'Economic WMDs' Destroying America's Landscapes

Author Wendell Berry mourns the stripping of rural America for its resources, and the gutting of its cities through perverse incentives, thoughtless subsidies, regulatory malfeasance and other "economic weapons of mass destruction."

1 minute read

October 15, 2004, 2:00 PM PDT

By Michael Dudley

Berry points to destructive strip mining practices and other forms of rural exploitation, as well as to the proliferation of Wal-Mart and other corporate giants that have killed off older cities, and states that "we are destroying our country...this destruction is taking place because we have allowed ourselves to believe, and to live, a mated pair of economic lies: that nothing has a value that is not assigned to it by the market; and that the economic life of our communities can safely be handed over to the great corporations."

Thanks to Michael Dudley

FULL STORY: Compromise Hell!

Friday, October 15, 2004 in Orion Online

Community / Economic Development United States

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