Voices Rise From the
LAND
by John W. Helmuth
Callimuth Press ($18.95) Fiction
A book review by Doug Zalesky
“Over fifty years ago the American President Franklin Roosevelt said, ‘The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That in its essence, is fascism – ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power.’”
Thus the stage is set for the story that unfolds in this fascinating book. John Helmuth brilliantly combines two separate stories into one single presentation. Story one describes the aftermath of the complete failure of the former government and monopoly controlled Soviet agricultural system and the struggle of Ukraine to move towards a democratic, open market agricultural system. Parallel to that is the second story, describing the current movement of American agriculture away from the democratic, free open market system to one controlled more and more by the large monopolistic agricultural companies.
Dr. Helmuth provides a very human aspect to the struggles encountered in both stories, describing the physical and emotional hardships endured by the ranchers and farmers. He is eloquent in his description of the lack of protection provided to the people by the government. Helmuth’s story depicts the struggles of both Ukraine people and the American people, while different in heritage, but so similar in their struggle to overcome the power of the large monopolistic agricultural companies. While the countries are different, moving in different directions, the struggles are similar and the impacts on the people so devastating.
The question that ran through my mind continuously, while reading this book was how any government; especially one that was created to protect the rights of the people can do so little to protect them. It was true for the Soviets and now is becoming more and more true for the American agricultural sector.
Helmuth points out in his book how it has been known for over fifty years that market capitalism is the most efficient system yet devised, if and only if the business decisions are made by many of dispersed individual resource owners who are closest to the economic circumstances; who on a day- to- day basis are on the spot looking out after the resources they own and who know about their own micro-variables. Through this dispersed ownership and dispersed decision-making, market capitalism is given one of its strongest advantages – economic flexibility: the ability to respond quickly and correctly to changing economic circumstances. This is in fact why Western market capitalism has succeeded and Soviet Communism failed. He also points out that at the same time it has also been known that market capitalism will have the same inefficient, exploitative outcome as Soviet Communism if the ownership of resources becomes concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer large corporations, and when business decisions come to be made by those relatively few individuals who own and/or operate large concentrated corporations.
The book will make you laugh, it will make you mad, and it will make
you cry. The evidence is obvious and Helmuth is able to very vividly present
the evidence, but in a very human manner that will touch you deeply.
For all of those involved in agriculture, and especially those who believe
in the importance of an open, free market system, this book is a must
read. John W. Helmuth has provided us all with the facts, the truth, and
the reality of where we are headed in agriculture in this country and
who is in the drivers seat. One can only hope that the journey does not
end in the same place that the people of Ukraine have had to start from.
If it is, then agriculture in this country will be comprised of serfs
working for the large monopolistic companies and the freedom of the independent
producer will cease to exist.
Read and enjoy the book, and take heart in its message.
“Over one-hundred-eighty years ago the father of individual freedoms, Thomas Jefferson, from the wellspring of the French Revolution said, ‘I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial by strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country.’”
Copyright © 1999, Callimuth Press
All Rights Reserved