What is Agrarianism?
Agrarianism is a social and political philosophy that places farming and rural communities at the center of national life. Agrarians believe that owning and working the land builds independence, responsibility and civic virtue. They often favor widespread property ownership, political decentralization and policies that protect small farmers against large landowners, banks or industrial interests. Agrarianism can be found on both the left and the right. Some agrarians emphasize land reform and cooperatives, while others emphasize tradition, family and resistance to rapid industrialization.
Core beliefs
- Farming and rural life build independence, character and good citizenship.
- Land should be widely owned, ideally by the families who work it.
- Power should be decentralized to local communities and regions.
- Small farmers need protection from large landowners, monopolies and debt.
- Food security and rural communities are national priorities.
- Rapid industrialization and urbanization have social and moral costs.
History
Agrarian ideas are very old, but modern political agrarianism developed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In France, the Physiocrats argued that land and agriculture were the true source of wealth. In the early United States, Thomas Jefferson argued that independent farmers made the best citizens of a republic, and John Taylor of Caroline defended this view in his writings. In the late nineteenth century, American farmers organized through the Grange and the Farmers' Alliances, which fed into the People's Party. In Eastern Europe after the First World War, agrarian parties became major political forces. In Bulgaria, Aleksandar Stamboliyski led an agrarian government that carried out land reform before he was killed in a coup in 1923. In 1930, a group of writers known as the Southern Agrarians published I'll Take My Stand, which defended a rural way of life against industrialism.
Variants
Jeffersonian agrarianism links small farm ownership with republican democracy and limited central government. Agrarian populism focuses on farmers' economic grievances, such as debt, rail rates and crop prices. Eastern European agrarianism, sometimes called the Green International, sought a third way between capitalism and socialism through peasant ownership and cooperatives. Literary or cultural agrarianism, such as that of the Southern Agrarians, focuses on community, religion and tradition. New agrarian movements link small farming with environmental sustainability and local food.
Criticisms
Critics in the liberal and market tradition argue that agrarian protections, such as subsidies and tariffs, raise food prices and slow economic modernization. Critics on the Marxist left argued that small peasant ownership was economically inefficient and politically conservative, and they favored large collective farms. Urban and progressive critics note that some historical agrarian movements idealized rural societies that included severe inequality, including the slave economy of the American South. Environmental critics point out that farming also causes environmental harm and that idealizing it can hide these costs. Supporters respond that agrarian ideas protect food security, rural culture and a broad distribution of property.
In practice
Agrarian ideas have shaped land policy in many countries. In the United States, the Homestead Act of 1862 granted public land to settlers who farmed it. Land reforms in Eastern Europe, East Asia and Latin America broke up large estates and created smallholdings. Agricultural price supports and rural development programs, such as the European Union's Common Agricultural Policy, reflect agrarian concerns. In several countries, farmer parties still take part in coalition governments.