Caption: Minding a modest government: Although Randolph was a countryman with Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and he shared their devotion to decentralized republicanism, Randolph parted company with these titans of American statecraft rather than abandon his advocacy of
agrarianism.
Farmer choice is an integral component of
agrarianism: those who want to farm should be free to do so (Tweeten, 2003).
From the
agrarianism practiced by Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, through the Morrill Land Grant College Act and Hatch Act in the nineteenth century, to the Plant Patent Act of 1930 and the emergence of agricultural biotechnology in the late twentieth century, farming in the United States has shifted from an act of independence to a practice regulated by private corporations--Monsanto being one of the largest players.
Orr's (2001) concept of 'new
agrarianism' for example--which argues for the dispersion of mega-farms into diverse pockets of local farmers cultivating their own local produce--also touches on this potential form of positive human intervention that can unite local geoengineering experiments with the sustainable practices associated with the Transition movement:
His views on religion, slavery,
agrarianism, citizenship, and other moral and intellectual qualities in Notes and elsewhere were distorted and condemned as utopian, atheistical, wavering, weak, and wrong headed (273).
Jefferson's opposition allied him with small farmers and
agrarianism writ large.
The "Parliamentary men" (54), betrayed the revolutionary moment of the Land War according to Anna Parnell and the Ladies' Land League, suppressing not only the radical
agrarianism of the "No Rent" manifesto but also feminism in the political sphere.
Agrarianism can be seen more clearly when it is contrasted and shown as having existed in parallel with each of these stages of economic world development.
The new communes variously promoted community and individualism, separation from society as well as cooperation with surrounding communities, and rural
agrarianism in addition to new technologies.