Down with the Cities Part 20

Every farmer should become a lone wolf. Any farmer who is not prepared to become a lone wolf is not qualified to preach independent farming. Only a perverse person will establish true independence. "The neighbor planted his rice? Well then, I will wait another month before I plant mine." This kind of perversity will bring about true independence. As long as one produces food only for oneself, why should it be necessary to keep watching one's neighbors and worry about what they are doing? Even if you make a mistake and harvest only half of what you had planned, then consume that half and survive on it. If that is not enough, then eat wild plants. Independent farming does not necessarily mean following in the footsteps of large-scale agriculture, which produces an overabundance of contaminated food and makes great offerings of food to the city (in actuality, this is none other than urban-dependent agriculture).

Go ahead and laugh (it is the laugher who must expend the effort; the act requires nothing of me), but we must plant when and what we please. Still, this does not mean we should ignore the right time to plant. It does not matter if we have coincidental similarities with our neighbors. Perversity for the sake of perversity is not good.

If you want to reduce your acreage then do it without worrying about government policy. If you are producing enough rice for yourself, then there is no need for any more paddy acreage.

Instead produce beans or potatoes, or whatever you like. But when you reduce paddy acreage, you must not consider taking subsidies for it. This is just a clever government device for shackling you.

But there is an unfortunate side to this as well: We must even consider becoming independent of our families.

Even a family is an individual subject to independence. It has a character with its own individuality. Even the education mothers [53] know very well that things never go the way they wish. "The neighbor has planted his rice," say Grandpa and wife, "so if we don't plant ours soon, we'll become the laughing stock of the county." And they keep harping on this. If one plants rice too early it will grow too quickly, and one is sure to be visited by blight, leafhoppers, and blow-downs. Yet, one's family members, in their drive to do as the neighbors do, continue to insist on early planting. But here is where one must firmly stand one's ground, and standing one's ground means independence from the family. No matter what Grandpa and the wife say, stand by your own beliefs. If they will not listen, then let them plant their own half early, and when their paddies are overrun with blight and insects, make sure they realize that it is their own fault.

Farmers should note well that true independence signifies an existence of splendid isolation in which one holds to one's own principles.

If in this way lone wolves (i.e., self sufficient, austere people of splendid isolation) populate the world, and if, no matter where one looks, there are only perverse farmers who do not toady to the city, then before we know it (that is, without the need for violence) and inevitably, the social revolution will have taken place. The city, on its way to deconstruction, will begin to shrink (the city will not be able to bear the food shortage), [54] and the secondary and tertiary industries will find there is no way to stop their decline. Therefore the pollution of the Earth -- the waste, contamination, and destruction -- will decrease precipitously, and we will be able to have a little hope for the future of humanity and the Earth. It is then we will realize that there is still a little hope of saving ourselves.

When that time comes, we will want to tear down the now useless city buildings and return the Land to its original form, but we will find that tearing them down and discarding the waste requires vast amounts of energy, and that, no matter where we discard this rubble it will cover Land, so the city may just become a huge ghost town. Therefore we must now try to prevent its further spread.

The people will till the little remaining land, and will reproduce only as many people as that arable land will support.

Thus, if we take a cold, hard look at the future, we see that the only way for us to survive is to either exterminate the urban poison, or to eke out an existence as lone-wolf farmers.

Even if the city perishes, we must not let it take us down with itself.

Chapter IX Notes

51

Government bonds are ordinarily distributed among, and forced off on the city banks, and after a time the Bank of j.a.pan pays the interest and purchases them. Then the government buys them back from the Bank of j.a.pan with the paper money it has overproduced. Problems such as whose account book the bonds are listed in, when they will be redeemed, etc., are of only superficial concern because the principle objective is to spread overproduced money around the country. It is just like a magician transforming leaves into wads of money, for there is hardly any sleight of hand which is as easy, advantageous, or interesting.

And since every government in the world is competing in this maneuver, no one can avoid inflationary government debts.

Inflation during times of recession is a strange phenomenon that owes its existence to this magician's trick. That is why every year sees a rise in prices and countering pay raises, as well as greater amounts of money in circulation. On the other hand, if there were no inflation (i.e., if they did not print more money and flood the country with it), there would probably be another economic panic as there was in the 1930s when the big capitalists had all the money and everyone else had none.

52

One could say that the spirit of urban compet.i.tion and glory has brought about excessive production, but this spirit has been nurtured by the money economy itself. It is no mistake to say that, if there were no money, there would also not be such insane compet.i.tion and glory-seeking.

53

Term describing a common type of mother in j.a.pan. Since people are usually judged not by ability, but by their academic credentials, the education mothers send their children to private evening schools and make them study hard so the children will be able to pa.s.s the difficult examinations for the most prestigious high schools and universities. (Translator's note)

54

When this time comes, there will be no way to get by on imported food. The city will forget that it has repeatedly invaded and plundered other countries, driving them to desperation, and will, in order to continue its own gluttony, attempt to maintain its food imports by force, ignoring the starvation of other peoples.

But where on this depleted planet is the city going to find the land to nourish itself?