I'm baffled... you wrote pretty much exactly my thoughts. I'm the same, I don't understand their hatred for Gates, Bezos and co. when these people are the poster children of the world they want to live in. There is only one thing where we might differ, I truly believe that Stone is an idiot. In his political videos he talks a looooot and burry us under tons of "facts" which makes it hard to follow him but, if you do, you will see that time and time again he says one thing in one part of the video and something else later that completely contradict what he said earlier, just like a 5 years old kid that has not yet learned how to build an argument. But he's not 5, he's an idiot.
At our very small rural farmers market we're about 40% hippy-commune-back-to-the-landers and 30% tin-foil-hat-bury-your-guns-preppers, a couple of folks in the middle (or enough sense to not say either way) and one amish.
And listen: I love a good tarot card reading and my moon sign is Aries, and if pressed I'd have to admit that my own tin hat tendencies veer more towards Area 51 than Antifa, BUT I believe scientists when they say climate change and COVID are real, dangerous, and fixable. And that's just where it gets really awkward and we've agreed to not talk about it at the market.
I think as farmers we tend to be rugged independent types with a lot of time to ourselves to think and ponder and sometimes we come up with some really strange theories.
Hi Sando, I agree with you that farmers tend to be independent-thinking types. And this can lead to unique political positions on both the Left and Right side of the spectrum. I also have some of my own "tin foil hat" ideas (yeah, what's going on at Area 51?!) - we should have a healthy skepticism of mainstream ideology. But I agree with you that once those conspiracy theories are used to minimize climate change, covid, etc - that's where it gets tricky because it goes from inquisitive thinking to defense of positions that put people and our planet at risk. Thanks for your contribution to the discussion!
I try to apply my view of markets and customers to when I was teaching middle and high school history. Everyone comes to the door with different beliefs and backgrounds, my job is to provide facts/services for them to use to shape their hopefully evolving worldview. My opinion doesn't matter much, so stick to the facts like Joe Friday. Keeps us out of arguments and trouble. Problem is is that now people argue against facts without using facts. Pretty sad and annoying.
Fantastic article! Next time I hit a farmer's market, I won't assume that all of the sellers are friendly Dems. Hard to imagine how a right leaning farmer can be both a Climate Change denier and an advocate for sustainable growing methods.
So if the farmer isn't a friendly dem you won't buy from him? This reminds me of the recent witch hunts about food Bank beneficiaries having voted for trump - so their kids should starve. Not only is this an example of what democrats have become, but it also shows the inherently reactionary nature of "choosing/ voting with your dollars." Lifestyle choices are the refuge of the reactionary and will liberate no one, including the hero. If the system were capable being escaped from or fought by autonomous exceptional individuals, it wouldn't be the hideous hellmouth we all know it to be.
"The inherent contradiction between attitudes of pro-entrepreneurialism and disdain for our society’s most successful entrepreneurs is reconciled through an explanatory narrative of collusion between economic and political elites against the middle class of small business pioneers"
Just thought you might like to know that there is a specific term for this type of political philosophy: Producerism. See, for example, the Wikipedia article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Producerism
A friend forwarded me this article. If you are up for having a dialogue (hopefully a public one) please send me an email. Perhaps we can both enlighten each other about our perspectives
This is a good read. Agriculture has always been a hotbed of right wing extremism. I can't tell you how many times I've been belittled for being female in farming. It's definitely spreading into permaculture more, but then it always has. Joel Stalatin said you have to look and act like the good ol boys to get them to embrace your kind of farming. Well... They did. And now those people are hot in a space full of marginalized groups.
Hi Luke, is there a way to reach you? I have some information you may find interesting that can help further inform this article you wrote back in 2021 and its too lengthy to get into here.
I've noticed in my decade working in organic agriculture that much of what motivates the loonier factions of the movement tend to be a mistrust of power. This is of course the basis of political debate. Who do you trust with the power in society? My armchair assessment is that, traditionally it was commercial power/traditional social structures that frieghtened the left and government/education/media power on the right. With the wealthy being sort of universally suspicious. As the internet has handed more power to social movements social power has become increasingly a tyranny to be opposed as well. The internet generally seems to be scrambling traditional power structures, certainly the traditional media holds less power. You can pick it all apart until you're blue in the face, but the common thread seems to be people feel powerless for one reason or another. Regardless of how people tend to frame their motivations, an effort to reclaim power seems to be at the root of much of the organic movement. Disagree as we may about the problem, organic ag provides a precieved answer.
