice, you don’t have a practice. Christians conventionally think they’ve done enough when they’ve gone to the store and shopped. But that isn’t an economic life. It isn’t an economic practice. If you take seriously those passages in the scripture that say that we live by God’s spirit and his breath, that we live, move, and have our being in God, the implications for the present economy are just devastating. Those passages call for an entirely generous and careful economic life.

The bible and usury

There’s a fairly explicit attempt back there in the early books of the Old Testament to see that property doesn’t accumulate into too few hands. There’s a real attempt at economic democracy. The idea of the Jubilee year is a deliberate affront to what we now call capitalism. There’s a lot that’s been said, not just in the Bible, but in the biblical tradition in literature, on the subject of usury. Dante was pretty explicit about it. It would put you in hell because it implied, among other things, a contempt for nature. It’s an attempt to go around the natural world and human work and make money grow out of itself. It’s an attempt to make value grow in the abstract, without work, without a real product. As lots of people have said, this goes against the real economy of the world. Ezra Pound has a great canto on usury, two of them as a matter of fact. “With usura hath no man a house of good stone.” Nobody can have good things when you let money become its own value.

The whole interview is Here.

Industrialist, Environmentalist or Agrarian?

It should often be noted that Agrarianism does not view the Created order as does Modern Industrialism. Industrialism sees value in Creation only as raw material to be harvested and given a monetary price by the market. The vast handiwork of God’s Creation is thus reduced to its mining potential for monetary profit.

This shortsighted vision of the industrialist fails to see less readily tangible value in land as secure homesteads, much less comprehend intangible values to the family or community. Here is where farms are seen and become homes, dwelling Places of independent security and love — where animals, trees, food and families are carefully nurtured within a balanced complexity for generations. The same can be said concerning ponds, streams and lakes. Here is an important and recurring reality which highlights the distinction between Industrial Modernism and Agrarianism: Agrarianism acknowledges a broad and complex balance-sheet in calculating Net Values — while Industrialism focuses almost exclusively upon tangibles, readily reduced to monetary values on quarterly statements yielded to market price valuations.

As sympathetic as Agrarians might be, his long-view of sustainability and the conservation of Creation does not, however, make him a modern environmentalist. Granted, a typical environmentalist is a generalisation which is unfair to many sincere and careful people willing to accept the label. Agrarians and Environmentalists might often be advocates for the same side of an issue — but likely for very different reasons. Be this as it may, Modern environmentalism has generally granted far too many concessions to Modern Industrialism for the Agrarian. This is especially so in two important areas: Science and Government.

Read the rest of David Rockett’s fine article Here.

You may also enjoy another article of his, The Prima Facie Credibility of Covenantal Agrarianism

Agrarianism Reborn and the Question of Property and Rent

I recently came across this article by Allan Carlson called Agrarianism Reborn: On the Curious Return of the Small Family Farm. It is a very interesting read, Carlson begins with simple observation.

The farming future may not lie
with the consolidators, speculators, and
agribusinesses. Rather, it may lie with the
resurrection of a family-centered agriculture.
On the surface, this would seem to
be among the least likely of twenty-firstcentury
possibilities. All the same, as the
land-use expert Eric Freyfogle enthuses,
“agrarianism is again on the rise” and
“agrarian ways and virtues are resurging
in American culture.” Oddly enough,
there is evidence to back up these claims.

There is a lot of good stuff in this article and I hope you will take the time to read it. At the end Carlson points out a few problems he see’s with the new agrarian movement. Readers of this blog are Christian agrarians, so we can share his worries about some of the kooky pagan religions that can be found in some “new agrarians”. I think we need to be more vocal about the relationship of true Christianity and agrarianism. We still don’t have any major writings available to the masses by any of “our wing” of the agrarian movement. The question that really got me thinking however was the question of how we could have any kind of wide distribution of property today, something vital to any meaningful movement back towards agrarian culture. This topic is widely ignored because it always brings controversy. My next paragraph will give some of my thoughts on how we could fix the property problem.

