“I don’t want to see peasants in the fields, but I do want to see families in the fields tending to their farms…” Sort of one contradicting the other there do you not think? As far as I understand the English language, those families in the fields would qualify as peasants, which brings me to quote from a comment I made on CLR on the 4th of February:
“The ‘red tories’ of this world aren’t even in the antechamber waiting to be interviewed but instead have been retired to the knackers yard and are waiting in hope of the time when the reactionaries of this world rediscover the benefits of shitting in fields.”
As you can see I’m not thinking of this from the point of view of somebody just taking a position against middle-class greens but as a person with an unwavering belief in the superiority for humanity of the urban environment against the rural environment, that belief is unlikely to be altered by rural idolatry masquerading as progressivism; And for that matter I’d say that the increase in Ireland’s urban population from 46.1% in 1961 to 62.0% in 2011 suggests that at least in the context of Ireland I’m not alone[1].
As for wanting to ‘conquer’ the environment, I’d say that minimizing the damage we as a collective population of 7 billion do to the environment by limiting the area used up to satiate our needs is the exact opposite of wanting to ‘conquer’ anything at all. Though we must take the argument down that road I think we might be able to make a good case for rural farmers being the ones ‘conquering’ the environment what with the mass deforestation required to make room for crops and the consequent monoculture present in those environments there after, not very symbiotic is it?
On the issue of the factory farming of meat I fail to see the similarities beyond the use of the word ‘factory’, after all a cucumber doesn’t have a brain, doesn’t have a nervous system and doesn’t feel pain. The morality of livestock holding is different matter that more than likely does require the concession to the use of land; though I’d imagine that with less land being taken up with crops those concessions would be less onerous. And just so there is a certain amount of clarity on this, because of my reference above to the England and Wales Green Party’s crusade against bacon butties, my own diet isn’t that high in meat at all.
The economic structures of agriculture are, as far as I’m concerned, malleable. I don’t see why agriculture should be exempt from technological innovations, I mean we take it as granted that the factory production of clothing, medical equipment, vehicles etc. is an inherently better and more efficient system, so why not with agriculture? Because of some sort of perceived exceptionalism? What makes that exceptionalism valid or sane? Actually, what makes it socialist or progressive?
You say America is down to one percent farmers as if that’s a bad thing, it might be perceived as a bad thing by the bucolically minded, but that does not make it so. The benefits of the rural life have to be outlined in a serious manner and not taken as an axiom; I don’t see those benefits in any arguments I’ve read.
For what it’s worth I think we are both coming to this with diametrically opposing viewpoints that won’t ever gel together no matter how long we argue this for.