Agrarianism has two common meanings. The first meaning refers to a social
philosophy or political philosophy which values rural society as superior to
urban society, the independent farmer as superior to the paid worker, and sees
farming as a way of life that can shape the ideal social values. It stresses the
superiority of a simpler rural life as opposed to the complexity of city life,
with its banks and factories. Secondly, the term "agrarianism" means
political proposals for land redistribution, specifically the
distribution of land from the rich to the poor or landless. This terminology
is common in many countries, and originated from the "Lex Sempronia
Agraria" or "agrarian laws" of Rome in 133 BC, imposed by Tiberius Gracchus,
that seized public land used by the rich and distributed it to the poor. This
definition of agrarianism is commonly known as “agrarian reform.” In 18th- and
19th-century England and Ireland, the word identified any land reform movement
that sought to redistribute farm lands more equally, especially to landless
Irish families. Philosophy
M. Thomas Inge defines agrarianism by the following basic tenets:
Farming is the sole occupation that offers total independence and
self-sufficiency. Urban life, capitalism, and technology
destroy independence and dignity and foster vice and weakness.
The agricultural community, with its fellowship of labor and co-operation, is
the model society. The farmer has a solid, stable position
in the world order. He "has a sense of identity, a sense of historical and
religious tradition, a feeling of belonging to a concrete family, place,
and region, which are psychologically and culturally beneficial." The harmony
of his life checks the encroachments of a fragmented, alienated modern society.
Cultivation of the soil "has within it a positive spiritual good" and from it the
cultivator acquires the virtues of "honor, manliness, self-reliance,
courage, moral integrity, and hospitality." They result from a direct
contact with nature and, through nature, a closer relationship to God. The
agrarian is blessed in that he follows the example of God in creating order out
of chaos. History
The philosophical roots of agrarianism include European and Chinese
philosophers. The Chinese School of Agrarianism was a philosophy that
advocated peasant utopian communalism and egalitarianism. In societies
influenced by Confucianism, the farmer was considered an esteemed productive
member of society, but merchants who made money were looked down upon. That
influenced European intellectuals like François Quesnay, an avid Confucianist
and advocate of China's agrarian policies, in form the French agrarian
philosophy of Physiocracy. The Physiocrats, along with the ideas of
John Locke and the Romantic Era, formed the basis of modern European and
American agrarianism. United States president Thomas Jefferson
was a representative agrarian who built Jeffersonian Democracy around the notion
that farmers are “the most valuable citizens” and the truest republicans.
Agrarian parties Peasant parties first appeared across
Eastern Europe between 1860 and 1910, when commercialized agriculture and
world market forces disrupted traditional rural society, and the
railway and growing literacy facilitated the work of roving organizers. Agrarian
parties advocated land reforms to redistribute land on large estates among
those who work it. They also wanted village cooperatives to keep the profit
from crop sales in local hands and credit institutions to underwrite needed
improvements. Many peasant parties were also nationalist parties because
peasants often worked their land for the benefit of landlords of different
ethnicity. Peasant parties rarely had any power
before World War I but some became influential in the interwar era,
especially in Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia. For a while, in the
1920s and the 1930s, there was a Green International based on the peasant
parties in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Serbia. It functioned
primarily as an information center that spread the ideas of agrarianism and
combating socialism on the left and landlords on the right and never
launched any significant activities. = Bulgaria=
In Bulgaria, the Bulgarian Agrarian National Union was organized in 1899 to
resist taxes and build cooperatives. BZNS came to power in 1919 and
introduced many economic, social, and legal reforms. However, conservative
forces crushed BZNS in a 1923 coup and assassinated its leader, Aleksandar
Stamboliyski. BZNS was made into a Communist puppet group until 1989, when
it reorganized as a genuine party. = Czechoslovakia=
In Czechoslovakia, the Republican Party of Agricultural and Smallholder People
often shared power in parliament as a partner in the five-party pětka
coalition. The party's leader, Antonin Svehla, was prime minister several
times. It was consistently the strongest party, forming and dominating
coalitions. It moved beyond its original agrarian base to reach middle-class
voters.The party was banned by the National Front after the Second World
War. = Romania=
In Romania, older parties from Transylvania, Moldavia, and Wallachia
merged to become the National Peasants' Party. Iuliu Maniu was a prime minister
with an agrarian cabinet from 1928 to 1930, but the Great Depression made
proposed reforms impossible. The communists dissolved the party in 1947,
but it reformed in 1989 after they fell from power.
