University of Notre Dame
Browse
1/1
3 files

Land! The Case for an Agrarian Economy

chapter
posted on 2019-04-24, 00:00 authored by John Crowe Ransom
\u000aThe accomplished poet and scholar John Crowe Ransom made profound contributions to twentieth-century American literature. As a teacher at Vanderbilt University he was also a leading member of the Southern Agrarian movement and a contributor to the movement's manifesto _I'll Take My Stand_. Ransom's _Land!_ is a previously unpublished work that unites Ransom's poetic sensibilities with an examination of economics at the height of the Great Depression. Politically charged with Ransom's aesthetic beliefs about literature and his agrarian interpretation of economics, _Land!_ was long thought to have been burned by its author after he failed to find a publisher. Thankfully, the manuscript was discovered, and we are now able to read this unique and interesting contribution to the Southern Agrarian revival.\u000a \u000aAfter the publication of _I'll Take My Stand_ in 1930, Ransom, who provided the book's Statement of Principles in addition to its lead essay, became convinced that the book had not adequately proposed an economic alternative to Northern industrialism, which had fairly obliterated the Southern way of life. _Land!_ was Ransom's attempt to fill this gap. In it he presents the weaknesses inherent in capitalism and argues convincingly that socialism is not only an inadequate alternative but inimical to American sensibilities. He proposes instead that agrarianism, which could flourish alongside capitalism, would relieve the problems of unemployment and the 'permanently unemployed.' In particular, he argues that what he calls the 'amphibian farmer'-who can survive in both a monetary and a non-monetary economy- would never, so long as he relied on himself for necessities, have to fear unemployment. America, Ransom claims, is unique in offering this opportunity because, unlike in European countries, land is plentiful.\u000a

History

Date Created

2017-03-30

Date Modified

2019-04-24

Language

  • English

Alternate Identifier

9780268101961|9780268101954

Extent

160 pages

Library Record

004545286

Publisher

University of Notre Dame Press

Contributor

Jason Peters

Usage metrics

    University of Notre Dame

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Keywords

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC