Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
I'm not advocating that at all. I'm advocating a smarter, flatter structure. South Africa's moving towards it with IPPs. The societies I mentioned were merely examples of societies broken by Western expansion - as examples of efficiency being a double-edged sword. Calling something a double-edged sword doesn't mean deploring it, it means handle with care.

It was this sentence that made me think that:

The wise choice sometimes is to be inefficient, using labour-intensive methods to produce food, for example.

But on re-reading it, I clearly read more into it than was actually there.
Its interesting that you advocate labour intensive methods for food production, but mechanization for mining. The reason is clear ie the miners are at great risk underground. However, if miners can be moved to a better life elsewhere, why not peasant farmers? The fact is that in China, the extremely low factory wages are possible because people find that preferable to the miserable existence of peasant farming - although I admit that it is not really that simple.

Originally posted by twhitehead
It was this sentence that made me think that:

The wise choice sometimes is to be inefficient, using labour-intensive methods to produce food, for example.

But on re-reading it, I clearly read more into it than was actually there.
Its interesting that you advocate labour intensive methods for food production, but mechanization for mining ...[text shortened]... the miserable existence of peasant farming - although I admit that it is not really that simple.

The difference is that miners don't live underground whereas peasant farmers do.

You seem to be advocating that the peasant farmers be completely displaced from their homes. First they become practically indentured labourers for large scale farms, then they get booted off the land entirely in place of machines ... I'm completely against arbitrarily moving people around. It would be better if peasant farmers could become more productive and start selling cash crops.

This tends to be a natural process: the more successful peasant farmers gradually expand, while the less successful work for them or leave the country. (In Soviet Russia, the successful peasants, or Kulaks, were exterminated as class enemies precisely because of their 'bourgeois' success). Note that this natural, incremental process is completely different from the imposition of large-scale monoculture on people dispossessed of land and rights.

In South Africa various initiatives are afoot to bolster medium size farmers, who in turn procure from small scale farmers, to establish a flourishing value chain. The Joburg Fresh Produce Market has a programme like that. In South Africa, too, you have enormous farms staffed by people whose ancestors were enslaved, in many cases by the descendants of the current proprietors, but in all cases dispossessed and enslaved. That presents an intractable conundrum.

Chinese urbanisation is a phenomenon beyond my competence to discuss, because it is so multifarious. However one factor is the arbitrary displacement of large numbers of people from rural homes to make way for various government projects (among which, massive dams).

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
You seem to be advocating that the peasant farmers be completely displaced from their homes.

Yes. In some cases it is a necessity if we are to feed the worlds population.

First they become practically indentured labourers for large scale farms, then they get booted off the land entirely in place of machines ... I'm completely against arbitrarily moving people around.
Yet it happens all the time for those of us who are not farmers. Why should peasant farmers have more rights/benefits with regards to where they live. Sure, I don't support some of the methods used to move them nor how they may be treated, but I dispute that the best solution is to continue labour intensive peasant farming.

It would be better if peasant farmers could become more productive and start selling cash crops.
Better than what and for whom? The truth is that if you educate peasant farmers, most of them choose to move to the cities.

But coming back to efficiency. The efficiencies of living in cities are enormous. I really cannot stress how enormous they are.
If we are to educate everyone and provide them with a minimum standard of living, it will be far easier and cheaper if they are mostly in cities. Providing water, electricity, education, health, internet access, etc to small scale farms is expensive. If your long term plan is to keep them poor and not requiring these services then go ahead. However, if you wish to give everyone access to these services, then it makes far more economic sense to move them into cities and leave the farming to mechanised super farms.
And I don't actually think anyone needs to be forced into it, I think it could be encouraged through policies and most people would choose to move willingly. Its similar to the problem with overpopulation. There is no need to force people to have less children as most people will have less children on their own if given half a chance.

In South Africa, too, you have enormous farms staffed by people whose ancestors were enslaved, in many cases by the descendants of the current proprietors, but in all cases dispossessed and enslaved. That presents an intractable conundrum.
And I believe our government should be spending more on education to the point that those labourers are no longer willing to work for minimum wage and either buy/manage farms themselves or move into cities.

However one factor is the arbitrary displacement of large numbers of people from rural homes to make way for various government projects (among which, massive dams).
And such movements could of course be handled better. However, I dispute any claims that such movements are inherently wrong. The fact is that us city dwellers get moved all the time by economic pressures etc. Why should rural people have special rights.
And don't forget the large numbers of people that get moved due to natural disasters / poor city planning / etc.
Here in SA, the shanty townships get moved around - sometimes just because they are an eyesore or they are bringing crime to close to the rich people.