Down with the Cities!
Date: 1996-07-02T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Urban renewal -- Japan; Urban ecology (Sociology) -- Japan

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Title: Down with the Cities!

Author: Tadashi Nakashima

Release date: July 1, 1996 [eBook #578]
Most recently updated: June 1, 2012

Language: English

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DOWN WITH THE CITIES! ***

DOWN WITH THE CITIES!

By

Nakashima Tadashi

Copyright (c) 1996 By Nakashima Tadashi

Translation from the Japanese of "Toshi wo Horobose," first serialized in the periodical Kankyo Hakai, reprinted in 1992 in book form by the Japan Communal Society Association, and republished as a commercially available book in 1994 by Maijisha Publishing Co. This translation is of the earliest version, and does not reflect subsequent updates, additions, and changes by the author.

Permission for posting on Project Gutenberg has been securied by the translator from all concerned parties. This translation is to be distributed freely throughout the world to anyone at all, and is not to be sold for commercial profit.

Mr. Nakashima (born 1920) is a self-sufficient farmer in the hill country of Gifu Prefecture, Japan. He entered the Army in 1939, and was in Taiwan at the end of the war. In 1945 he returned to his family farm and began farming. In 1954 Mr. Nakashima began raising free-range chickens, and embarked on the long process of developing his method of producing "natural eggs," for which he is now well known in Japan. About 1975 he started studying the writings of the Edo Period thinker Ando Shoeki. He has also written a book entitled "Minomushi Kakumei — Dokuritsu Noumin no Sho" (The Bagworm Revolution — A Book for Independent Farmers). The author has also written and published extensively on free-range chicken farming.

The order of Japanese personal names follows East Asian custom: surname followed by given name.

Some footnotes are the author's, and others are the translator's. The latter are identified by the notation "(Translator's note)" at the end of those footnotes.

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PREAMBLE

Saying "Down with the cities!" is not a rash statement. If we do not get rid of the cities, the human race will disappear from the face of the Earth. The cities are none other than the source of all pollution, and the root of all evil. One may try to leave the cities as they are and get rid of only the pollution, but it will be wasted effort. Environmental destruction and pollution are caused by none other than the functioning of the urban machine; pollution is, we may say, the unavoidable respiratory function, metabolic function, and bowel movements of the cities. If we plug up the nose, mouth, and anus of a human being, is it possible to continue living? Therefore, if we are to banish urban pollution from the Earth, we must eliminate the cities themselves.

CHAPTER I

Urban Sprawl

The cities are spreading out like amoebae. No matter what part of the world, and no matter what kind of political or economic system, the expansion of the cities is more than apparent wherever you look. If urbanization continues in this manner, the entire surface of the Earth will in time be covered with cities.

I should explain that by urbanization I do not mean merely the spread of what we normally call "cities." In urbanization I include interurban buildups, those along train lines and roads, housing developments, tourist facilities at resorts, rural factories, and a host of other things. We must also consider the buildups in the centers of villages, and asphalt roads in (what is mistakenly considered to be) the boondocks as a kind of urbanization. In other words, the city is not just something that we distinguish from the country by region alone; we must also make a clear distinction in accordance with differences in industries (that is, class). To wit, the city is a place that is home to the secondary and tertiary industries, or is a place where the employees of such industries dwell. No matter how far back in the sticks one goes, if one finds anything relating to the secondary or tertiary industries — such as public facilities or concrete river bank walls — such a place must also be recognized as the city.

Let us then examine the reasons for the unbounded, continuous expansion of the cities.

Reason One

Throughout the entire world, in no matter what country, "modernization" is the glorious banner under which all people gather. If something is done under the name of modernization, it is considered good, and if it stands in the way of modernization, it is automatically evil. Modernization: Expressed in different terms it is the prosperity of the secondary and tertiary industries. [1] And since these industries are based in the cities, modernization means urbanization.

Right now, all around the world, increasing numbers of people are, with the aim of achieving modernization, engaging in the secondary and tertiary industries, and that is why we witness the further, inevitable expansion of the cities. As long as modernization is not negated as an evil, urbanization will continue unabated.