Abolish the practice if renting. This simple act would, in time, return us to a nation of small landholders. By removing the prime reason many consolidate property, we could discourage that consolidation of property. If people could not rent the land to poor people, who through the practice of renting will never have the assets to purchase land, they may choose to sell it. This would increase the amount of land for sale, driving down the prices. People could spend the money they were spending on rent and put it into land ownership. Now I know this sounds crazy and America is not ready for a ban on rent, but what if…. What if we as Christians decided that renting property to people and trapping them into this wicked form of slavery was wrong? What if we refused to take advantage of or neighbors, but instead helped them become property owners. I have a friend who the Lord has greatly blessed financially. This man is one of the few christian men I know who manages the assets God has entrusted him with with fear and trembling. A few years ago he paid cash for a house in PA and recently moved to another part of the country. He wanted to keep the property since it was better than holding a pile of worthless FRNs. He had this house that he could easily have rented out to someone for a good monthly income. He refused to do this however, because as he saw it, having someone living in the house was in his best interest anyway. The pipes wouldn’t freeze, rats wouldn’t move in, it wouldn’t be vandalized, and so on. The thought of charging someone for doing him a service seemed wrong. He also thinks the concept of renting is as wrong as the charging of interest because of its oppressive nature. My friend decided that he would find a Christian family who didn’t have the money to buy their own house and let them live there rent free. These people could now take the money they would have been using for rent and instead put it away towards a down payment on their own land. This man would rather use his wealth to bless other believers rather than oppress them. What a concept! Can you imagine what kind of future we could build for our people if only a small percentage of Christians acted like this. You see, at the end of the day, we wouldn’t even need to have a nation wide ban on renting. If we Christians only had the desire to truly love our neighbors and treat them lawfully, we could change the culture in a few generations.

Early Morning Thoughts on the Agrarian Life

There are many reasons why Agriculture is such a enjoyable calling and occupation. One of these reasons is variety, what some would call the spice of life. Yes, the farming life is very spicy. There are few occupations that require such a broad list of skills as the farmer. The list is so expansive that no one farmer ever masters them all and he spends his whole life as a steward of creation, learning. The farmer is a student first and foremost, always learning and observing, searching out the complexities of God’s creation. It is a lifelong pursuit. If our city cousins put this much time and effort into their “jobs” it would destroy their lives, but the farmer has not a “job” but only a life. Agriculture is way of life and everything the farmers does is done with those he loves, his family and the creatures placed in his care. Yesterday my second oldest son Noah and I were working together catching up on some extra work that needed to be done before his brother John and I started milking. Noah is five and that day he learned how to put a tire on the skidsteer, how to properly tighten lug nuts and what could happen if you do the wrong way. After that we worked on a plumbing project, installing new drinking cups and water lines in the part of tiestall barn we are remodeling. By milking time I felt confident that Noah could do the job himself if he needed to. This is where farmers learn their skills, at their daddy’s side. Generation after generation, farmers learn to be good welders, veterinarians, electricians, soil scientists, plumbers, mechanics, breeders and so on, at their daddy’s side. They learn to read the sky, judge the yield of standing crop, check the dryness of a windrow and know when an animal is becoming sick by the look in her eye, all by living life with their family every day. The farmer dose not understand his city cousin and feels uneasy talking with him. The city cousin has traded a full and abundant life for a dull and compartmentalized one. This, to the farmer, would be worse than death.

“It’s like the cobbler with no shoes”

By packaging tax incentives for organic farmers with aggressive promotion of locally grown food, Marqusee is trying to use family farming as an economic engine for shuttered stores on Main Street and shriveled rural school districts. “If you cannot make an economy based on the richest land in the world,” he said, “then you’re never going to make it.”

Most rural economic development projects focus on luring new industries or expanding infrastructure for water, electricity or broadband, but Woodbury County’s are aimed at creating a local food culture in an area that imports almost all of its food — despite its base of powerful agribusinesses.

“It’s like the cobbler with no shoes,” Marqusee said.

