Berry, Wendell -- Speech (1994-09-29), “Conserving Forest Communities,” Kentucky Forest Summit, Louisville

Dave — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 12:44:10 +0000

That this economic system persists and grows larger and stronger in spite of its evident failure has nothing to do with rationality or, for that matter, with evidence. It persists because, embodied now in multinational corporations, it has discovered a terrifying truth: If you can control a people’s economy, you don’t need to worry about its politics; its politics have become irrelevant. If you control people’s choices as to whether or not they will work, and where they will work, and what they will do, and how well they will do it, and what they will eat and wear, and the genetic makeup of their crops and animals, and what they will do for amusement, then why should you worry about freedom of speech? In a totalitarian economy, any “political liberties” that the people might retain would simply cease to matter. If, as is often the case already, nobody can be elected who is not wealthy, and if nobody can be wealthy without dependence on the corporate economy, then what is your vote worth? The citizen thus becomes an economic subject.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Speech (1994-09-29), “Conserving Forest Communities,” Kentucky Forest Summit, Louisville
(Source)

Collected in Another Turn of the Crank (1995).

WIST Quotations

Berry, Wendell -- Speech (1994-09-29), “Conserving Forest Communities,” Kentucky Forest Summit, Louisville