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NOTE XXII. The Nonhuman Original Factors of Production

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Chapter 22. The Non-Human Original Factors of Production

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1. General Observations Concerning the Theory of Rent

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In the frame of Ricardian economics, the idea of rent was an attempt at a treatment of those problems which modern economics approaches by means of marginal utility analysis.

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Ricardo's theory appears rather unsatisfactory when judged from the point of view of present

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day insight.

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There is no doubt that the method of the subjective value theory is far superior.

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Yet the renown of the rent theory is well deserved.

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The care bestowed upon its initiation and perfection brought forth fine fruits.

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There is no reason for the history of economic thought to feel ashamed of the rent theory.

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The fact that land of different quality and fertility, that is, yielding different returns

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per unit of input, is valued differently does not pose any special problem to modern economics.

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As far as Ricardo's theory refers to the graduation in the valuation and appraisement of pieces

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of land, it is completely comprehended in the modern theory of the prices of factors

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of production.

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It is not the content of the rent theory that is objectionable, but the exceptional position

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assigned to it in the complex of the economic system.

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Differential rent is a general phenomenon and is not limited to the determination of

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the prices of land.

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The sophisticated distinction between rents and quasi-rents is spurious.

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Land and the services it renders are dealt with in the same way as other factors of production

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and their services. Control of a better tool yields rent when compared with the returns

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of less suitable tools, which must be utilized on account of the insufficient supply of more

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suitable ones. The abler and more zealous worker earns a rent when compared with the

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wages earned by his less skillful and less industrious competitors.

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The problems which the rent concept was designed to solve were for the most part generated

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by the employment of inappropriate terms.

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The general notions as used in everyday language and mundane thought were not formed with regard

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to the requirements of praxeological and economic investigation.

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The early economists were mistaken in adopting them without scruple and hesitation.

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Only if one clings naively to general terms such as land or labor is one puzzled by the

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question why land and labor are differently valued and appraised.

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He who does not allow himself to be fooled by mere words, but looks at a factor's relevance

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for the satisfaction of human wants, considers it a matter of course that different services

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are valued and appraised differently.

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The modern theory of value and prices is not based on the classification of the factors

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of production as land, capital and labor.

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Its fundamental distinction is between goods of higher and of lower orders, between producers'

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goods and consumers' goods.

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When it distinguishes within the class of factors of production the original, nature-given

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Factors from the Produced Factors of Production, the Intermediary Products, and furthermore

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within the class of Original Factors, the Non-Human, External Factors from the Human

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Factors, Labor.

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It does not break up the uniformity of its reasoning concerning the determination of

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the prices of the Factors of Production.

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The law controlling the determination of the prices of the Factors of Production is the

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The same with all classes and specimens of these factors.

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The fact that different services rendered by such factors are valued, appraised and

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dealt with in a different way can only amaze people who fail to notice these differences

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in serviceableness.

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He who is blind to the merits of a painting may consider it strange that collectors should

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would pay more for a painting of the Lasquez than for a painting of a less gifted artist.

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For the connoisseur, it is self-evident. It does not astonish the farmer that buyers pay

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higher prices and tenants higher leases for more fertile land than for less fertile. The

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only reason why the old economists were puzzled by this fact was that they operated with a

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is a general term, land, that neglects differences in productivity.

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The greatest merit of the Ricardian theory of rent is the cognizance of the fact that

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the marginal land does not yield any rent.

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From this knowledge there is but one step to the discovery of the principle of valuational

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subjectivism.

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Yet, blinded by the real cost notion, neither the classical economists nor their epigones

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took this step.

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While the differential rent idea by and large can be adopted by the subjective value theory,

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the second rent concept derived from Ricardian economics, namely the residual rent concept,

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must be rejected altogether.

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This residual claimant idea is based on the notion of real or physical costs that does

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does not make any sense in the frame of the modern explanation of the prices of factors

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of production.

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The reason why the price of Burgundy is higher than that of Chianti is not the higher price

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of the vineyards of Burgundy as against those of Tuscany.

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The causation is the other way around.