Thanks for a well-written article that illustrates a bit of the complexity in interests, that can seem contradictory within the simplistic programmed set of ideas we can get lulled into. Lately I think the cardinal error is presumption based upon limited information. I'm not immune, and these can be hard ideas to shake; even though I appreciated the natural medicine, wholesome self-grown foods (and years of work in our 1-acre garden), and environmental concern of my parents (Prevention and Organic Gardening were always around from the '70s on), I always found their deep conservative values confusing in context. So when I read an article that unpacks another example of this, it helps broaden understanding and reinforces a bit of the live-and-let-live approach to dealing with people who differ with you on some touchy points.
The term libertarian now mostly gets used to describe the rightwing, freemarket-capitalistic (think hayek) and hyperindividualistic (think ayn rand) stance. However an important distinction to make is that there exist both left- and right-libertarians, and that the right - left axis provides the distinctive characterization, which many people often tend to forget. Political views can be placed on two axis, left - right (mostly about economic issues) and authoritarian - libertarian (mostly about social issues and questions of power). It is time to reclaim the term libertarian from the rightwing, because as Bookchin rightly pointed out rightwing libertarians should actually be called proprietarians, since property and freedom seem to be their main topics. Whereas left libertarians distrust state control on the grounds of equality, pluralism and multiculturality. https://vimeo.com/228159522
You are wrong when you state that homesteaders are climate change deniers. Just because most of these people don’t thing massive government spending and overreach should be used to improve the “climate,” doesn’t mean they don’t think something should be done. On the contrary these people are actually doing something about it. Many of these people are reversing desertification, and increasing carbon sequestration on their land. They are increasing water retention and restoring ecosystems by building soil. They are not screaming to the government to steal everyone’s money and do something about it. Why don’t some of you left wingers put your money where your mouth is and start improving your part of the earth. If everyone did, the problem would probably take care of itself.
Yep, they want Big Govt to fix the problem... which is an insane thing to want, bc Big Govt enables & creates most of the problems in the first place. Most Leftwing city dwellers want "Govt solutions," so they can sit back and feel virtuous for "doing something to help."
Here's a hint: there are FAR more Right-leaning folks in the small-farm community than most of you realize. The organic movement has always been predominately headlined by Lefties, but there are many more on the Right who also don't want poisons sprayed on their food. They just go about it quietly, and do things a little differently than what we usually see in trendy magazines and web articles. We are very alarmed by what they see happening in DC over the last decade, and can see where this is going.... and we wont stay quiet anymore.
Yes! And this is where it gets so interesting because folks on the right say "We are very alarmed by what we see happening in DC over the last decade, we can see where this is going.... and we won't stay quiet anymore." And they mean Obama, environmental, economic, and firearm regulation, social government programs like the ACA and a $15/hr minimum wage, and the rise of BLM, #metoo, and The Dream Act.
And folks on the left say ""We are very alarmed by what we see happening in DC over the last decade, we can see where this is going.... and we won't stay quiet anymore." And they mean Trump, the rise of anti-science rhetoric and neo-racism, the deregulation of big banks and environmental protection, and privatization of social programs (like private prisons).
Yeah, except that list - - as you have framed it - - really isn't the underlying issue. Folks on the Right know their history, and it is not an overstatement to say we are undergoing a Communistic revolution, ushered in by Globalism. That's why I say "we know where this is going." Sadly, most folks on the Left are merely pawns of the Billionaire Class, obliviously caught-up in the vapid distractions you mention above, when they should be rebelling against the 0.001%. We will not stand by quietly as our livelihoods are ripped from us, and the cultural revolutionaries try to Cancel us.
Hi Dan, thanks for your perspective. Just to lay out my own political position - I'm a leftist/socialist. I have plenty of criticisms of what we call the "liberal" mainstream - folks who rightfully point out the travesties of racism, environmental destruction, etc but who are not willing to advocate for policies that would actually materially address these issues (redistribution of wealth, ending extractive capitalism, etc).
