How Socialism in the Villages Went Wrong
Instead of imposing collectivization from above, Julius Nyerere tried to build a rural socialism based on the values of Tanzania’s villages.
Blog
Bring on the Heat
When and where organized labor’s been on the move.
The Political Economy of Olives
The world craves Italy’s Castelvetrano olives. But Italy doesn’t want the workers needed to pick them.
Welcome to Utopia, TX
This small town was envisioned as a socialist paradise. Now it’s Trump country.
Out of the Shtetl and Into the Heartland
What happened when assimilated German Jews tried to settle their Eastern European brethren in rural America?
Marxism and the Agrarian Question
The leading thinkers of Marxism stressed how important it was to govern in partnership with the peasantry. When communist states imposed collectivization by force, the results were disastrous.
India’s Failed Agricultural Revolution
Capitalism spread through India’s countryside without developing it.
Lula and the Ranchers
In Brazil, Lula has wagered that concessions to agribusiness elites are necessary to advance his redistributive project. Yet these very elites may undermine his whole program.
Kevin Costner’s Horizon Is as Bad as You’ve Heard
Supposedly the first of four films, Kevin Costner’s dull and messy Western throwback, Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1, is almost certainly dead on arrival.
This Land Is Your Land
Country, folk, and bluegrass songs that capture the realities of rural labor.
The Redneck Menace
White Rural Rage is another attempt to blame the Democratic Party’s decline in rural counties on mean and bigoted white Americans.
Southern Strategy Soundtracks
Country music became the sound of Richard Nixon’s coalition in the early 1970s — but it has always been too unruly to be fully co-opted by a reactionary agenda.