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Because people are ready to pay higher prices for Burgundy than for Chianti, wine growers

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Profits are ready to pay higher prices for the vineyards of Burgundy than for those of

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Tuscany.

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Profits are not a share left over when all costs of production have been paid.

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In the evenly rotating economy, such a surplus of the prices of products over and above costs

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could never appear.

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In the changing economy, differences between the prices of the products and the sum of

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One of the prices that the entrepreneur has expended for the purchase of the complementary

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factors of production, plus interest on the capital invested, can appear in either direction,

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that is, either as profit or as loss.

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These differences are caused by changes which arise in the prices of the products in the

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time interval.

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He who succeeds better than others in anticipating these changes in time and acts accordingly

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reaps profits. He who fails in his endeavors to adjust his entrepreneurial ventures to

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the future state of the market is penalized by losses.

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The main deficiency of Ricardian economics was that it was a theory of the distribution

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of a total product of a nation's joint efforts. Like the other champions of classical economics,

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Mises also failed to free himself from the mercantilist image of the Volkswirtschaft.

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In his thought, the problem of the determination of prices was subordinated to the problem

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of the distribution of wealth.

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The customary characterization of his economic philosophy as that of the manufacturing middle

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classes of contemporary England misses the point.

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These English businessmen of the early 19th century were not interested in the total product

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of industry and its distribution.

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They were guided by the urge to make profits and to avoid losses.

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Classical economics erred when it assigned to land a distinct place in its theoretical

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scheme.

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Land is, in the economic sense, a factor of production, and the laws determining the formation

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One of the prices of land are the same that determine the formation of the prices of other

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factors of production.

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All peculiarities of the economic teachings concerning land refer to some peculiarities

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of the data involved.

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2.

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The Time Factor in Land Utilization

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The starting point of the economic teachings concerning land is the distinction between

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and two classes of original factors of production, namely human and non-human factors.

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As the utilization of the non-human factors is, as a rule, connected with the power to

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utilize a piece of the earth, we speak of land when referring to them.

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Legal provisions concerning the separation of the right of hunting, fishing and extracting

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In dealing with the economic problems of land, that is, the non-human original factors of

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production, one must neatly separate the praxeological point of view from the cosmological point

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of view.

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It may make good sense for cosmology and its study of cosmic events to speak of permanency

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and of the conservation of mass and energy.

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If one compares the orbit within which human action is able to affect the natural environmental

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conditions of human life with the operation of natural entities, it is permissible to

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to call the natural powers indestructible and permanent, or more precisely, safe against

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destruction by human action.

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For the great periods of time to which cosmology refers, soil erosion, in the broadest sense

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of the term, of such an intensity as can be affected by human interference, is of no importance.

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Nobody knows today whether or not cosmic changes will, in millions of years, transform deserts

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and barren soil into land that, from the point of view of our present-day knowledge, will

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have to be described as extremely fertile and the most luxuriant tropical gardens into

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sterile land.

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Precisely because nobody can anticipate such changes, nor venture to influence the cosmic

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The natural sciences may assert that those powers of the soil that condition its serviceableness

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Facts for Forestry, Cattle Breeding, Agriculture and Water Utilization Regenerate Themselves

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Periodically It may be true that even human endeavors deliberately

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directed toward the utmost devastation of the productive capacity of the earth's crust

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could at best succeed only with regard to small parts of it.

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But these facts do not strictly count for human action.

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The periodical regeneration of the soil's productive powers is not a rigid datum that

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would face man with a uniquely determined situation.

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It is possible to use the soil in such a way that this regeneration is slowed down and

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postponed, or the soil's productive power either vanishes altogether for a definite

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Period of Time, or can only be restored by means of a considerable input of capital and

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labor.

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In dealing with the soil, man has to choose between various methods different from one

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another with regard to the preservation and regeneration of its productive power.

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No less than in any other branch of production, the time factor enters into the conduct of

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of Hunting, Fishing, Grazing, Cattle Breeding, Plant Growing, Lumbering and Water Utilization.

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Here too, man must choose between satisfaction in nearer and in more remote periods of the

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future.