I absolutely agree that we should be "rebelling against the 0.001%" although I would broaden that to the capitalist "owning" class writ large. But I have to ask - who on the Right is advocating for such? The main political figure who popularized the 99% vs 1% framing was Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist. If you are concerned about wealth inequality, which you understandably seem to be, the Left (not liberals per se) is the most vocal about this issue.
LOTS of people are, and not just "leaders". Talk to some of them. They wont use the same lingo as Bernie, and go about it from a different angle, but most people on the Right are completely fed-up with the Ruling Class. Where Left vs Right differs is how to break this power structure. Lefties lean more towards the various "flavors" of Marxist thought, be it fascism, communism, socialism, or whatever -ism or academic theory you like. But the common theme is a top-down system of control by "enlightened" people.... but this class is always run by the Elites and top 0.001% in every such revolution, and is *antithetical in application* to the very 'revolution' they are promising! Always. The most aggravating part of this problem is the fact that in the list of social issues provided above by Sando, every single one of those flow from the Ruling Class and how they keep us divided. Every. Single. One. Those of us on the Right are fed-up with the so-called 'experts' and Ruling Class bc their nutty ideas are almost always wrong, and fly in the face of common sense and individual freedoms. Now, back tot he context of small farms, almost every person I know who is moderate to hard Right is very agreeable to organic ag (or lower usage of chemicals) in their own gardens and commercial farms to a reasonable point (and that is shifting toward a desire for less and less chemicals). None of them I know are happy to spray their crops. They see what's happening to the soil. They just need an economically viable way to break free of Monsanto that doesn't involve strings and conditions from the Govt.
I'm baffled... you wrote pretty much exactly my thoughts. I'm the same, I don't understand their hatred for Gates, Bezos and co. when these people are the poster children of the world they want to live in. There is only one thing where we might differ, I truly believe that Stone is an idiot. In his political videos he talks a looooot and burry us under tons of "facts" which makes it hard to follow him but, if you do, you will see that time and time again he says one thing in one part of the video and something else later that completely contradict what he said earlier, just like a 5 years old kid that has not yet learned how to build an argument. But he's not 5, he's an idiot.
At our very small rural farmers market we're about 40% hippy-commune-back-to-the-landers and 30% tin-foil-hat-bury-your-guns-preppers, a couple of folks in the middle (or enough sense to not say either way) and one amish.
And listen: I love a good tarot card reading and my moon sign is Aries, and if pressed I'd have to admit that my own tin hat tendencies veer more towards Area 51 than Antifa, BUT I believe scientists when they say climate change and COVID are real, dangerous, and fixable. And that's just where it gets really awkward and we've agreed to not talk about it at the market.
I think as farmers we tend to be rugged independent types with a lot of time to ourselves to think and ponder and sometimes we come up with some really strange theories.
Hi Sando, I agree with you that farmers tend to be independent-thinking types. And this can lead to unique political positions on both the Left and Right side of the spectrum. I also have some of my own "tin foil hat" ideas (yeah, what's going on at Area 51?!) - we should have a healthy skepticism of mainstream ideology. But I agree with you that once those conspiracy theories are used to minimize climate change, covid, etc - that's where it gets tricky because it goes from inquisitive thinking to defense of positions that put people and our planet at risk. Thanks for your contribution to the discussion!
I try to apply my view of markets and customers to when I was teaching middle and high school history. Everyone comes to the door with different beliefs and backgrounds, my job is to provide facts/services for them to use to shape their hopefully evolving worldview. My opinion doesn't matter much, so stick to the facts like Joe Friday. Keeps us out of arguments and trouble. Problem is is that now people argue against facts without using facts. Pretty sad and annoying.
Thanks for this reflection. I appreciate you watching the you tubers because I wouldn't have the patience for the BS.
Interesting read, Luke. Too bad the admins in MGSG cut the comments short. Would've been fun to sift through the aftermath.
Same. Ufda, MGSG comments go off the rails pretty quick these days. I don't read 'em without a bag of popcorn.
Fantastic article! Next time I hit a farmer's market, I won't assume that all of the sellers are friendly Dems. Hard to imagine how a right leaning farmer can be both a Climate Change denier and an advocate for sustainable growing methods.
