[Author’s
note: Several years ago, in an online
political forum, a lady asked me either “how” or “when” I became so
conservative. I was amused that I had
never considered the question, then looked inside
myself for the answer. The following was
my reply to her.]
Date:
To: Jennifer From:
Russ Walden
Subject: Lessons From The
Farm
An interesting and provocative question. It is amusing
that, as introspective as I am, I had not focused on how I became as
conservative as I am. Mostly, I guess,
because it was
during my early farm life and subsequent agricultural work that my fundamental
economic conservatism was formed.
Quick
history: My first ten years were on a
small farm in
Some
of the Lessons -- in no particular order:
1. Deferred gratification - One must plant and
tend, or breed and tend, long before there was a payoff.
2. Personal responsibility - No matter how tired
you were or how badly your feet hurt, or whatever, if you didn't plant in the Spring, you didn't harvest in the fall.
3. Only value created can be shared - My father
was a small farmer and sharecropper. On
the sharecropping side, if he created no value, then there was none to share.
4. Tend your capital; there is a tomorrow - "Never eat
your seed corn," was a comment my brother and I (and my sister, too) often
heard from our father. Dad was a
taciturn man, not given to lengthy explanations, so we had to grow up to figure
it out.
5. Honor your commitments - Another of our
father's maxims, which he never explained, was "If you tell a man you will
be there -- be there." It was never
followed by an "unless." My
brother and I later speculated that the only reason for not "being
there" that Dad would have accepted was untimely death. I later figured it out. In a small farming community, there is no
slack for laggards. There are periodic
tasks in which the community joins. If
the plan is to bring in your crop tomorrow, then mine, then Rick's, then P&V's
-- and I fail to show up at your place (and I am alive and healthy) -- then not
only will you not show up at my place, neither will Rick or
P&V. They will have learned that I
cannot be depended upon and they will not carry me.
6. Don't waste resources - Cows give milk and
cows give manure. We sold the milk and
saved the manure for later use.
7. First things first - On every morning of my
young life, we milked the cows (actually my job was to feed them and shovel out
the manure) before we had breakfast.
8. Performance matters - No matter how hard she
tried or how loud she cackled, a hen that didn't lay eggs soon became Sunday
dinner.
9. Work and money are related - My first job off
the farm was picking cherries (age 10).
At the start of the day I was given a bucket and a card. I could assess the value of my efforts at any
time by counting the holes punched in the card.
We had "performance reviews" at the end of the day when my Dad
collected the cards to turn them in for payment.
10. "Poor" is a state of mind - Once
while regaling my kids with tales of no electricity and outside toilets, I was
asked "Were you poor?" I was
amused that the question had never occurred to me. The well-considered answer was, "No,
never." We were sheltered, fed,
clothed, tended and loved -- we were never poor.
11. Your word is your contract - If you tell a man that there are 100
pounds of feed in the sack; he will not weigh it. If he later discovers that there was less --
he will simply not ever deal with you again (nor, in time, will anyone else).
12. Basic principles are immutable - My father was an
uneducated man who never heard of Smith, Mises or Hayek -- but I suspect that he could have engaged in
mutually useful discourse with any of them.
13. My father never told me these things; he just
lived his life. He just was -- kinda like gravity.
Thus, I have constructed what is, perhaps, the most important “lesson”
of all:
You teach and lead first by who you are;
next by what you do; and seldom by what you say.
These
are but some of the founding principles of a life-long conservative. They probably began with my mother's milk,
but I don't remember much from then.
(Although I do recall that my mother finally had to wean me so I could
go to school.)
Thanks
for the prompt. This was enjoyable and I
look forward to your comments or whatever.
Regards,
Russ