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Here too, the phenomenon of originary interest, entailed in every human action, plays its

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paramount role.

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There are institutional conditions that cause the persons involved to prefer satisfaction

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in the nearer future, and to disregard entirely or almost entirely satisfaction in the more

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distant future.

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If the soil is on the one hand not owned by individual proprietors, and on the other

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hand all or certain people favored by special privilege or by the actual state of affairs

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are free to make use of it temporarily for their own benefit.

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No heed is paid to the future.

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The same is the case when the proprietor expects that he will be expropriated in a not too

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distant future.

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In both cases the actors are exclusively intent upon squeezing out as much as possible for

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their immediate advantage.

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They do not concern themselves about the temporarily more remote consequences of their methods

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of Exploitation, Tomorrow does not count for them.

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The history of lumbering, hunting and fishing provides plenty of illustrative experience,

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but many examples can also be found in other branches of soil utilization.

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From the point of view of the natural sciences, the maintenance of capital goods and the preservation

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of the powers of the soil belong to two entirely different categories.

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The produced factors of production perish sooner or later entirely in the pursuit of

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production processes, and piecemeal are transformed into consumers' goods, which are eventually

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consumed.

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If one does not want to make the results of past saving and capital accumulation disappear,

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one must, apart from consumers' goods, also produce that amount of capital goods which

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which is needed for the replacement of those worn out.

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If one were to neglect this, one would finally consume, as it were, the capital goods.

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One would sacrifice the future to the present.

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One would live in luxury today and be in want later.

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But, it is often said, it is different with the powers of land.

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They cannot be consumed.

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Such a statement is meaningful, however, only from the point of view of geology.

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But from the geological point of view, one could or should no less deny that factory

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equipment or a railroad can be eaten up.

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The gravel and stones of a railroad substructure and the iron and steel of the rails, bridges,

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cars and engines do not perish in a cosmic sense.

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Only from the praxeological point of view is it permissible to speak of the consumption,

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the eating up, of a tool, a railroad, or a steel mill.

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In the same economic sense we speak of the consumption of the productive powers of the

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soil.

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In forestry, agriculture and water utilization, these powers are dealt with in the same way

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as other factors of production.

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With regard to the powers of the soil, too, the actors must choose between processes of

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production which render higher output at the expense of productivity in later periods,

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and processes which do not impair future physical productivity.

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It is possible to extract so much from the soil that its later utilization will render

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Smaller Returns per Unit of the Quantities of Capital and Labor Employed, or Practically

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No Returns at All.

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It is true that there are physical limits to the devastating powers of man.

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These limits are sooner reached in lumbering, hunting and fishing than in tilling the soil.

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But this fact results only in a quantitative, not in a qualitative difference between capital

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Natural Decumulation and Soil Erosion.

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Ricardo calls the powers of the soil original and indestructible.

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However, modern economics must stress the point that valuation and appraisement do not

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differentiate between original and produced factors of production, and that the cosmological

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indestructibility of mass and energy, whatever it may mean, does not enjoin upon land utilization

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A character radically different from other branches of production.

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3.

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The Submarginal Land

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The services a definite piece of land can render in a definite period of time are limited.

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If they were unlimited, men would not consider land a factor of production and an economic

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good.

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However, the quantity of soil available is so vast, nature is so prodigal, that land

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is still abundant.

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Therefore, only the most productive pieces of land are utilized.

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There is land which people consider, either with regard to its physical productivity or

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with regard to its location, as too poor to be worth cultivating.

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Consequently, the marginal soil, that is, the poorest soil cultivated, yields no rent in the Ricardian sense.

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There are areas in which practically every corner is cultivated or otherwise utilized,

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but this is the outcome of institutional conditions, barring the inhabitants of these regions from access to more fertile, unused soil.

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Submarginal land would be considered entirely worthless if one were not to appraise it positively in anticipation of its being utilized in later days.

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The appraisal of a piece of soil must not be confused with the appraisal of the improvements, that is, the irremovable and inconvertible results of the investment of capital and labor

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that facilitate its utilization and raise future outputs per unit of current future inputs.

