Michael H Goldhaber wrote:
> 4. As to Marx's suggestion mentioned by Louis in his blog post, to
> better integrate city and country, it happens that version of the was
> instituted in post-war Japan as a method to maintain the dominance of
> the (rightist) Liberal Democratic party. Rice farmers
> were heavily subsidized and protected, and rural areas became the
> centers of many small-scale industries. that is still in place, but
> the children of farmers now refuse to farm, in many cases, and the sytem
> seems to be in partial collapse. On the other hand, in the US a closer
> integration fo city and country is now common place, instantiated by
> young people moving to farms, farmers markets and various means of
> ordering direct. What that means in terms o energy efficiency,
> pollution and prices is more complex.
Actually, the best example of town/country integration is in Cuba today,
which was forced to innovate in agriculture because of the collapse of
the USSR. Richard Lewontin has written extensively about this, I
believe. So has Food First.
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