[lbo-talk] What is socialism?

[Marv Gandall]

Whatever its alleged merits, the idea of a return to the land is completely fanciful. If it was a practical option, you'd see such movement in the first instance among the unemployed, as you do in China and other developing countries and as you did during the depression, when some of the jobless - lacking unemployment insurance, food stamps, and other subsistence benefits - found their way back to the family farm. 

Today, I doubt that more than a very small percentage of the more than eight million Americans who have lost their jobs in the current downturn have taken that route, not least because most did not grow up on family farms, have none to return to, and are unwilling, together with their families, to sever their strong social and economic ties to the city.