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The fact that the market economy does not have a more ample supply of agricultural products

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is caused by the scarcity of capital and labor, not by a scarcity of cultivable land.

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An increase in the surface of land available would, other things being equal,

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will increase the supply of cereals and meat only if the additional land's fertility exceeded

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that of the marginal land already previously cultivated.

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On the other hand, the supply of agricultural products would be increased by any increase

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in the amount of labor and capital available, provided the consumers do not consider another

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Another employment of the additional amount of capital and labor more appropriate to fill

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their most urgent wants.

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These observations, of course, refer only to conditions in which there are no institutional

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barriers to the mobility of capital and labor.

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The useful mineral substances contained in the soil are limited in quantity.

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It is true that some of them are the outgrowth of natural processes which are still going

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on and increasing the existing deposits.

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However, the slowness and length of these processes makes them insignificant for human

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action.

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Man must take into account that the available deposits of these minerals are limited.

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Every single mine or oil source is exhaustible.

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Many of them are already exhausted.

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00:21:15.900 --> 00:21:21.560
We may hope that new deposits will be discovered and that technological procedures will be

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invented which will make it possible to utilize deposits which today cannot be exploited at

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all or only at unreasonable costs.

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We may also assume that the further progress of technological knowledge will enable later

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generations to utilize substances which cannot be utilized today.

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But all these things do not matter for the present-day conduct of mining and oil drilling.

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The deposits of mineral substances and their exploitation are not characterized by features

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which would give a particular mark to human action dealing with them.

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00:22:01.540 --> 00:22:07.200
For catallactics, the distinction between soil used in agriculture and that used in

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mining is merely a distinction of data.

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Although the available quantities of these mineral substances are limited, and although

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we may academically concern ourselves with the possibility that they will be entirely

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exhausted one day, acting men do not consider these deposits rigidly limited.

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Their activities take into account the fact that definite mines and wells will become

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00:22:35.640 --> 00:22:42.000
are some exhausted, but they do not pay heed to the fact that, at an unknown later date,

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all the deposits of certain minerals may come to an end.

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00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:52.520
For to present-day action the supply of these substances appears to be so abundant that

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one does not venture to exploit all their deposits to the full extent which the state

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of technological knowledge permits.

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The mines are utilized only as far as there is no more urgent employment available for

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the required quantities of capital and labor.

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There are, therefore, sub-marginal deposits that are not utilized at all.

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In every mine operated, the extent of the production is determined by the relation between

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the prices of the products and those of the required nonspecific factors of production.

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4. The Land as Standing Room

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00:23:35.580 --> 00:23:42.460
The employment of land for the location of human residences, workshops and means of transportation

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00:23:42.460 --> 00:23:49.300
withdraws pieces of soil from other employments. The particular place which older theories

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00:23:49.300 --> 00:23:55.980
attributed to urban site rent need not here concern us. It is not especially noteworthy

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00:23:55.980 --> 00:24:01.260
The theory that people pay higher prices for land they value more for housing than for

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land which they value less.

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00:24:03.960 --> 00:24:09.620
It is a matter of fact that for workshops, warehouses and railroad yards people prefer

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00:24:09.620 --> 00:24:15.860
locations which reduce costs of transportation and that they are ready to pay higher prices

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00:24:15.860 --> 00:24:21.020
for such land in accordance with the economies expected.

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00:24:21.020 --> 00:24:27.020
It is also used for pleasure grounds and gardens, for parks, and for the enjoyment of the grandeur

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00:24:27.020 --> 00:24:29.120
and beauty of nature.

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00:24:29.120 --> 00:24:34.620
With the development of the love of nature, this very characteristic feature of bourgeois

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00:24:34.620 --> 00:24:40.000
mentality, the demand for such enjoyments increased enormously.

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00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:45.860
The soil of the high mountain chains, once merely considered a barren dreariness of rocks

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00:25:15.860 --> 00:25:19.860
and to consider them his own, as it were.

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00:25:19.860 --> 00:25:26.860
The nominal owner does not derive any advantage from the satisfaction his property gives to the visitors.