= Serbia= In Serbia, Nikola Pašić and his People's
Radical Party dominated Serbian politics after 1903. The party also monopolized
power in Yugoslavia from 1918 to 1929. During the dictatorship of the 1930s,
the prime minister was from that party. = Tunisia=
The Farmers' Voice Party won a seat in the district of Jendouba after the
parliamentary election of 2014. = Australia=
Historian F.K. Crowley finds that: Australian farmers and their spokesman
have always considered that life on the land is inherently more virtuous, as
well as more healthy, more important and more productive, then life in the towns
and cities....The farmers complained that something was wrong with an
electoral system which produced parliamentarians who spent money
beautifying vampire-cities instead of developing the interior.
The Country Party, from the 1920s to the 1970s, promulgated its version of
agrarianism, which it called "countrymindedness". The goal was to
enhance the status of the graziers and small farmers and justified subsidies
for them. = New Zealand=
The New Zealand Liberal Party aggressively promoted agrarianism in its
heyday. The landed gentry and aristocracy ruled Britain at this time.
New Zealand never had an aristocracy but it's wealthy landowners largely
controlled politics before 1891. The Liberal Party set out to change that by
a policy it called "populism." Richard Seddon had proclaimed the goal as early
as 1884: "It is the rich and the poor; it is the wealthy and the landowners
against the middle and labouring classes. That, Sir, shows the real
political position of New Zealand." The Liberal strategy was to create a large
class of small landowning farmers who supported Liberal ideals. The Liberal
government also established the basis of the later welfare state such as old age
pensions and developed a system for settling industrial disputes, which was
accepted by both employers and trade unions. In 1893, it extended voting
rights to women, making New Zealand the first country in the world to do so.
To obtain land for farmers, the Liberal government from 1891 to 1911 purchased
3,100,000 acres of Maori land. The government also purchased 1,300,000
acres from large estate holders for subdivision and closer settlement by
small farmers. The Advances to Settlers Act provided low-interest mortgages, and
the Agriculture Department disseminated information on the best farming methods.
The Liberals proclaimed success in forging an egalitarian, anti-monopoly
land policy. The policy built up support for the Liberal party in rural North
Island electorates. By 1903, the Liberals were so dominant that there was
no longer an organized opposition in Parliament.
Back-to-the-land movement Agrarianism is similar to but not
identical with the back-to-the-land movement. Agrarianism concentrates on
the fundamental goods of the earth, on communities of more limited economic and
political scale than in modern society, and on simple living, even when the
shift involves questioning the "progressive" character of some recent
social and economic developments. Thus, agrarianism is not industrial farming,
with its specialization on products and industrial scale.
See also References
Further reading = Agrarian values=
Brass, Tom. Peasants, Populism and Postmodernism: The Return of the
Agrarian Myth Brass, Tom. Class, Culture and the
Agrarian Myth Danbom, David B. "Romantic Agrarianism
in Twentieth-Century America," Agricultural History, Vol. 65#4, pp.
1–12 in JSTOR Grampp, William D. "John Taylor:
Economist of Southern Agrarianism," Southern Economic Journal, Vol. 11#3,
pp. 255–268 in JSTOR Hofstadter, Richard. "Parrington and the
Jeffersonian Tradition," Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp.
391–400 in JSTOR Inge, M. Thomas. Agrarianism in American
Literature Kolodny, Annette. The Land before Her:
Fantasy and Experience of the American Frontiers, 1630–1860. onlin edition
Marx, Leo. The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Ideal in
America. Murphy, Paul V. The Rebuke of History:
The Southern Agrarians and American Conservative Thought
Parrington, Vernon. Main Currents in American Thought, 3-vol online
Quinn, Patrick F. "Agrarianism and the Jeffersonian Philosophy," Review of
Politics, Vol. 2#1, pp. 87–104 in JSTOR Thompson, Paul, and Thomas C. Hilde,
eds. The Agrarian Roots of Pragmatism = Primary sources=
Sorokin, Pitirim A. et al., eds. A Systematic Source Book in Rural
Sociology vol 1 pp. 1–146 covers many major thinkers down to 1800
= Europe= Batory, Agnes, and Nick Sitter.
"Cleavages, competition and coalition building: Agrarian parties and the
European question in Western and East Central Europe" European Journal of
Political Research, Vol. 43, pp. 523–546.
