Once central to rural life, cafe-bistros are closing in the face of depopulation and falling alcohol consumption, but campaigners are seeking new ways forward
The underlying issue with rural communities is they are being hit harder by poorly regulated trade and cheap long distance transportation. This combined with more than a century of under-investment in the infrastructure has led to a steady decline in the economies of rural regions.
The extreme wealth of the industrialized nations has been built up by taking advantage lower value of human life and labor in other regions.
For example French farm laborers are treated more like human beings with the right to live. They have reasonable pay and working hours. French farms are directly competing with farms in Africa and South America. These areas tend to treat farm laborers more like serfs. They pay very little and are treated as easily replaceable. So French farmers profits have fallen steadily over the decades. This removes money from rural communities and the community declines as well.
Politically the largest issue is that the money is leaving much faster than the people. So people sink into poverty over time but remain where they are. These people are under-educated, isolated, and suffering = fertile ground for bad actors to exploit.
The solution is too painful for the industrialized nations to even consider. It would disrupt over a century of profits and crash the global economy. Import requirements: require that the labor in the production country be treated as actual human beings like in the industrial nation.
After the country-wide quarantine was lifted here in France, I hoped for a moment that we would capitalize on the remote-work experience to push as much employment as possible out of the cities and suburbs and into rural communities, but that never materialized.
I don’t think it’s necessary to empty rural villages, but there definitely needs to be a concerted effort to revitalize these parts instead of letting what amount to market forces drain them of their capacity to sustain life and communities.
The currently-employed “more efficient” farming methods are also only possible by continuing to centralize more and more land under single owners and by heavy use of fertilizers and mono-culture; there’s no telling how long they will remain effective and in the meanwhile we’re starting to recreate the landed gentry/ serfs class divide…
Please tell us more about US and Trump-era politics, I’m sure the subscribers to /c/europe can’t wait to hear more about your country.
Also,
are you trolling or do you really think that forced relocation of people from rural areas to cities is a serious solution to suggest?
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The underlying issue with rural communities is they are being hit harder by poorly regulated trade and cheap long distance transportation. This combined with more than a century of under-investment in the infrastructure has led to a steady decline in the economies of rural regions.
The extreme wealth of the industrialized nations has been built up by taking advantage lower value of human life and labor in other regions.
For example French farm laborers are treated more like human beings with the right to live. They have reasonable pay and working hours. French farms are directly competing with farms in Africa and South America. These areas tend to treat farm laborers more like serfs. They pay very little and are treated as easily replaceable. So French farmers profits have fallen steadily over the decades. This removes money from rural communities and the community declines as well.
Politically the largest issue is that the money is leaving much faster than the people. So people sink into poverty over time but remain where they are. These people are under-educated, isolated, and suffering = fertile ground for bad actors to exploit.
The solution is too painful for the industrialized nations to even consider. It would disrupt over a century of profits and crash the global economy. Import requirements: require that the labor in the production country be treated as actual human beings like in the industrial nation.
deleted by creator
After the country-wide quarantine was lifted here in France, I hoped for a moment that we would capitalize on the remote-work experience to push as much employment as possible out of the cities and suburbs and into rural communities, but that never materialized.
I don’t think it’s necessary to empty rural villages, but there definitely needs to be a concerted effort to revitalize these parts instead of letting what amount to market forces drain them of their capacity to sustain life and communities.
The currently-employed “more efficient” farming methods are also only possible by continuing to centralize more and more land under single owners and by heavy use of fertilizers and mono-culture; there’s no telling how long they will remain effective and in the meanwhile we’re starting to recreate the landed gentry/ serfs class divide…
deleted by creator