Marqusee’s unorthodox approach to economic development comes as rural areas across the country are wrestling with a deep recession and growing poverty. His goal is to start small rural businesses and repopulate schools by luring a new kind of farmer. In so doing, he is trying to put Woodbury County into the vanguard of a U.S. organic-farming and local-foods movement.

From a very interesting article in the New York Times, ‘Evangelist’ for Organics Going Against the Grain in Iowa.

Random Notes in Early December…

Down on the Farm
Winter chores have begun, so we are a lot busier than we were a month ago but not as busy as we will be when the heifers all have to be brought in. The older heifers are all still living outdoors full-time, but that will soon change as well. The milk cow herd goes out for exercise and to eat balage for 3 hours or so, just long enough for them to enjoy it. When the ground is cold and wet and muddy they don’t like to lie down (and I don’t want them to lie down in the mud!) They spend the rest of their time in well bedded, extra comfy tiestalls where they are cared for like royalty. We finally have the pipeline project finished. The whole milking cow barn now has pipeline over it. Elder Don Smith came out and helped Dad and I get the Stainless pitched properly, he brought a transit which made it easier to get the right slope (1 inch to 10 ft). He also had the tool to put ferrules on the end of the pipe so we could custom cut some used pipeline to fit the stalls. Yesterday I finished putting the sch80 2 inch PVC line up for the pulsators. All the stall cock holes are drilled and tapped and the stall cocks are installed. Now I need to start work on finishing up the water line and drinking cups for the rest of these stalls and then they are ready for milks cows.

Garden on my mind
With such a crapy gardening year I’m already looking with hope to next year. Can’t be any worse! We have our new garden spot all plowed up so we will be ready for spring. This part of the St Lawrence river valley is clay soil, the dark black kind. Clay will grow awesome crops but you need to plow it in the fall and let freeze out or you can’t work it in the spring. Seed catalogs have started to show up, the word I’m hearing is that you should try to order early again this year (short supply).

Wendell Berry on needing “a job”

From an article in The Progressive.

Of course people need to work. Everybody does. And in a money-using economy, people need to earn money by their work. Even so, to speak of “a job” as if it were the only economic need a person has, as if it doesn’t matter what the job is or where a person must go in order to have it, is brutally reductive. To speak so is to leave out virtually everything that is humanly important: family and community ties, connection to a home place, the questions of vocation and good work. If you have “a job,” presumably, you won’t mind being a stranger among strangers in a strange place, doing work that is demeaning or unethical or work for which you are unsuited by talent or calling.

Economics

With the recent surge in gold and silver prices I thought you might get a kick out of this little trip down memory lane. Floyd remembers some of David Bahnsen’s really poor investment advice. Glad I stuck with the “gold in the sock drawer plan” myself.

Good Article

Chris Ortiz had a thought provoking article in the last issue of Faith for All of Life. You might enjoy reading Faith without Justice is Dead.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is my favorite celebration of the year. A day to give thanks to the Triune God for all of the gifts he has bestowed on his covenant people. This year I have much to be thankful for. First and foremost I am thankful for redemption in Jesus Christ, something which I do not deserve but receive by Grace. So much has happened to our family this last year, much of which was very hard to understand and deal with at the time. But, God has plans much better and wiser than our own, and He has blessed us abundantly! I am expecting my fifth child, another arrow for the Lord. I have a wonderful wife, 3 fine sons and a beautiful daughter. We have a faithful new church to worship at. We have an excellent new farm and for the first time in a long time our farming future looks great. This Thanksgiving I have a renewed Hope and greater vision for our family, one of Victory through Christ.

Wishing all of you a blessed Thanksgiving Day, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

GMO Eggplants are Coming

Thanks to the Dervaes Family for bring this to my attention. Genetically Modified Bt-brinjal is about to be unleashed in India. In the next 3 years over a dozen GMO vegetables may be on the market there. Read the stories Here and Here.

Austrian Economics, Compatable With Christianity?

Few things I’ve written about on the internet have earned me more hate mail than my condemnation of the sacred “Austrian School” of economics. I’ve gotten used to being hated by the Left, the Right and most people in between. So I thought I’d risk offending whats left of my readership this little gem.