Reason Two

Modernization — if we look at this in another way we see that it is the pursuit of Convenience, Extravagance, and Ease; it signifies the ceaseless advance toward infinite prosperity.

And the pursuit of convenience, extravagance, and ease is none other than an expression of instinctual human greed — we want to have it easier and eat more delectable cuisine, we want to do more stimulating things, we want objects that are rarer and more beautiful. Thus the secondary and tertiary industries, in manufacturing and supplying us with festivals and entertainment and trinkets and gewgaws, are able to scale the heights of prosperity, and the cities thereby continue their boundless expansion.

Reason Three

There is one other abettor of urbanization that we must not overlook: the bewitching power of the money economy. In order to make more money, the city manufactures more merchandise than necessary, and forces services down our throats. Charged with the economic mission known as the Pursuit of Profit, the secondary and tertiary industries work hard at money making, and this too leads to the expansion of the cities.

The above three elements — (1) a national policy of modernization, i.e., urbanization; (2) the instinctive desire of human beings for prosperity, i.e., urbanization; (3) the Pursuit of Profit, which propels the secondary and tertiary industries to make more and more money, i.e., urbanization — combine to cause the increasing spread of the cities. This is symbolized in, for example, the construction industry.

Urbanization is, in more concrete terms, the covering of everything with concrete. Whether buildings or roads or riverbanks or seashores, the rule of thumb in modern times is to make it out of concrete. There are, to be sure, occasional pea gravel gardens or dirt playing fields in the cities, but these are few and far between. Cities are made by smothering the ground with concrete. Indeed, the city can be understood as construction itself.

Never-Ending Construction

The world is full of construction officials, who, if they cannot plan some kind of project, are capable of nothing but yawning; the proprietors of construction companies, who, in order to make money, cannot rest from their labors for a minute; the pitiful part-time farmers who pay back their loans by engaging in construction work; the proprietors of cement and gravel companies who will be in a pickle if they cannot get someone to use the tons of building materials they have made; the truckers and the dealers in construction machinery and fuel for them; the big shot politicians like Tanaka Kakuei whose life work is pork barrel; the idiotic voters who weep for joy over the services brought in by construction (that is, urbanization)… With an arrangement like this, it is almost assured that, even if the vast oceans dry up, there will always be construction going on in the world. At this rate, it will not be that far in the future before they are carrying out construction work among the peaks of the Himalayas.

There are some who will say, "Come now, they wouldn't go so far as to do such unnecessary work in the Himalayas," but if this is so, then when all the construction work in the world has been completed and there is no more to be done, is it possible to think that the Ministry of Construction will disband itself, that the construction companies will go belly up, that the cement companies will close down, or that the part-time farmers will hang themselves? There is no doubt that when such a time comes they will carry out needless construction work like covering over the peaks of the Himalayas with concrete. There will be no end to construction work, and consequently the urbanization of the Earth's surface will continue until the ground disappears entirely. [2]

Even now, in every place imaginable, they are building solid concrete walls in places where, they think, perhaps once in a thousand years there will be a landslide; they needlessly dig up bamboo groves which will most assuredly not be washed away, and stack up concrete blocks. There are instances in which by merest chance, such a place is visited by natural disaster, and they take the matter to court saying that it is the government's oversight. In actuality, however, the authorities, whom one would expect to be bitter over losing the case, are smiling contentedly. This is because the government has obtained proof of the need to pour astronomical sums of money into a totally needless construction project, the excuse being that one never knows when disaster will strike. Though the government and the construction companies openly plan and carry out needless construction projects everywhere so the contractors can profit, there is little fear that the citizens will ever take them to court over any of it.

In addition, the government uses construction projects to stimulate the economy. Using construction bonds as a convenient cover, it spurts out wads of money (merely in order to make it circulate a little better), dig up our precious land, and cover it over with concrete. [3] Why must they go to such lengths to stimulate the economy? It is for no other reason than to facilitate the even greater activities of the secondary and tertiary industries, which results in the waste, contamination, and destruction of the city.

