Metaphysical Economics: Agrarianism, the Garden of Eden and St. Ephraim the Syrian

The agrarian life, the organic life over the mechanical, is a process that uses an array of cultural and biological practices to create a self-sustaining, independent and autonomous local economy. As such, it is also a rejection of the material cult of efficiency. The agrarian life is, at its most abstract, the natural and normal connection of human reason with the natural world.1 The natural world, of course, also comprises human reason. Modernity sees reason as purely internal and utilitarian, while the reality is that all being is rational. Reason is the very soul of being and is not reduced to the drive for control. Scientifically, organic, that is, traditional agriculture, builds soil health so as to avoid the use of synthetic chemicals that, while they increase yields in the short term, do irreversible damage in the long term. The organic system is designed to maximize the biological activity of the soil, minimize soil erosion and agricultural pollution. There, however, is far more to organic farming than specifically scientific or utilitarian ideas. It aims for little less than the total integration of all human activity. Small, decentralized patterns of ownership, the revitalization of small towns and even a maximization of local autarky aims at not merely food “security,” but personal security as well. Agriculture in this basic approach is more than just “growing things,” but an overarching philosophical critique of modernity and its reliance on mechanism rather than organism.2 The organic, agrarian criticism of modernity is, philosophically speaking, the process of manifesting and clarifying the rational structure of Creation as a whole. This is Reason as such, and humanity participates in this universal Reason. Practically, this comes down to the fact that the natural needs of man are mediated by labor: practical reason joins with the Logos within creation. Spirit, reason and labor are all one rational whole. It is not so much a “transformation” of the material world into something that man “requires,” but is rather an adjustment to the rational order of Creation mediated by the will.