"a people who are entirely lacking in economic self-determination,
either personal or local, and who are therefore entirely passive in
dealing with the suppliers of all their goods and services, including
political goods and services, cannot be governed democratically--or
not for long."
Wendell Berry
"And even today, against overpowering odds and prohibitive costs, one
does not have to go far in any part of the country to hear voiced the
old hopes that stirred millions of immigrants, freed slaves, westward
movers, young couples starting out: a little farm, a little shop, a
little store--some kind of place and enterprise of one's own, within
and by which one's family could achieve a proper measure of
independence, not only of economy, but of satisfaction, thought, and
character."
Wendell Berry
"We assume that we can have an exploitive, ruthlessly competitive,
profit-for-profit's-sake economy, and yet remain a God-fearing and a
democratic nation, as we still apparently think of ourselves. This
simply means that our highest principles and standards have no
practical force or influence, and are reduced merely to talk."
Berry
"...our country is not being destroyed by
bad politics, it is being destroyed by a bad way
of life. Bad politics is merely another result."
-- Wendell Berry (
http://www.brtom.org/wb/berry.html)
"A change of heart or of values without a practice is only another
pointless luxury of a passively consumptive way of life."
-- Wendell Berry in "The Idea of a Local Economy"
It is, in every way, in the best interest of urban consumers to be
surrounded by productive land, well farmed and well maintained by
thriving farm families in thriving farm communities.
Wendell Berry
Our national political leaders do not know what we are talking about,
and they are without the local affections and allegiances that would
permit them to learn what we are talking about.
Wendell Berry
The message is plain enough, and we have ignored it for too long:
the great, centralized economic entities of our time do not come into
rural places in order to improve them by "creating jobs." They come
to take as much of value as they can take, as cheaply and as quickly
as they can take it. They are interested in "job creation" only so
long as the jobs can be done more cheaply by humans than by
machines. They are not interested in good health--economic or
natural or human--of any place on this earth.
Wendell Berry
...if you should undertake to appeal or complain to one of these great
corporations on behalf of your community, you would discover something
most remarkable: you would find that these organizations are organized
expressly for the evasion of responsibility. They are structures in
which, as my brother says, "the buck never stops." The buck is
processed up the hierarchy until finally it is passed to "the
shareholders," who characteristically are too widely dispersed, too
poorly informed, and too unconcerned to be responsible for anything.
The ideal of the modern corporation is to be (in terms of its own
advantage) anywhere and (in terms of local accountability) nowehere.
Wendell Berry
We are now pretty obviously facing the possibility of a world that the
supranational corporations, and the governments and educational
systems that serve them, will control entirely for their own
enrichment--and, incidentally and inescapably, for the impoverishment
of all the rest of us.
Wendell Berry
We can't go on too much longer, maybe, without considering the
likelihood that we humans are not intelligent enough to work on the
scale to which we have been tempted by our technological abilities.
Wendell Berry
...the neighborhood, the local community, is the proper place and
frame of reference for responsible work.
Wendell Berry
...contrary to all the unmeaning and unmeant political talk about "job
creation," work ought not to be merely a bone thrown to the otherwise
unemployed...work ought to be necessary; it ought to be good; it ought
to be satisfying and dignifying to the people who do it, and genuinely
useful and pleasing to the people for whom it is done.
Wendell Berry
Biotechnology, variety patenting, and other agribusiness innovations
are intended not to help farmers or consumers but to extend and
prolong corporate control of the food economy; they will increase the
cost of food, both economically and ecologically.
Wendell Berry
What we have before us, if we want our communities to survive, is the
building of an adversary economy, a system of local or community
economies within, and to protect against, the would-be global economy.
Wendell Berry
From now on we should disbelieve that any corporation ever comes to
any rural place to do it good, to "create jobs," or to bring to the
local people the benefits of the so-called free market.
Wendell Berry
Our mistreatment of children is not mitigated by our interest in
"reforming" the institutions into which we put them. We will not have
better children by having better day care centers, schools, and jails.
Wendell Berry
Nothing is more pleasing or heartening than a plate of nourishing,
tasty, beautiful food artfully and lovingly prepared. Anything less
is unhealthy, as well as a desecration.
Wendell Berry
It is certain, I think, that the best government is the one that
governs least. But there is a much-neglected corollary: the best
citizen is the one who least needs governing. The answer to big
government is not private freedom, but private responsibility.
-Wendell Berry, "The Loss of the Future" in The Long-Legged House
(1969),
To put the bounty and the health of our land,
our only commonwealth, into the hands of people
who do not live on it and share its fate
will always be an error.
For whatever determines the fortune of the land
determines also the fortune of the people.
If history teaches anything, it teaches that.
--Wendell Berry
To cherish what remains of the Earth and to foster its renewal is our only legitimate hope of survival.
- Wendell Berry
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