Chapter I Notes

1

It is possible to modernize agriculture (a primary industry) as well, but this becomes possible only with the intervention of the secondary and tertiary industries. Agriculture is meant to be in accord with the cycle of Nature; it is supposed to be ceaseless repetition.

2

Indeed, this has already been realized in Japan, for the Ministry of Construction is building a gargantuan concrete embankment on Mt. Fuji, Japan's highest. (Translator's note)

3

In comparison with construction bonds, the money-losing savings bonds are still better. This is because the savings bonds are not used to directly destroy the land (though it will come around to that sooner or later).

CHAPTER II

The Evils of the City

If we were to assume that the city brought no harm to either human beings or to the Earth, there would be no need for a discussion (or condemnation) of the spread of the cities as in the previous chapter. Yea, it would be verily the opposite: Just as most urbanites believe, the city is an ultimate good since it helps them achieve prosperity. We may even say, then, that urbanization must be aggressively promoted not only quantitatively (in terms of the city's boundless expansion), but also qualitatively (in the quest of ever greater modernization and technological advances).

But sorry to say, such is just not the case. The city is, in actuality, the very root of the evils that threaten the future of humanity and the Earth.

Though to the denizens of the city it is a good, since it allows them to pursue convenience, extravagance, and ease (that is, prosperity), that "good" is, minute by minute, turning into a future — yea, a present — evil, and we (the city dwellers first) will in time be exterminated by the city's poisons. So that the city can pursue convenience, extravagance, and ease, we must be visited by the accumulation of waste, destruction, and contamination, which will, needless to say, end in a dreadful catastrophe.

The City's Endless Plunder

The city itself is unproductive, and cannot supply its own needs. No matter how many trinkets and gimcracks the manufacturing and processing industries make, this cannot be called production; we must in fact regard this as the consumption of resources and energy. Since the city is therefore nonproductive and non-self sufficient it must either rob all needed supplies from some other place or lose the ability to keep itself alive and functioning. Urban residents will not be able to pursue extravagance and ease, let alone continue living.

Because it robs everything from another place the city causes trouble for others, and trashes the Earth is the process. Let us now try listing the various evils inherent in the city's plundering ways.

Evil One

The first evil is deforestation.

Cities were first built by chopping down the forests. No matter what city, unless it floats in the air or on the water, the place it occupies was most likely originally forest. Thus the city, in order to establish itself, cut the trees. And though it is the destroyer of trees, the city at the same time requires the oxygen produced by trees (for its overflowing people, its legions of automobiles, and its multitudes of factories). Counting on the oxygen from the trees of other areas, the city is barely able to maintain its life and functions.

If that were all, we might be able to put up with it, but the high-handed, arrogant city, in order to increase its benefits and extravagance, continually plunders and destroys the forests in these other areas as well. If one goes to the port at Shimizu, one can see the shiploads of lumber and pulp robbed from the forests of developing nations. The countries thus plundered are now watching their clearcuts turn into wasteland and desert.

Thus, by means of producing vast quantities of throwaway wrapping paper and packing boxes, and its idiotic newspapers, magazines, and leaflets, by becoming drunk on its own extravagance and convenience, the city is cutting its own throat; it is carrying on activities that contribute to the reduction of its all-important oxygen. What is more, after consuming these vast quantities of paper, the city disposes of them by burning, consuming yet more oxygen.

The city should take a good look at what is happening. By plundering the forests of the southern hemisphere it is not only bringing about a crisis there. It is using up its own supply of trees as well — the trees without which it cannot survive.

Evil Two

The second evil is the plunder of farmland.

In the previous section I wrote that the city was built by destroying the forests, but land which was formerly forested is first and foremost that which can and should be used for farming. The cities are built almost solely on the level, most fertile land. And other urbanized areas, such as those along rail lines and roads, or the centers of villages — though there are a few places which have been made by cutting into the mountains — have been built on plundered farmland. The urbanization of farmland is accomplished by such high-handed legal stratagems as taxing the land as if it were residential property, or employing urban planning laws.

The residents of the cities had best not forget that the very farmland they continue to urbanize is the source of their food.

Evil Three

The third evil is, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, the covering of the earth with concrete.

