Thanks, Geez. Interesting. I also had a rural background in some ways- my father taught history at a high school in a suburb of Columbus, Ohio but we lived on ten acres outside Worthington, Ohio, which we leased out and farmed ourselves. But the decline in Ohio farming was striking at the time. Friends who successfully farmed 350 family acres one year were reduced to farming their own land as tenant farmers to the new agribusiness owners, a few years later- with a reduction of income of about half. Serfdom. Angry serfdom. So we left, moved into town for good.
But I remember with affection my friends on the surrounding farms before the hard times came, and they changed.

I've always thought of myself as a city boy, and with pride. Then I sailed away, and my perspective began to change. It seemed that people all over the world with a connection of some sort to the land maintained a healthier outlook, were more open, easier to coexist with. I'm still a city kid- I don't see myself involved in a back-to-the-land scenario, though I can see it's merits. But the girls did not prosper in Paris. Still thinking on that fact.

Capitalism searches out the darkest corners of human potential, and mainlines them.