So if the farmer isn't a friendly dem you won't buy from him? This reminds me of the recent witch hunts about food Bank beneficiaries having voted for trump - so their kids should starve. Not only is this an example of what democrats have become, but it also shows the inherently reactionary nature of "choosing/ voting with your dollars." Lifestyle choices are the refuge of the reactionary and will liberate no one, including the hero. If the system were capable being escaped from or fought by autonomous exceptional individuals, it wouldn't be the hideous hellmouth we all know it to be.
If you find it hard to imagine you are only exposing lack of either imagination or education
Why would you ever have assumed that anyways?
This was great!
"The inherent contradiction between attitudes of pro-entrepreneurialism and disdain for our society’s most successful entrepreneurs is reconciled through an explanatory narrative of collusion between economic and political elites against the middle class of small business pioneers"
Just thought you might like to know that there is a specific term for this type of political philosophy: Producerism. See, for example, the Wikipedia article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Producerism
Hey Luke
A friend forwarded me this article. If you are up for having a dialogue (hopefully a public one) please send me an email. Perhaps we can both enlighten each other about our perspectives
Take care,
Takota Coen
Hi Takota,
Thanks for reaching out. I'm happy to have a conversation. What's the best way to reach you? Thanks!
Luke
takota(at)coenfarm.ca
Thank you, Luke, for a very interesting piece. I'd like to share this with you and your readers:
https://truthout.org/articles/democracy-will-never-be-delivered-from-above-it-must-be-built-from-below/
This is a good read. Agriculture has always been a hotbed of right wing extremism. I can't tell you how many times I've been belittled for being female in farming. It's definitely spreading into permaculture more, but then it always has. Joel Stalatin said you have to look and act like the good ol boys to get them to embrace your kind of farming. Well... They did. And now those people are hot in a space full of marginalized groups.
Hi Luke, is there a way to reach you? I have some information you may find interesting that can help further inform this article you wrote back in 2021 and its too lengthy to get into here.
Hey Daniel! Email me at carneal.luke@gmail.com
I've noticed in my decade working in organic agriculture that much of what motivates the loonier factions of the movement tend to be a mistrust of power. This is of course the basis of political debate. Who do you trust with the power in society? My armchair assessment is that, traditionally it was commercial power/traditional social structures that frieghtened the left and government/education/media power on the right. With the wealthy being sort of universally suspicious. As the internet has handed more power to social movements social power has become increasingly a tyranny to be opposed as well. The internet generally seems to be scrambling traditional power structures, certainly the traditional media holds less power. You can pick it all apart until you're blue in the face, but the common thread seems to be people feel powerless for one reason or another. Regardless of how people tend to frame their motivations, an effort to reclaim power seems to be at the root of much of the organic movement. Disagree as we may about the problem, organic ag provides a precieved answer.
Thanks for a well-written article that illustrates a bit of the complexity in interests, that can seem contradictory within the simplistic programmed set of ideas we can get lulled into. Lately I think the cardinal error is presumption based upon limited information. I'm not immune, and these can be hard ideas to shake; even though I appreciated the natural medicine, wholesome self-grown foods (and years of work in our 1-acre garden), and environmental concern of my parents (Prevention and Organic Gardening were always around from the '70s on), I always found their deep conservative values confusing in context. So when I read an article that unpacks another example of this, it helps broaden understanding and reinforces a bit of the live-and-let-live approach to dealing with people who differ with you on some touchy points.
The term libertarian now mostly gets used to describe the rightwing, freemarket-capitalistic (think hayek) and hyperindividualistic (think ayn rand) stance. However an important distinction to make is that there exist both left- and right-libertarians, and that the right - left axis provides the distinctive characterization, which many people often tend to forget. Political views can be placed on two axis, left - right (mostly about economic issues) and authoritarian - libertarian (mostly about social issues and questions of power). It is time to reclaim the term libertarian from the rightwing, because as Bookchin rightly pointed out rightwing libertarians should actually be called proprietarians, since property and freedom seem to be their main topics. Whereas left libertarians distrust state control on the grounds of equality, pluralism and multiculturality. https://vimeo.com/228159522
You are wrong when you state that homesteaders are climate change deniers. Just because most of these people don’t thing massive government spending and overreach should be used to improve the “climate,” doesn’t mean they don’t think something should be done. On the contrary these people are actually doing something about it. Many of these people are reversing desertification, and increasing carbon sequestration on their land. They are increasing water retention and restoring ecosystems by building soil. They are not screaming to the government to steal everyone’s money and do something about it. Why don’t some of you left wingers put your money where your mouth is and start improving your part of the earth. If everyone did, the problem would probably take care of itself.