In order to profit from plundered farmland, the city usually covers it with concrete, thereby making the land forever useless.

All living things are borne and nourished by the Land. Rain is absorbed by the Land, becoming the source of well water and stream water, water that is released gradually in dry times by means of the Land's regulatory and retaining capabilities. The Land also purifies all contaminants (except for things like heavy metals and chemicals). The Land has, for millions of years, continued its work of reducing waste products, dead plants, and fallen leaves by means of bacterial action, and returning them to the soil.

But by covering the Land with concrete we paralyze this function, and it dies. Dead land (concrete) will not grow plants or absorb water, or give it forth in dry times. And contaminants on concrete just stink without being purified; if we don't clean up the mess we cannot even live there.

The functions of the earth — giving life to the plants and animals, regulating the rainwater, purifying waste and returning it to the soil — may be said to form the main artery of Nature's cyclical function. If the earth is blocked off, the flow of blood will halt, and the Earth will turn into a dead planet. And it is none other than concrete that is responsible for cutting off the flow of blood.

The big city is a great mass of concrete, and it is here that the rape of the Land attains its highest perfection. Should the multitudes of buildings collapse, how would they dispose of the mountains of rubble? No matter where they put the rubble, it will cover the earth, and the bottom of the ocean should also be considered earth. Whether a factory, an office building, or a paved road, once it is built we have condemned some part of the Land to be covered with it. The more you block off the Land, the more the functions of nature are necessarily impaired, and we will pay for this sooner or later. The net of Heaven is coarse, but allows nothing to escape [4] — is it possible that Nature will miss this or generously overlook it?

Evil Four

The fourth evil is the theft of the farm population.

The cities have burgeoned by stealing the farm population. The expansion of the cities is in other words the growth of those employed by the secondary and tertiary industries, and the growth of the secondary and tertiary population represents the decline of the farming population.

In order to feed a large non-tilling population with a small farming population, labor-saving, high-yield agriculture is an absolute necessity, and this leads to plundering, contaminating agriculture using machines that run on petroleum. As long as the increased secondary and tertiary population tries to enjoy a modern lifestyle (convenience, extravagance, and ease), it only stands to reason that the consumers (the non-tilling population) will have to put up with, and pay the price of, contaminated agricultural produce.

Evil Five

The fifth evil is squeezing food out of the farmers. Since the concrete cities are incapable of supplying themselves with food, the inhabitants must, in order to survive, squeeze everything they eat — be it an apple, a tomato, or a grain of rice — out of the farming villages. Long ago the cities expropriated agricultural produce through the feudal lords and landlords, and in more recent times they forced the farmers to give it up by means of the Food Control Act. Now, however, they take mountains of food by means of money. These are necessary, desperate measures taken to keep the cities alive. No matter what means they employ, the cities must forever (until they collapse into rubble) continue to extort food from the farmers. They can do nothing else, even if they have to send in the military and seize food from the farmers at gunpoint.

What is more, as long as one has to rip it off, why not grab the best (even dogs and cats take the best first)? That is why the feudal lords and landlords issued orders for rice to be sent to them. "Millet will not do. Such is for farmers to eat." Thus they ruled. And now the city dwellers say, "Let us pay a lot of money for sasanishiki and koshihikari." [5] How is this different from the arrogance of the feudal lords and landlords?

In this way the best of the agricultural produce continues to flow into the cities, while in the country we continue to satisfy ourselves with the leftovers. It ought to be the other way around.

Evil Six

The sixth evil is the destruction of the seashore and the prodigal consumption of marine products.

Once upon a time Tokyo Bay was a famous fishing ground for shorefish, but now the shore of the bay is concrete and great quantities of sewage pour into the water, destroying the fishing. In order to make things better for themselves, the cities have destroyed the natural seashores (it is not just Tokyo Bay — the better half of Japan's seashores are concrete) and sacrificed the lives of the fishermen living there.

The shore has always been the greatest mechanism for the sea's ability to purify itself. [6] Great numbers of marine organisms live near the shores, so that as long as we do not cover them with concrete and fill the littoral areas with garbage, there is no need to go far out to sea to fish, thereby being a nuisance to other countries.