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00:25:26.860 --> 00:25:34.860
But this does not alter the fact that this land serves human well-being and is appreciated accordingly.

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00:25:34.860 --> 00:25:41.860
The ground is subject to an easement that entitles everybody to pass along and to camp on it.

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00:25:41.860 --> 00:25:53.860
As no other utilization of the area concerned is possible, this servitude completely exhausts all the advantages the proprietor could reap from his ownership.

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00:25:53.860 --> 00:26:00.860
Since the particular services which these rocks and glaciers can render are practically inexhaustible,

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00:26:00.860 --> 00:26:07.860
do not wear out and do not require any input of capital and labor for their conservation,

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00:26:07.860 --> 00:26:17.460
This arrangement does not bring about those consequences which appeared wherever it was applied to lumbering, hunting and fishing grounds.

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00:26:17.460 --> 00:26:26.360
If, in the neighborhood of these mountain chains, the space available for the construction of shelters, hotels and means of transportation,

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for example, rack railroads, is limited, the owners of these scarce pieces of soil can sell or rent them on more propitious terms,

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00:26:36.460 --> 00:26:44.460
and thus divert to themselves a part of the advantages the tourists reap from the free accessibility of the peaks.

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If this is not the case, the tourists enjoy all these advantages gratuitously.

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5. The Prices of Land

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In the imaginary construction of the evenly rotating economy,

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economy, buying and selling of the services of definite pieces of land does not differ

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00:27:05.100 --> 00:27:10.980
at all from buying and selling the services of other factors of production.

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00:27:10.980 --> 00:27:16.140
All these factors are appraised according to the services they will render in various

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00:27:16.140 --> 00:27:21.900
periods of the future, due allowance being made for time preference.

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00:27:21.900 --> 00:27:28.860
For the marginal land, and of course for the sub-marginal land, no price is paid at all.

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00:27:28.860 --> 00:27:35.140
Bearing land, that is, land that, compared with the marginal land, bears a higher output

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00:27:35.140 --> 00:27:40.940
per unit of input of capital and labor, is appraised in accordance with the degree of

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00:27:40.940 --> 00:27:43.140
its superiority.

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00:27:43.140 --> 00:27:49.420
Its price is the sum of all its future rents, each of them discounted at the rate of originary

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00:27:49.420 --> 00:27:51.300
interest.

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00:27:51.300 --> 00:27:57.660
There is need to remember again that the imaginary construction of the evenly rotating economy

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00:27:57.660 --> 00:28:03.340
cannot be carried consistently to its ultimate logical consequences.

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With regard to the problems of land, one must stress two points.

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First, that in the frame of this imaginary construction, characterized by the absence

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00:28:13.980 --> 00:28:21.060
of changes in the conduct of affairs, there is no room for the buying and selling of land.

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00:28:21.060 --> 00:28:27.620
Second, that in order to integrate into this construction mining and oil drilling, we must

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00:28:27.620 --> 00:28:33.620
must ascribe to the mines and oil wells a permanent character, and must disregard the

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00:28:33.620 --> 00:28:40.420
possibility that any of the operated mines and wells could be exhausted, or even undergo

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00:28:40.420 --> 00:28:47.040
a change in the quantity of output or of current input required.

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00:28:47.040 --> 00:28:52.940
In the changing economy, people buying and selling land take due account of expected

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00:28:52.940 --> 00:28:58.380
changes in the market prices for the services rendered by the soil.

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00:28:58.380 --> 00:29:03.860
Of course, they may err in their expectations, but this is another thing.

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00:29:03.860 --> 00:29:09.540
They try to anticipate to the best of their abilities future events that may alter the

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00:29:09.540 --> 00:29:14.420
market data, and they act in accordance with these opinions.

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00:29:14.420 --> 00:29:20.180
If they believe that the annual net yield of the piece of land concerned will rise,

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00:29:20.180 --> 00:29:26.060
The price will be higher than it would have been in the absence of such expectations.

