Even
classical economists, such as Adam Smith, who claimed free markets would guide
an economy toward greater wealth, never claimed that this wealth would
necessarily bring greater happiness. They understood that individual, material
well-being is but one dimension of human happiness. It was not until early in
the twentieth century, when neoclassical economists began to proclaim economic growth
as the overriding goal of human society, that pursuit of wealth was equated
with pursuit of happiness.
The
Founding Fathers of the
If
the Hedonists were right, Americans would be the happiest humans ever to walk
this planet. No people in human history have ever spent more money in the
pursuit of sensory, individual pleasures. But there is growing evidence that
the advocates of a social and moral philosophy of happiness were correct. As
our pursuit of wealth has diminished our personal connectedness and our sense
of moral purpose, we have become an increasingly unhappy people.
Robert Putnam, a Harvard University political scientist, documents the growing disconnectedness among
Americans in his book, Bowling Alone. Many statistical measures of
social connectedness—voting in elections, joining political movements, writing
letters to editors, participating in civic and social organizations, belonging
to labor unions, attending church, visiting in other peoples’ homes,
etc.—indicate that Americans are only about half as socially interconnected
today as in the 1950s. Another set of statistics shows the likely consequences
of this growing disconnectedness. Dramatic increases in per capita expenditures
for law enforcement, prisons, lawyers, and courts reflect a nation increasingly
unable to resolve personal conflicts. Dramatic increases in suicides, clinical
depression, and malaise, including headaches, indigestion, and sleeplessness
are the logical physical symptoms of growing personal isolation. Each
generation of Americans reaching adulthood since the 1960s has indicated they
are less satisfied with life, less happy, than the previous
generation.
This
growing disconnectedness and unhappiness is not merely a coincidence with
In
the early stages, industrialization brings people together, as they learn to
cooperate and share work, carrying out tasks more efficiently working together
than alone. Beyond the early stages, however, it becomes more efficient to
coordinate activities through markets, rather than through personal
relationships. Specialized producers begin to buy and sell standardized
products, working for others or hiring workers, rather than working together on
collaborative economic ventures. Beyond this point, relationships are defined
by transactions and contracts rather than by shared interests and commitments.
One such relationship is readily exchanged for another, depending on the
economic benefits. Personal caring and connectedness are sacrificed to achieve
greater economic efficiency.
We
see symptoms of this growing disconnectedness in families, where family members
once worked together for their mutual well-being. Today, most family members
have specialized tasks, adults working outside the home and children going to
daycare or school. The material goods and services that were once produced
together at home—food production and preparation, learning, recreation,
etc.—are now purchased rather than produced. Communities of people who once
worked together, played together, and prayed together now only live in
geographic proximity. They work, play, and pray elsewhere. They share but a
very small part of their lives with anyone, either within or outside of their
communities of place.
Nowhere are the consequences of economic industrialization more apparent or more significant that in
agriculture. The specialization and standardization of American agriculture has
resulted in fewer, larger farming operations. Small, diversified family farms
have been replaced by large, specialized industrial farms—commonly called
factory farms. Fewer family farms meant fewer farm families in many rural
communities. Fewer families meant not only fewer people to buy groceries,
shoes, and haircuts in town, but also fewer students to support local schools,
fewer families to fill church pews, and fewer people to provide leadership for
local civic activities. The industrialization of agriculture not only destroyed
the quality of family life on farms, but also led to the decline and decay of
economic and social life of people in rural communities. Industrialization may
have increased the productivity of agriculture, but is has taken the happiness
out of farming and out of farm communities.
George
Naylor, a family farmer who has been raising corn and soybeans in
Equally
important and equally troublesome, the industrialization of agriculture has
disconnected people from the earth. We are still as dependent upon the earth,
upon farmland, for our physical survival as when all people were hunters and
gathers. Our dependence is less direct and our connections more complex, but
human life is still critically connected to life in the soil and to the farmers
who help nurture life from the soil. With industrialization, farmers came to
rely on commercial chemicals rather than the natural health and fertility of
the land. These agrichemicals now threaten the natural productivity of the
soil, and pollute the natural environment. Perhaps more important, the
productivity of industrial agriculture now depends upon non-renewable sources
of energy, rather than the self-renewing photosynthetic capacity of living
organisms. Such an agricultural system is fundamentally incapable of sustaining
human life on earth. In our pursuit of wealth, we have sacrificed our ethical
and moral responsibility to the Creator to be good stewards of the earth.
Thankfully, a new approach to farming is emerging to meet the challenge of agricultural
sustainability. The farmers who are creating this paradigm may call themselves
organic, biodynamic, holistic, ecological, practical, innovative, or just true
family farmers. However, they are all pursuing a way of farming that is
ecologically sound and socially just, as a means of sustaining long run
productivity and economic viability.
This
new way of farming requires a recommitment and reconnection of farmers to each
other, to their neighbors, to their customers, and to the land. As Wendell
Berry writes in his book, What Are
People For?, “Farming by the measure of nature, which is to
say the nature of the particular place, means that farmers must tend farms that
they know and love, farms small enough to know and love, using tools and
methods they know and love, in the company of neighbors they know and love.”
Kim
Seeley is one of these new sustainable farmers. Kim and his wife Ann run
a dairy farm in northeastern
In
restoring personal connections and commitments to the land and to people, the Seeleys and thousands of like-minded farmers all across the
land are finding ways to sustain themselves and to sustain humanity. Equally
importantly, they are rediscovering the happiness of “right relationships,”
among people within families and communities and between people and the
earth. They are achieving a more desirable quality of life—socially and
spiritually, as well as physically. These farmers, and other people who are
pursuing sustainable lifestyles, are showing the way for all who are ready to
abandon the pursuit of wealth and return to the pursuit of happiness.
John Ikerd was raised on a small dairy farm in