Japan's deep sea fishing industry, for example, has taken too many shrimp near Indonesia, and in order to get 8,000 tons of shrimp, once discarded 70,000 tons of fish (according to an Asahi Shimbun feature entitled "Food"). Extravagant city dwellers will pay high prices for shrimp, but they will not pay much for other marine foods, and since the fishermen cannot make money by offering ordinary fish, all the dead ones are thrown back into the sea after sorting. Such fish are a precious source of protein for the people of Indonesia.

Thus the egomaniacal cities waste 70,000 tons of fish so that they can gorge themselves on shrimp (I will answer later to the charge that people in the country eat shrimp, too). And what is more, they so recklessly take shrimp that the shrimp are now in danger of running out. Just as with the forests, Indonesia's fish crisis is intimately connected with our cities' appetite.

Evil Seven

The seventh evil is the copious consumption of resources and energy. The functions of the cities are supported by vast quantities of energy and underground resources. Almost all these resources are used to maintain the extravagance and convenience of the cities (like elevators, automatic doors, neon signs, transportation systems, heating, and air conditioning), and to make idiotic trinkets and gewgaws (like cars, cameras, televisions, and robots). The cities (industries) are built on the assumption that petroleum and metals will be supplied forever, and in unlimited quantities. However, it should be manifest even to a little child that such things are limited, and what remains dwindles day by day.

The incredible fight over, and waste of, resources is an indication, along with the pursuit of profit inherent in a money economy, of the competitive ideology of the city mind. Modern urban civilization — that is, the extravagance and prosperity of the cities — is a fruitless blossom fed by this waste of energy and underground resources.

Evil Eight

The eighth evil is the excessive consumption of oxygen and water.

The consumption of oxygen is just as I noted in the section on forests (Evil One). Were it not for oxygen, even the convenient energy provided by petroleum would not be available. Oxygen is the most important thing in maintaining the functions of the cities, and they consume it with wild abandon. Oxygen decreases minute by minute, so that in time we too might not have enough to breathe (it is said that in one minute a jet consumes as much oxygen as a human being consumes in a year).

The cities also think nothing of wasting water for convenience and money-making, for their flush toilets and their factories. The cities take water from others by force, and then dump their wastes everywhere.

Evil Nine

The ninth evil is the way the city forces sacrifices on others so it can obtain electricity and water.

The egotism of the city is more than apparent in its method of obtaining electricity and water. We all remember when Tokyoites insisted that, in order that they could live a convenient, pleasant life, it was only natural that the village of Okawachi sink beneath the waters of a dam reservoir. In this way the farmers of the village were turned out of the place that had been their home for generations, while the citizens of Tokyo, in their pursuit of convenience, extravagance, and ease (not to mention money-making), never even looked back. And the tragedy of such obscure villages is just like that of the villages ruined by nuclear power. Why don't the cities build their nuclear reactors right in the middle of the cities? Why don't they build them in one of their seaside industrial zones? If city residents do not have enough water for their flush toilets or electricity for their automatic doors (though I would expect they too have hands with which to open doors), they should leave the cities.

The Evils of Urban Wastes

The preceding nine sections are an outline of the plundering, destructive acts that the cities must perpetrate in order to maintain themselves.

Now, having consumed all of these plundered resources, the cities are left with wastes — both industrial and human — and they then proceed to dump them on others, all the while thinking it a perfectly natural thing to do. No matter that the cities have been so devilishly clever in devising a civilization built on all manner of amazing apparatuses — the law of conservation of matter guarantees that they cannot do away with their garbage by sleight of hand.

Let us now list and examine the various evils of the cities as represented by their wastes.

1. Carbon Dioxide

The first of the wastes is the excessive release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The result of robbing great amounts of oxygen and consuming it is the production of similarly great amounts of carbon dioxide. Trees would be expected to consume this carbon dioxide and deliver oxygen to us, but since the cities are also destroying the trees, this conversion process cannot keep up; if there were no cities in the world, we could expect the consumption and production of oxygen to be in balance.