Bell, John D. Peasants in Power: Alexander Stamboliski and the Bulgarian
Agrarian National Union, 1899–1923(1923) Donnelly, James S. Captain Rock: The
Irish Agrarian Rebellion of 1821–1824 Donnelly, James S. Irish Agrarian
Rebellion, 1760–1800 Gross, Feliks, ed. European Ideologies:
A Survey of 20th Century Political Ideas pp. 391–481 online edition, on Russia
and Bulgaria Kubricht, Andrew Paul. "The Czech
Agrarian Party, 1899-1914: a study of national and economic agitation in the
Habsburg monarchy" Merlan, Francesca. Tracking Rural
Change: Community, Policy and Technology in Australia, New Zealand and Europe.
ANU E Press. p. 60. ISBN 9781921536533. Narkiewicz, Olga A. The Green Flag:
Polish Populist Politics, 1867–1970. Oren, Nissan. Revolution Administered:
Agrarianism and Communism in Bulgaria, focus is post 1945
Paine, Thomas. Agrarian Justice Patterson, James G. In the Wake of the
Great Rebellion: Republican, Agrarianism and Banditry in Ireland After 1798
Roberts, Henry L. Rumania: Political Problems of an Agrarian State.
Zagorin, Perez. Rebels and Rulers, 1500–1660: Volume 1, Agrarian and Urban
Rebellions : Society, States and Early Modern Revolution
= North America= Eisinger, Chester E. "The Influence of
Natural Rights and Physiocratic Doctrines on American Agrarian Thought
during the Revolutionary Period," Agricultural History 21#1 pp. 13–23 in
JSTOR Griswold, A. Whitney. "The Agrarian
Democracy of Thomas Jefferson," American Political Science Review 40#4 pp.
657–681 in JSTOR Goodwyn, Lawrence. The Populist Moment:
A Short History of the Agrarian Revolt in America, 1880s and 1890s in U.S.
Hofstadter, Richard. "Parrington and the Jeffersonian Tradition," Journal of the
History of Ideas 2#4 pp. 391–400 in JSTOR
Lipset, Seymour Martin. Agrarian socialism: the Coöperative Commonwealth
Federation in Saskatchewan McConnell, Grant. The decline of
agrarian democracy(1953), 20th century U.S.
Mark, Irving. Agrarian conflicts in colonial New York, 1711–1775
Ochiai, Akiko. Harvesting Freedom: African American Agrarianism in Civil
War Era South Carolina Robison, Dan Merritt. Bob Taylor and the
agrarian revolt in Tennessee Stine, Harold E. The agrarian revolt in
South Carolina;: Ben Tillman and the Farmers' Alliance
Summerhill, Thomas. Harvest of Dissent: Agrarianism in Nineteenth-Century New
York Szatmary, David P. Shay's Rebellion: The
Making of an Agrarian Insurrection, 1787 in Massachusetts
Woodward, C. Vann. Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel online edition
Woodward, C. Vann. "Tom Watson and the Negro in Agrarian Politics," The Journal
of Southern History, 4#1 pp. 14–33 in JSTOR
= Global South= Brass, Tom. New Farmers' Movements in
India 304 pages. Brass, Tom. Latin American Peasants 432
pages. Ginzberg, Eitan. "State Agrarianism
versus Democratic Agrarianism: Adalberto Tejeda's Experiment in Veracruz,
1928–32," Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 30#2, pp. 341–372 in JSTOR
Handy, Jim. Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict and Agrarian
Reform in Guatemala, 1944–1954 Jacoby, Erich H. Agrarian unrest in
Southeast Asia Newbury, David, and Catharine Newbury.
"Bringing the peasants back in: Agrarian themes in the construction and corrosion
of statist historiography in Rwanda." American Historical Review: 832-877. in
JSTOR Paige, Jeffery M. Agrarian revolution:
social movements and export agriculture in the underdeveloped world 435 pages
excerpt and text search Sanderson, Steven E. Agrarian populism
and the Mexican state: the struggle for land in Sonora
Stokes, Eric. The Peasant and the Raj: Studies in Agrarian Society and Peasant
Rebellion in Colonial India Springer, S.. "Illegal evictions?
Overwriting possession and orality with law’s violence in Cambodia." Journal of
Agrarian Change. Tannenbaum, Frank. The Mexican Agrarian
Revolution External links
Writings of a Deliberate Agrarian The New Agrarian