Some Theses on Property, Immigration, Society and Culture
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
There’ll be lots of people ‘defending their culture’, lots of sacrifices by the many for the ‘good of the nation’ whose benefits will curiously accrue mainly to the few, lots more death and misery in the borderlands, lots more political polarization and lots more gated communities at various geographic levels that may become as oppressive to the people within them as without.
China’s Urban Villages – an Interview with David Bandurski
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
There’s a standard historical narrative of economic development with which we’re familiar in the west, essentially of peasant farmers quitting agriculture for industrial wage labour in the city and thereby building all-round prosperity.
Of Cages and Hedges
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
The lessons of China’s tumultuous history demand attention from those of us who advocate for more localized, land-based economies as part of the solution to global problems.
Population Wrapped Up: A Response to Jane O’Sullivan
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
I’d like to have devoted more time to this issue, and perhaps to have reflected further on population issues more generally but with this fairly brief response only to a few of Dr O’Sullivan’s specific points I propose to wrap things up on the population front from the Small Farm Future end.
Beyond Borders
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
International migration, then, is controversial every which way you choose to look at it. So let me take a deep breath and try to define a pragmatism of my own around the issue
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.