Thus the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere steadily increases, and it is said that by the years 2025-2050, there will by twice as much in the atmosphere as there was before industrialization. Because of the greenhouse effect the temperature at the surface of the Earth will rise two or three degrees, the glaciers will melt, and the surface of the oceans will rise five meters above their present levels. Most of the big cities of the world will then be flooded. They shall reap as the have sown.

2. Atmospheric Pollution by Exhaust

The second is the production of particulate matter and exhaust gases. Prodigious amounts of poisonous gases and particulate matter pour from the smokestacks of the cities' innumerable factories, from the throngs of automobiles crowding their streets, and from the swarms of jets in the skies (and even a little from all the cigarettes; I will answer later to the charge that we have cigarettes and cars in the country, too). Not only does all this pollute the atmosphere, it is also said that the particulate matter blocks the light of the sun, thus causing a drop in the temperature on the Earth. There is no reason to believe that this will be balanced off satisfactorily by the greenhouse effect. The increase in carbon dioxide, poisonous gases, and particulate matter in the atmosphere threatens the lives of all living things on our Earth.

3. Depletion of the Ozone Layer

The third is the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer.

Those ever-so-convenient city inventions the jet plane and the aerosol spray, and the nitrogen fertilizer that the city invented to dominate the farming villages, are the instruments by which the city is destroying the ozone layer.

The effects of the exhaust gases and nitrogen oxides released in the stratosphere by jet planes will, in the final estimation, reduce the ozone by 6.5 percent. And it is thought that the CFCs used in aerosol sprays, which rise to high altitudes upon their release, will, even if their use continues at the 1974 rate, cause a 14 percent loss of the ozone over the next 50 years. The nitrogen suboxide released when the nitrogen fixed in chemical nitrogen fertilizers is denitrified will, it is estimated, cause a future 3.5 percent reduction of ozone.

A 1 percent reduction in ozone translates to a 2 percent increase in ultraviolet radiation reaching the Earth's surface, and an increase in ultraviolet radiation is a threat to all living things on Earth; it is said that, if nothing is done about this — if the ozone layer continues to be destroyed — certain species will be faced with extinction. Since all species in their interactions work to maintain the ecosystem, the loss of even one could signify grave consequences for the ecosystem as a whole. As for human beings, should there be a 10 percent reduction in ozone, it is thought that cases of skin cancer could increase 20 to 30 percent.

The cities steal nitrogen and oxygen from the atmosphere, they rob metals and petroleum from the earth, and their wonderful scientific achievement is to put us and the entire ecosystem in mortal danger by means of the production and use of their inventions.

4. Sewage

Fourth is the dumping of sewage into the ocean.

In order to maintain convenience, extravagance, and ease, the city must somehow dispose of the great amounts of water it converts into sewage, and that sewage always ends up in the ocean. The amount of sewage produced is about equal to the amount of water consumed.

This sewage is treated and divided into water and sludge; the sludge is used for landfills, and the water goes to the sea via the sewage system. However, since this treatment is not perfect the water flowing into the ocean contains, depending upon the substance, 10-60 percent of what it originally contained. In addition, most cities have a sewage system in which rain water is collected along with the sewage, so that on a rainy day the treatment plants cannot handle the volume, and the result is that some of it goes to the sea just as it is. Thus the ocean has become a cesspool.

Washing one's hands means that one must dirty some water. And doing the laundry means that one pollutes the ocean by cleaning one's clothes. Flush toilets are no different. As long as I can live under sanitary conditions, it doesn't matter if the ocean becomes polluted — this is the egotism that the city is built upon.

5. Mountains of Garbage and Wastes

The fifth is landfills of garbage and sludge. No matter what kind of garbage one has, it is quite impossible, even if one changes its form or appearance, to make it disappear. Unburnable solid trash goes without saying, but burnable trash is no different: even after burning, the gaseous part disperses in the atmosphere, and the ashes still remain. And there is no proof that these are harmless. Even if the city had the technology to make them harmless, these great amounts of waste (ashes) must still be put somewhere, and that will cause problems for someone.

