"Except that farmers in the U.S. and in many other countries are pretty conservative, and often vote in blocs for right-wing parties. And tilling the soil doesn't always make for a great curiosity about the wider world."
And having a factory job, watching sports, playing video games, and getting drunk does foster greater curiosity about the wider world?
While I get Marx's point that the proletarization of the working class can be a catalyst in creating an awareness of alienation and the desire to end it, I simply do not see why it is necessary to pit city against country and manufacturing work against agriculture.
Moreover, if white yuppies start to get into "artisanal" manual work, is that a bad thing. It seems to me that diginifing (non-alienated) manual work would be a real step forward.
Joanna