Yep, they want Big Govt to fix the problem... which is an insane thing to want, bc Big Govt enables & creates most of the problems in the first place. Most Leftwing city dwellers want "Govt solutions," so they can sit back and feel virtuous for "doing something to help."
Here's a hint: there are FAR more Right-leaning folks in the small-farm community than most of you realize. The organic movement has always been predominately headlined by Lefties, but there are many more on the Right who also don't want poisons sprayed on their food. They just go about it quietly, and do things a little differently than what we usually see in trendy magazines and web articles. We are very alarmed by what they see happening in DC over the last decade, and can see where this is going.... and we wont stay quiet anymore.
Yes! And this is where it gets so interesting because folks on the right say "We are very alarmed by what we see happening in DC over the last decade, we can see where this is going.... and we won't stay quiet anymore." And they mean Obama, environmental, economic, and firearm regulation, social government programs like the ACA and a $15/hr minimum wage, and the rise of BLM, #metoo, and The Dream Act.
And folks on the left say ""We are very alarmed by what we see happening in DC over the last decade, we can see where this is going.... and we won't stay quiet anymore." And they mean Trump, the rise of anti-science rhetoric and neo-racism, the deregulation of big banks and environmental protection, and privatization of social programs (like private prisons).
So, in a way, we agree. 🤣
Yeah, except that list - - as you have framed it - - really isn't the underlying issue. Folks on the Right know their history, and it is not an overstatement to say we are undergoing a Communistic revolution, ushered in by Globalism. That's why I say "we know where this is going." Sadly, most folks on the Left are merely pawns of the Billionaire Class, obliviously caught-up in the vapid distractions you mention above, when they should be rebelling against the 0.001%. We will not stand by quietly as our livelihoods are ripped from us, and the cultural revolutionaries try to Cancel us.
Hi Dan, thanks for your perspective. Just to lay out my own political position - I'm a leftist/socialist. I have plenty of criticisms of what we call the "liberal" mainstream - folks who rightfully point out the travesties of racism, environmental destruction, etc but who are not willing to advocate for policies that would actually materially address these issues (redistribution of wealth, ending extractive capitalism, etc).
I absolutely agree that we should be "rebelling against the 0.001%" although I would broaden that to the capitalist "owning" class writ large. But I have to ask - who on the Right is advocating for such? The main political figure who popularized the 99% vs 1% framing was Bernie Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist. If you are concerned about wealth inequality, which you understandably seem to be, the Left (not liberals per se) is the most vocal about this issue.
LOTS of people are, and not just "leaders". Talk to some of them. They wont use the same lingo as Bernie, and go about it from a different angle, but most people on the Right are completely fed-up with the Ruling Class. Where Left vs Right differs is how to break this power structure. Lefties lean more towards the various "flavors" of Marxist thought, be it fascism, communism, socialism, or whatever -ism or academic theory you like. But the common theme is a top-down system of control by "enlightened" people.... but this class is always run by the Elites and top 0.001% in every such revolution, and is *antithetical in application* to the very 'revolution' they are promising! Always. The most aggravating part of this problem is the fact that in the list of social issues provided above by Sando, every single one of those flow from the Ruling Class and how they keep us divided. Every. Single. One. Those of us on the Right are fed-up with the so-called 'experts' and Ruling Class bc their nutty ideas are almost always wrong, and fly in the face of common sense and individual freedoms. Now, back tot he context of small farms, almost every person I know who is moderate to hard Right is very agreeable to organic ag (or lower usage of chemicals) in their own gardens and commercial farms to a reasonable point (and that is shifting toward a desire for less and less chemicals). None of them I know are happy to spray their crops. They see what's happening to the soil. They just need an economically viable way to break free of Monsanto that doesn't involve strings and conditions from the Govt.