Over at the Front Porch Republic site I came across an article titled The “One Salvation” of Ludwig von Mises. The article is written by a Catholic who is tired watching the Catholic intelligentsia defend and promote Austrian Economics. I was at once interested because I am a grumpy reformed guy who has long been sick of watching the Reformed intelligentsia do the same thing. A good number of my brothers and sisters in the Christian Reconstruction and Christian Agrarian movements seem to favor the economic theory of Mises and company and if I dare question it I am often accused of being a socialist or a communist. I assure them that I hate Capitalism, communism, socialism and fascism equally. My position has always been that the Austrian School makes “The Market” its god and has no room for the Law of God. It is built on anti-christian principles and is best suited for godless libertarians, not the people of the Triune God. John Médaille provides us, in his article, with some damning information on Mises. Bellow are some key points.

In response to those who think the Austrian School is compatible with Christianity….

Still, there is one scholar who was absolute in his opposition to such a notion, who declared, over and over again, the fundamental opposition between the Austrian School and any genuine understanding of Christianity.

That scholar was Ludwig von Mises.

He goes on to quote Mises himself….

“A living Christianity,” said Mises, “cannot exist side by side with, and within, Capitalism” (Quoted in Jorg Guido Hulsmann, Mises, the Last Knight of Liberalism, p. 982). Later in his career, Mises would allow that Christianity could exist within capitalism, but only if the Christians kept their opinions to themselves, only if they were marginalized and kept apart from the political and economic orders.

Mises’ true allegiance lies with the Enlightenment and the French Revolution…

Mises considered himself a “man of 1789, an heir of the Enlightenment,” that is, a man of the French Revolution. And the great advantage of the French Revolution, from the standpoint of liberalism, was that it destroyed the older social order in general and the social authority of the Church in particular. As Mises himself put it, “for us and for humanity there is only one salvation: return to the rationalistic liberalism of the ideas of 1789” (Mises, Nation, State and Economy, p. 239.)

There’s more where that came from and I encourage you to read the whole article for yourselves. I pray that we might see the day when Christians can work on a working model of Christian economic theory and we won’t have to watch men that should know better spend all their time baptizing Von Mises and his Antichrist economics.

News, Comments and Thoughts for The Week

After a nasty cold snap, with a little snow, we have been enjoying a warm and sunny week up in the North Country. I haven’t posted here in a while and figured I ought to.

The first bit of news to share is very exciting, and those who keep track of us on Facebook have already heard. It seems that Lord has seen fit to bless us with another covenant child! We are expecting our 5th child sometime in July. We have already found a homebirth midwife up here which was our only real concern. We are all so very thankful and very excited.

In the barn we have been working on getting the pipeline extended and getting the rest of the stalls fitted with drinking cups. I’ve only got 3 more uprights to install and then we can start thinking about hanging the stainless steel. The cows are doing very well, in fact our SSC is averaging about 98,000 and our fat has been 5.30%. We had a production set back because of some moldy baleage that caused the girls to go off feed for a few days. They are starting to pick back up now. I am so thankful to be milking in such a nice facility. Chores are so much more enjoyable here than they were at the other farm.

One of our Amish neighbor’s house burned down the other day. It caught fire while they were rendering lard. Its been neat to watch the whole community rebuild it for them. Watching the Amish make one realize just how far our culture has deteriorated.

I finally found the full length version of The World According to Monsanto on Google Video. I posted it for you to watch Here

Speaking of Monsanto, did you see that lord Obama has appointed former VP Michael Taylor to be the Food Safety Czar More proof that Obama works for the same elite crooks that Bush SR and W did. Taylor is responsible in large part for the GMO nightmare and I hope this will wake up some in the Organic industry that think this fascist puppet in the Whitehouse gives tinkers fart about anyone other than his corporate globalist handlers.

Pastor Bret McAtee makes a very good point on Christians and Military Service in this post Read it, and think about it.

Till next time…