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00:29:26.060 --> 00:29:31.140
This is, for instance, the case with suburban land in the neighborhood of cities growing

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00:29:31.140 --> 00:29:37.420
in population, or with forests and arable land in countries in which pressure groups

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00:29:37.420 --> 00:29:44.540
are likely to succeed in raising, by means of tariffs, the prices of timber and cereals.

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00:29:44.540 --> 00:29:50.360
On the other hand, fears concerning the total or partial confiscation of the net yield of

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00:29:50.360 --> 00:29:54.620
land tend to lower the prices of land.

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00:29:54.620 --> 00:30:00.480
In everyday business language, people speak of the capitalization of the rent and observe

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00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:05.960
that the rate of capitalization is different with different classes of land and varies

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00:30:05.960 --> 00:30:11.000
even within the same class with different pieces of soil.

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00:30:11.000 --> 00:30:17.660
This terminology is rather inexpedient as it misrepresents the nature of the process.

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00:30:17.660 --> 00:30:23.460
In the same way in which buyers and sellers of land take into account anticipated future

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00:30:23.460 --> 00:30:29.800
events that will reduce the net return, they deal with taxes.

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00:30:29.800 --> 00:30:35.640
Taxes levied upon land reduce its market price to the extent of the discounted amount of

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00:30:35.640 --> 00:30:37.940
their future burden.

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00:30:37.940 --> 00:30:43.780
The introduction of a new tax of this kind, which is likely not to be abolished, results

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00:30:43.780 --> 00:30:49.460
in an immediate drop in the market price of the pieces of land concerned.

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00:30:49.460 --> 00:30:56.260
This is the phenomenon that the theory of taxation calls amortization of taxes.

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00:30:56.260 --> 00:31:01.900
In many countries, the owners of land, or of certain estates, enjoyed special political

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00:31:01.900 --> 00:31:06.660
legal privileges, or a great social prestige.

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00:31:06.660 --> 00:31:13.820
Such institutions, too, can play a role in the determination of the prices of land.

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00:31:13.820 --> 00:31:17.740
The Myth of the Soil

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00:31:17.740 --> 00:31:23.740
Romanticists condemn the economic theories concerning land for their utilitarian narrow-mindedness.

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00:31:23.740 --> 00:31:30.340
Economists, they say, look upon land from the point of view of the callous speculator

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00:31:30.340 --> 00:31:35.540
who degrades all eternal values to terms of money and profit.

336
00:31:35.540 --> 00:31:40.860
Yet, the glebe is much more than a mere factor of production.

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00:31:40.860 --> 00:31:46.580
It is the inexhaustible source of human energy and human life.

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00:31:46.580 --> 00:31:51.500
Agriculture is not simply one branch of production among many other branches.

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00:31:51.500 --> 00:31:58.100
It is the only natural and respectable activity of man, the only dignified condition of a

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00:31:58.100 --> 00:32:00.460
really human existence.

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00:32:00.460 --> 00:32:05.940
It is iniquitous to judge it merely with regard to the net returns to be squeezed out of the

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00:32:05.940 --> 00:32:07.260
soil.

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00:32:07.260 --> 00:32:13.540
The soil not only bears the fruits that nourish our body, it produces first of all the moral

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00:32:13.540 --> 00:32:17.080
and spiritual forces of civilization.

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00:32:17.080 --> 00:32:24.000
The cities, the processing industries and commerce are phenomena of depravity and decay.

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00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:26.180
Their existence is parasitic.

347
00:32:26.180 --> 00:32:32.300
They destroy what the plowmen must create again and again.

348
00:32:32.300 --> 00:32:38.040
Thousands of years ago, when fishing and hunting tribesmen began to cultivate the soil,

349
00:32:38.040 --> 00:32:40.300
romantic reverie was unknown.

350
00:32:40.300 --> 00:32:45.620
But if there had lived romanticists in those ages, they would have eulogized the lofty

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00:32:45.620 --> 00:32:53.460
moral values of the hunt, and would have stigmatized soil cultivation as a phenomenon of depravity.

352
00:32:53.460 --> 00:32:58.460
They would have reproached the ploughman for desecrating the soil that the gods had given

353
00:32:58.460 --> 00:33:04.860
to man as a hunting ground, and for degrading it to a means of production.

