In The Tree of Life Massingham, sees the degradation of the soil flowing directly from the loss of the social solidarity of peasant farm and creative guild as the productive unit. As good work and responsible ownership of property are reduced to the symbols of money value, human beings become isolated from the living world of nature and the spiritual. An artificial split between work and leisure severs both from the satisfactions that come from the assumption of responsibility and right judgement. “Money divorces spirit and world, spirit and bread, spirit and labour”. Meaningless, mindless, soul-destroying labour is accompanied by a mind-numbing mesmerization with the money economy as the only normal, natural and practical way to set about providing for the everyday needs of life. As the fictional orthodox economist Professor Banger explains so authoritatively in Eimar O’Duffy’s social credit satire Asses in Clover, people are only able to gain an income from employment because somebody refrained from personal consumption, using the money saved up to provide employment and places to work:
“If there were no incentive to such people to save and invest their money, there would be no employment for anybody. We should simply stand around with our hands in our pockets and starve. That was what actually happened in primitive times. There were no capitalists to employ the people so they just sat down and died.” (Asses in Clover p246).
Tragically, this ludicrous folk lore of the 20th century is firmly rooted in the contemporary psyche. ‘Development’ is measured in terms of money income from employment. Working for money has become the primary precursor to all other forms of human interaction. It therefore often appears to be a ‘good thing’ that we have neither the time nor the need to provide our own food, clothing and shelter. If we think about it at all, we soon convince ourselves that by buying in the things we need, we are giving employment, i.e. a money income to somebody who would otherwise be destitute. Unravelling the complex interconnections of the modern economy in order to understand our own role within it, may appear a task too daunting to contemplate. However, to shrink from it, putting cash into collecting tins and buying ‘as much as possible’ from ‘fair trade’ sources is, quite bluntly, a cop out. Daily, by our actions as economic agents, we are colluding in the devastation of peasant farming cultures across the world. Traditional cultures, evolved over generations to live in harmony with their local landscapes, are being trashed by financially subsidised cash cropping which in turn floods the ‘developed’ world with ‘cheap’ foods.