Agrarianism is a social and political philosophy. Social philosophy is the philosophical study of interesting questions about social behavior (typically, of humans). ... Political philosophy is the study of fundamental questions about the state, government, politics, liberty, property, rights, law and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...

In his introduction to his 1969 book Agrarianism in American Literature, M. Thomas Inge defines agrarianism by the following basic tenets: M. Thomas Inge wrote Agrarianism in American Literature. ...

• Cultivation of the soil provides direct contact with nature; through the contact with nature the agrarian is blessed with a closer relationship to God. Farming has within it a positive spiritual good; the farmer acquires the virtues of "honor, manliness, self-reliance, courage, moral integrity, and hospitality" and follows the example of God when creating order out of chaos.

• The farmer "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 this life checks the encroachments of a fragmented, alienated modern society which has grown to inhuman scale.

• In contrast, farming offers total independence and self-sufficiency. It has a solid, stable position in the world order. But urban life, capitalism, and technology destroy our independence and dignity while fostering vice and weakness within us. The agricultural community can provide checks and balances against the imbalances of modern society by its fellowship of labor and cooperation with other agrarians, while obeying the rhythms of nature. The agrarian community is the model society for mankind.

Agrarianism is not identical with the back to the earth movement, but it can be helpful to think of it in those terms. The agrarian philosophy is not to get people to reject progress, but rather to concentrate on the fundamental goods of the earth, communities of more limited economic and political scale than in modern society, and on simple living--even when this 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. Self-Reliance is an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson. ... Autonomy is the condition of something that does not depend on anything else. ... The term New World Order has been used several times in recent history, referring to what appeared to be a dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of power. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ...

The name "agrarian" is properly applied to figures from Horace and Virgil through Thomas Jefferson, Transcendentals like Emerson and Thoreau, the Southern Agrarians movement of the 1920s and 1930s (also known as the Vanderbilt Agrarians) and present-day authors Wendell Berry, Allan Carlson, Victor Davis Hanson, and Michael Bunker. Horace Quintus Horatius Flaccus, (December 8, 65 BC - November 27, 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus. ... A sculpture of Virgil, probably from the 1st century AD. For other uses, see Virgil (disambiguation). ... Thomas Jefferson (April 13, 1743 N.S. – July 4, 1826) was the third President of the United States (1801–1809), principal author of the Declaration of Independence (1776), and an influential Founder of the United States. ... Transcendentalism was a group of new ideas in literature, religion, culture, and philosophy that emerged in the New England region of the United States of America in the early-to mid-nineteenth century. ... Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803 – April 27, 1882) was a famous American author, poet, and philosopher. ... Henry David Thoreau Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862; born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, development critic, naturalist, transcendentalist, pacifist, tax resister and philosopher who is famous for Walden, on simple living amongst nature, and Civil Disobedience, on resistance to civil government and many other... The Southern Agrarians or Vanderbilt Agrarians were a group of 12 American Traditionalist writers and poets from the Southern United States who joined together to publish the Agrarian manifesto, a collection of essays entitled Ill Take My Stand in 1930. ... Vanderbilt University is a private, nonsectarian, coeducational research university in Nashville, Tennessee. ... Wendell Berry (born August 5, 1934) is an American novelist, essayist, poet, teacher, cultural critic and farmer. ... Allan C. Carlson (born Des Moines, Iowa, 1949) is a scholar of the family, and is the president of the Howard Center, a director of the Family in America Studies Center, and editor of the Family in America newsletter. ... American historian Victor Davis Hanson on C-SPAN Victor Davis Hanson (born September 5, 1953 in Fowler, California) is an American military historian and political essayist of Swedish descent, best known as a scholar of ancient warfare as well as a commentator on modern warfare. ...

In the 1910s and 1920s, agrarianism garnered significant popular attention, but was eclipsed in the postwar period. It revived somewhat in conjunction with the 1960s environmentalist movement, and has been drawing an increasing number of adherents. Environmentalism is activism aimed at improving the environment, particularly nature. ...

Recent agrarian thinkers are sometimes referred to as neo-Agrarian and include the likes of Wendell Berry and Gene Logsdon. They are characterized by seeing the world through an agricultural lens. Although much of Inge's principals, above, still apply to the New Agrarianism, the affiliation with a particular religion and patriarchial tendency have subsided to some degree.

See also

• Junkers German landed aristocracy
• The Amish and Mennonites
• Agrarian Party
• Agrarian society
• Back to the land

Junkers (English pronunciation: ; German pronunciation: ) were the landed aristocracy of Prussia and Eastern Germany - often also called Eastelbia (Ostelbien in German - the land east of river Elbe). ... Amish couple in a buggy in rural Holmes County, Ohio, which has the worlds largest Amish population The Amish are WEIRD an Anabaptist Christian denomination and Swiss-German ethnic group found primarily in the United States and Ontario, Canada known for restrictions on the use of modern devices such... The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist (Re-baptizers) denominations named after and influenced by the teachings and tradition of Menno Simons (1496-1561). ... There are at least three political parties called the Agrarian Party: Albania - Belarus - Kazakhstan - Agrarian Party of Kazakhstan Agrarianism, as a political ideology, has however been the basis for many more parties. ... An agrarian society is one that is based on agriculture as its prime means for support and sustenance. ... Today, the phrase back to the land movement usually refers to a North American social phenomenon of the 1960s and 1970s (which is discussed further, below in this article). ...

External links

• "Agrarianism" in American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia
• Christian Agrarianism
• Biblical Agrarianism
• The New Agrarian
• The Agrarian Foundation