O! Enkidu!

Happy news if you’re bored of me trailing my new book – I’m shortly going to hand over to a much valued long-term commenter here at Small Farm Future, Eric Farnsworth, so that he can trail his instead. But, lest you fear my powers of self-promotion are waning, let me also draw your attention in passing to this TBLI podcast I recently did with Robert Rubinstein.

Also, before we get to Eric’s book, I just want to thank commenters for the multiple discussions under my clown and two romances post. Apologies I didn’t have the time to respond much. Just to pick out a few threads that I’d have liked to engage with more, Philip made some good points about regulation in the food and forestry sector as a form of corporate capture. And about the way that, here in the UK, a Conservative government with an almost unsurpassable hostility and indifference to agrarian, rural and ecological matters has in fact been surpassed by the succeeding Labour government with an even greater hostility/indifference.

I won’t revert to old battles and name names, but I think it’s safe to say the idea floated by various prominent opinion-formers around election time that the arrival of the new Labour administration signalled better times for nature and environmental protection can safely be consigned to the bin. The fundamental problem, I’d suggest, is not the Conservative Government or the Labour Government. The problem is the Government.

That touches on another point in the comments. John writes that it’s “the “State” that ultimately grants ownership of land. Once “the law” is no longer enforceable, what’s stopping someone else deciding they want your plot?” A good deal of my forthcoming book Finding Lights in a Dark Age is devoted to exactly this question, so I won’t get into it right now. In brief, I’d say that John’s question points to the fact that societies need governance, but they don’t need The Government. Indeed, it’s often The Government – the “State” – that decides it wants your plot, your body, or your work.

On that note, apologies to Walter if I mischaracterised his position around grain states and unfree labourers or citizens. A topic that I hope to revisit soon.

Hell, why don’t we revisit it now? The Epic of Gilgamesh is probably the oldest surviving story about the state, freedom and civilisation. And it’s also the topic ...