The cunning, arrogant city is able to maintain the pleasantness of its own environment by shoving its tons of garbage off on the country, or by dumping it in the ocean. But do we tolerate it when someone dumps his garbage in his neighbor's house in order to keep his own clean? The beautiful cities and spic-and-span factories which receive awards from the Environment Agency are showing us that they are shoving more garbage off on others than are other cities and factories.

Of all the kinds of trash brought out of the cities the most voluminous is demolition wastes. It is said that this makes up one-third of the waste from the big cities. Whenever they begin some new enterprise, they remove the old buildings since they are now just in the way. And the place they discard this waste is (take for example Nagoya) farmland purchased for the purpose. Every bit of junk that the city produces in order to achieve even greater benefit and extravagance (even the wastes produced in one day could not be kept in the city) are taken to the country and forced off on us. If the people in the country bought some land in the city and began to haul things like straw, wood chips, and rocks to the city and dumped them there, would the city stand by silently and allow this?

Second to demolition wastes, the wastes of greatest volume are those created by the manufacturing and processing industries. Next come domestic wastes, and then those produced by the services (included are of course such poisonous substances as mercury, PCBs, and ABS). These wastes are disposed of, along with the sludge from sewage treatment plants, on land or in landfills near the ocean. [7]

6. The Flood of Merchandise

The sixth is the flood of products (merchandise).

I have already written about how, in its activities of manufacturing and processing, the city robs and wastes resources; how it spreads pollution everywhere; how it shoves its garbage off on others. But these are not the only evils inherent in the city's industries.

The city produces vast quantities of products (merchandise), piles them high everywhere, and threatens the very future of human society with this flood. [8] Look at the packs of automobiles crowding the roads. Look at the great quantities of agricultural chemicals in use. Look at the mountains of medicine and food additives being shoved down our throats. It is the same for the worthless cigarettes produced in mountainous quantities; for the oceans of alcohol meant to help city people forget that there is no longer any meaning in their lives; for the heaps of records and tapes, which, like sonic narcotics, produce noise and dementia; for the weekly magazines and comic books that overflow with idiotic stories and pictures — one could go on without limit. It would not be an overstatement to say that all merchandise produced by the city is the same. And just as I mentioned before with jet planes and aerosols, they produce pollution not only when they are used, but, as outlined in section five, become pollution themselves after use, thus causing the utmost trouble for people in other places. No matter what product, it cannot stand up to use indefinitely; sooner or later it becomes trash and the city must dispose of it somehow (these days we see many products that were made purposely to last only a short time). [9] Everywhere we look we see discarded junk like televisions, washing machines, and automobiles (strangely enough, these were supposed to be the very symbols of prosperity) — does it not make one feel the desolation foretelling the end of an age? When a tiger dies it leaves its hide, but when city merchandise dies, it leaves more evil. [10]

Will human beings in the end be crushed under the load of their merchandise and trash? [11]

7. Excessive Services Forced onto Us

The seventh is how the city forces excessive services off on us.

Take, for example, public employees. It is said that the number of public employees increases at a fixed rate. Even that illustrious, tyrannical dictator Hitler met with defeat when, in an effort to streamline the government, he ran up against the firm resistance of the bureaucrats, so there is no reason to believe that today's pusillanimous cabinet members or boneheaded Government Reorganization Committee members would be able to change anything no matter how many handstands they perform.

The overpaid bureaucrats, in order to increase their staff and expand their territory, are continually planning new "services" and getting their politico friends to appropriate money for them. It is the citizens who have to put up with these nuisances. Fill out this form, cooperate in this survey — there is no end to their worthless, time-consuming services.

Private service enterprises are no different in that they hard-sell services. These days we see the emergence of strange, previously unheard-of services, and there are numerous instances of their swindling the innocent public for all they can get.

There is no saying where all this will stop. According to 1982 employment survey results published by the Gifu Prefectural Statistics Section, a mere 0.9 percent of all youths 15 to 24 years of age are employed in primary industries (this figure has shown a steady yearly decline). This means that the other 99.1 percent are making a living in the spiffy secondary and tertiary industries. Let us take careful note of the fact that the present urbanizing social structure allows only 0.9 percent of the young to feed the other 99.1 percent prodigal sons.

