Wait! The Tories are selling Sherwood Forest? Those bastards! What about Robin Hood and Maid Marian? Friar Tuck and Little John? Where will they hide from the Sheriff of Nottingham and wicked King John?
Sarah asks an interesting question. I have studied the Enclosure (modern spelling – Inclosure is the spelling you find in Brit legal documents in the 18th and 19th centuries) Acts over the years at some length, as those acts, and their consequences, figure prominently in many contemporary debates.
One fascinating feature of the scholarly analysis of Enclosure (which is almost entirely British) is the degree to which consequentialist reasoning rules the day. Bentham and Mill have, apparently, a powerful hold on the UK mind. A pernicious meme if there ever was one.
In the event, scholarship has pretty much been focused on the question of the effects (consequences) on crop production, rents and wages brought about by enclosure (see generally Devine, 1994, for an example of recent scholarship of this type). US scholars have been interested only to the extent that enclosure (Scotland), in addition to the Penal Laws, might have been a spur to immigration to the USA in the early 18th Century. And, one has only to visit Belfast or Glasgow, look at the guys driving trucks and busting up pavement, and discover the source of the Ur-redneck. Thanks a lot (although, to be fair, this includes any number of my own ancestors – I have been “tamed” by Episcopal Church membership and a classical education in to the perfect little gentleman I am today).
Until recently, the consensus has been that enclosures had the following long term consequences: a) a population shift from country to city; b) an increase in the labor pool available to create the industrial dynamo that was the 19th and early 20th Century UK; c) an enormous, and potentially lethal, influx of ignorant, surly, drunken, ultra-violent, low church protestant individuals in to the body politic of the United States; d) an increase in the productivity and output of the UK agricultural sector; e) a rise in the real wages of those agricultural workers who remained ( presumably, the most efficient and productive ones), and f) a visible alteration of the rural social system.
Recent scholarship suggests that all of the above are oversimplifications. Population studies suggest, for example, that only about ˝ of the parishes in NE Scotland ( those most affected by enclosures ) suffered a net depopulation. Likewise, a growth in crop science sophistication (liming of fields, invention of more efficient plows and other implements, and crop rotation are examples) had a lot to do with increased outputs and farm labor productivity. Also, many other factors probably fed the “alteration of the rural social system”. Industrialization, for example, created a push/pull effect. People went to the cities to find work, but they also went there because there were cities to go to, and work to do there, and fun to be had there. Like the song says, “how you gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?”
Now, to turn to this business of “privatizing” UK forests. I would first observe that this comes straight from the US Rethuglican play book. “Tory” is apparently just the UK edition of “Rethuglican” (or vice versa – the old chicken/egg problem I guess). Ever since Republican Theodore Roosevelt created the US national forest system, corporate scumbags have wanted to “privatize” vast portions of it, and have gotten their little rethuglican congressional minions to introduce legislation to try and do this. They do it trying various ruses. One of their favorite ploys in the US is to try and sell privatization as an exercise in “State's rights.” Some jackass in western North Carolina will argue, for example, that the Kilmer national forest is an example of “our” land being “locked up” by the evil federal government, thus preventing “development” and “growth”. Such an individual is, of course, a fool. It isn't “North Carolina's” land. It never has been. It belongs, and always has since the founding of the republic, to “The People of the United States in Congress Assembled” (before that, it belonged to King George, but we corrected that problem by administering ass whuppins to redcoats at places like Saratoga, Kings Mountain, Guilford Courthouse, and Yorktown).
The “States Rights” ruse will not work in the UK, since you don't have any (probably, on balance, a good thing, as it is a convenient refuge for scoundrels and the injustices they like to perpetuate). Thus, based on what I gather from perusing Yahoo News (today's all seeing eye of Sauron), Cameron and his chums are trying the “markets are more efficient than governments” ploy, along with a “we're broke thanks to the American banks and we need the money” ploy. Clever exercises in sophistry, but they just won't wash.
Dismissing the second argument first, I would observe that the UK's financial distress is NOT a simple consequence of USA financial excess. While it is true that so-called “financial products” like derivatives were (mostly) invented here, UK bankers seized upon them with glad cries, and, seeing the volumes of lucre to be made in trading in them, did no “due diligence” whatsoever. Caveat Emptor. You knew American bankers were snakes when you put them in your pocket.
It is with the first argument, that somehow “markets” are more efficient and productive than “governments”, that I suspect Tories can make some headway with the unwary, and someone might think of “enclosure” as being relevant to the debate. There are several salient points here.
First, efficiency will not do the UK any good, when it comes to forest products. You are too small. Compared to just Sweden or Finland (never mind the US or Canada) any amount of forest products you could produce, no matter how efficient you become, is relatively meaningless in terms of some net effect on your economy. If Cameron thinks UK timber futures will save you, he is dumber than a box of rocks.
Second, the only sense in which the “market” could be more “efficient” than public use and ownership would be if some consideration of “highest and best use” is appealed to by whoever is behind this barbaric idea. I mean, just what is it that these “investors” are going to do with the forests? Cut them down and sell the timber? Forget it; see the paragraph above. Subdivide them and create American style MacMansion housing developments on them, arguing that this would be the “highest and best use” for the land? Given the state of the UK housing market at the moment, that has to be a non-starter of an argument if there ever was one. There is no strong market for the housing inventory you have – increasing it makes no economic sense whatsoever. BUT, and this is where “enclosure” scholarship comes in to play, why should “highest and best use” be understood in only economic terms?
Now, here you do have an idea that IS America's fault. In American legal literature, “highest and best use” is understood in ENTIRELY economic terms. Here in Guilford County, NC, USA, there exists an entire army of “Real Estate Developers” who would gleefully subdivide the Guilford Courthouse National Battlefield Park on Monday, after having spent Sunday in church declaiming to all who would listen about how lucky they are to be “Americans”, and God's chosen people. But, if cross-examined by a modern Socrates about how they could be BOTH patriotic AND willing to subdivide the battlefield upon which, arguably, America became an independent nation, they will mouth phrases like “economic growth” and “highest and best use.” Similarly, thinking about “enclosure” turns, perhaps inevitably, to its “economic” consequences. Lost in such an analysis is any consideration to the value of an entire way of life which was destroyed.
I guess, in the final analysis, my conclusion is simple. Any UK government which would ask United Healthcare to advise your local PCT's about “cost containment” (i.e, how to deny needed services with a straight face) will also suggest selling off your national heritage. Hell, they'd stick their own sister (or little brother?) on a Greek freighter naked if there was enough money it for them.
My advice: Save yourselves! Throw the bastards out!
Your kindly American cousin,
Bob
<-----Original Message----->
From: sarah fogarty [
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Sent: 1/30/2011 9:03:35 AM
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Subject:
Dear All
Philosophically speaking is there a similarity between the Scottish Enclosure or inclosure of the 16th century and the proposed sell off of forests in the UK?
Would land be better managed and cared for given more local ownership? and would access rights still be maintained for all to enjoy the beauty and nature of the countryside, we already know from a health perspective that being outdoors and enjoying nature has multiple benefits to health holistically speaking.
regards
Sarah
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