Dateline: 9 April 2017
This series began by introducing Ralph Borsodi and his 1948 book, Inflation is Coming And What To Do About it, with the intention of sharing scanned excerpts, like the one above. Clicking on the image will provide a closer look.
This installment features another significant excerpt from the beginning of Borsodi’s book…
The next part in this series will present a short excerpt from the book called, “Who Is Ralph Borsodi,” followed by a deeper exploration of Borsodi’s beliefs and accomplishments in opposition to industrialism. The author believes Borsodi was a sharp observer of history and industrial civilization.
As mentioned previously, the author first encountered Borsodi in a 1974 Mother Earth News interview (at the ages of 88 and 16, respectively), finding his ideas impactful.
Years later, in the late 1990s, Howard Douglas King’s Christian-agrarian essays in Patriarch Magazine reintroduced the author to Borsodi, deeply resonating with him. King’s writings helped the author reassess his own thinking and way of life.
The author credits both Borsodi and King with influencing his stance against industrialism, ultimately leading him to establish his blog, The Deliberate Agrarian, a platform celebrating the principles and practices of Christian-agrarianism.
In his essay “Machines And Families,” King states…
“To date, no work has appeared (to this author’s knowledge) which provides an adequate defense of Christian Agrarianism. Until this occurs, I know of no better critique of industrialism available than This Ugly Civilization, by Ralph Borsodi. Published in 1929, just before the Great Depression, this book clearly pointed to some of the problems which created the greatest economic downturn in our history. It is a wide-ranging, thorough-going and utterly damning critique of the causes, nature and ultimate results of industrialism.”
Looking back, the author views his journey of thought and conviction towards the wisdom of Christian-agrarianism as divinely guided.
To go to Part 3 of this series