Wendell Berry's time is now

Wendell Berry is one author, one topic, where I'm in complete agreement with Rod Dreher - and that doesn't happen very often. It seems inescapable to me that the double-whammy of oil depletion and hyper-inflation will eventually - in a decade or two - force many of us to return to agrarian lifestyles or starve.

And now that the GOP has made fear of socialism, and its relatives Marxism and Communism, a central part of its campaign rhetoric, I wonder who will start pointing out the similarities between Berry's agrarianism and Marxism.

Has Berry ever weighed in on Karl Marx? Berry's connections to Wes Jackson and the Land Institute link him to writers like the LI's Stan Cox, who has written quite a bit about Marxism, agrarianism about the evils of capitalism.

I'm not defending Karl Marx, or his theories, or the notable failed experiments with Marxism and Communism. But with 'pure' capitalism tanking in a big way, and with oil depletion forcing us to question the viability of 1000 mile salads, it's high time we started thinking about how our grandkids are going to feed themselves. Without diesel-powered tractors and combines, agriculture should naturally return to human and animal power to till the soil and harvest the crops. With a worthless currency, workers will turn to other means to barter for essentials.

Again, with capitalism failing in such spectacular ways, it's not surprising that socialism and agrarianism are getting more airplay.

I just don't see how we would give up the efficiency gains of mechanization and large scale farming operations. If farmers currently pay substandard wages to illegal workers, what is going to make them higher hundreds of American citizens at a living wage? Sorry but Americans aren't going to spend 10 hours a day picking berries because gas is expensive. Maybe 1% of the population shares your longing for an agrarian lifestyle.
I fear that instead of adjusting our lifestyles our more likely path would be to fight wars over limited resources. if we do realize an agrarian future it will be in the most post apocolyptic sense.

You miss the point. its not about being a luddite. its about making our "homes" -- the environment, the communities, families -- the priority in our lives and our governmental policies.