Thoughtstoppers and Thoughtstarters
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
I don’t think I’m being too Spenglerian to express the fear that in present troubled times, when the modernist state-industry-warfare nexus is manifestly unraveling, something similar could easily take hold again and do the same. And that, I submit, is a thoughtstarter, not a thoughtstopper.
No Farm Future, No Growth Future, No Farmer Future: a SFF bulletin
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
My feeling on the contrary is that only by properly inhabiting that romance and re-enchanting the relationship between people and land as a precious food-giving resource will the problems George identifies be solvable.
Our Political Saviors: the Republicans
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
So what really interests me is whether we may be entering another ‘Machiavellian moment’ when smallholder republicanism may, at least in some places, arise as a response to new times and challenges.
Debating Population, Poverty and Development
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
So while there’s much to be said for population control, I think the notion that population control is the most important precursor to economic development and environmental protection is problematic.
Three Deprivation Narratives
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
I’d like to think that it should be possible for everyone in the world to have safe and comfortable shelter (including access to tolerably warm bathing water) and an adequate diet (I’m not so sure about the color TV)...
New Deals, Old Bottles
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
Let me begin by saying that we leftists do often struggle with the issue of the environment. One member of our tribe recently told me proudly on Twitter that the left was ‘against nature’ (yes, really), and it’s true that historically we’ve had a bit of a thing about trying to keep the messy world of the natural, the organic and the rural at arm’s length...
Half-Earth, Half-Baked?
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
After nineteen chapters of amiable good sense, Wilson suddenly goes full ecomodernist, as if some devilish Breakthrough Institute hacker finally figured out how to make him stop his anti-Anthropocene agitating by messing with his neurons like a cordyceps fungus attacking one of his beloved ants.
The Vaishya Gambit
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
So ironically, perhaps the only chance for a truly liberal politics of friends and not enemies now lies in reconstructing a vaishya localism. But perhaps I’m being too pessimistic…?