354
00:33:04.860 --> 00:33:10.420
In the pre-Romantic ages, in his actions, no one considered the soil as anything other

355
00:33:10.420 --> 00:33:15.620
than a source of human well-being, a means to promote welfare.

356
00:33:15.620 --> 00:33:21.500
The magic rites and observances concerning the soil aimed at nothing else than improvement

357
00:33:21.500 --> 00:33:27.620
of the Soil's Fertility and Increase in the Quantity of Fruits to be Harvested.

358
00:33:27.620 --> 00:33:33.340
These people did not seek the Unio Mystica with the mysterious powers and forces hidden

359
00:33:33.340 --> 00:33:35.020
in the soil.

360
00:33:35.020 --> 00:33:38.920
All they aimed at was bigger and better crops.

361
00:33:38.920 --> 00:33:44.660
They resorted to magic rituals and adjurations because, in their opinion, this was the most

362
00:33:44.660 --> 00:33:48.300
efficient method of attaining the end sought.

363
00:33:48.300 --> 00:33:54.180
Their sophisticated progeny aired when they interpreted these ceremonies from an idealistic

364
00:33:54.180 --> 00:33:55.900
point of view.

365
00:33:55.900 --> 00:34:03.060
A real peasant does not indulge in ecstatic babble about the soil and its mysterious powers.

366
00:34:03.060 --> 00:34:09.780
For him, land is a factor of production, not an object of sentimental emotions.

367
00:34:09.780 --> 00:34:15.400
He covets more land because he desires to increase his income and to improve his standard

368
00:34:15.400 --> 00:34:17.380
of living.

369
00:34:17.380 --> 00:34:20.500
Cities buy and sell land and mortgage it.

370
00:34:20.500 --> 00:34:25.740
They sell the produce of land and become very indignant if the prices are not as high as

371
00:34:25.740 --> 00:34:28.340
they want them to be.

372
00:34:28.340 --> 00:34:33.540
Love of nature and appreciation of the beauties of the landscape were foreign to the rural

373
00:34:33.540 --> 00:34:35.140
population.

374
00:34:35.140 --> 00:34:39.220
The inhabitants of the cities brought them to the countryside.

375
00:34:39.220 --> 00:34:45.860
It was the city dwellers who began to appreciate the land as nature, while the countrymen valued

376
00:34:45.860 --> 00:34:51.820
it only from the point of view of its productivity for hunting, lumbering, crop raising and

377
00:34:51.820 --> 00:34:53.880
cattle breeding.

378
00:34:53.880 --> 00:34:59.380
From time immemorial the rocks and glaciers of the Alps were merely wasteland in the eyes

379
00:34:59.380 --> 00:35:01.580
of the mountaineers.

380
00:35:01.580 --> 00:35:06.740
Only when the townsfolk ventured to climb the peaks and brought money into the valleys

381
00:35:06.740 --> 00:35:09.200
did they change their minds.

382
00:35:09.200 --> 00:35:14.900
The pioneers of mountain climbing and skiing were ridiculed by the indigenous population

383
00:35:14.900 --> 00:35:20.660
until they found out that they could derive gain from this eccentricity.

384
00:35:20.660 --> 00:35:26.620
Not shepherds, but sophisticated aristocrats and city dwellers were the authors of bucolic

385
00:35:26.620 --> 00:35:28.240
poetry.

386
00:35:28.240 --> 00:35:34.780
Daphnis and Chloe are creations of fancies far removed from earthly concerns.

387
00:35:34.780 --> 00:35:40.440
No less removed from the soil is the modern political myth of the soil.

388
00:35:40.440 --> 00:35:46.120
It did not blossom from the moss of the forests and the loam of the fields, but from the pavements

389
00:35:46.120 --> 00:35:49.760
of the cities and the carpets of the salons.

390
00:35:49.760 --> 00:35:54.760
The farmers make use of it because they find it a practical means of obtaining political

391
00:35:54.760 --> 00:36:00.000
Federal Privileges, which raise the prices of their products and of their farms.