8. The City as Warmonger

The eighth is that the city is a warmonger.

Both guns and ammunition are made by the city. And nuclear weapons go without saying.

Needless to say, those who directly manufacture and sell weapons for killing people are the merchants of death, but a careful look reveals that the cities are chock full of merchants of death. If I may be allowed an extreme statement, I would say that it is not an overstatement to say that those who engage in the secondary and tertiary industries are all merchants of death. For example, those who manufacture and sell such harmful things as food additives, agricultural chemicals, cigarettes, automobiles, and jet planes, and make money at it, are all merchants of death. But this hardly bears mentioning.

"But surely…not me!" However, even the sacred profession of teacher, those relieved because they believe they are innocent, are just as guilty as the merchants of death as long as they engage in any kind of education, for all education teaches "progress," "development," "improvement," and "prosperity," i.e., destruction and contamination.

And physicians, practitioners of the benevolent art of medicine, work in tandem with the drug companies, dribbling, injecting, inserting, and popping huge quantities of drugs into their patients, bringing about iatrogenic diseases; they are but epigones of the merchants of death.

And the entertainers, professional athletes, men of letters, painters, composers, critics, and even the archeologists and anthropologists, who appear to be able to excuse themselves by saying that their work at least does no harm — these leisureologists all plan ways to continue their idle and gluttonous [12] ways without dirtying their own hands; sitting back in their armchairs they force the small number of farmers to carry on labor-saving, high-yield agriculture, and contribute to poisoning by agricultural chemicals, frequent occurrences of greenhouse diseases, and the production of great quantities of contaminated agricultural produce. As long as this state of affairs continues, they can never remove themselves from the ranks of the merchants of death.

Having thus listed some professions, I wonder if there is even one person living in the cities who can prove that he or she is an exception? Even if it is possible to demonstrate this, there is still no possible way to deny the fact that urban dwellers are living in the city for convenience, extravagance, and ease, and that they are accomplices to the city's plundering and destructive acts.

While it was obvious that the producer of murderous weapons is the city, let us in addition take note of the fact that the city is also the starter of wars.

As I wrote in the beginning of this chapter, the city itself is non-self-supporting and non-productive, so that if it does not commandeer its supplies from some other place (and since the city cannot clean itself, if it does not shove its garbage off on someone else), it cannot maintain its functions or continue its activities. Competition among cities then naturally arises, and if a dispute cannot be resolved by money or discussion, they resort to a settlement by means of armed force. There is no telling how many wars of this kind have been fought in human history.

In the country (which will be defined in Chapter III) it is possible to keep oneself alive by self-sufficient practices and the blessings of Nature, so there is at least no reason why one must resort to war.

You, in the cities! If you still insist on getting rid of nuclear weapons, then you must first dismantle the city, which is both the hotbed and ringleader of war. If you do not do so, you will be destroyed by the nuclear weapons that the city itself has produced. [13]

NOTES

4

Lao Zi, chapter 73: "Heaven's net is great in size; though its mesh is coarse, nothing gets through." Usually interpreted to mean that Nature never lets evil go unpunished. (Translator's note)

5

The finest, and most expensive, varieties of rice. (Translator's note) 6

If river water flows through 100 meters of rocks, sand, and plants, impurities will be removed, but even if it flows through a thousand-meter length of concrete channel, it will not be purified. 7

In an interview (Asahi Shimbun, July 24, 1985 evening edition) with one of the promoters of the "Phoenix Project," a land fill planned for the disposal of Osaka-area wastes, the interviewed person recognized the fact that "if we burn 100 tons of garbage, 15 tons of ashes remain." The project, which will destroy what little remains of Osaka Bay's natural seashore, was ironically named after the phoenix since, its promoters claim, though the ocean will be filled in, the area will be reborn as new land for Japan. Though the total planned volume of the landfill is a staggering 45 million cubic meters, it will serve the needs of the area for a mere six years. (Translator's note) 8

Though the cities are already overflowing with manufactured goods, why is it that the cities madly pursue increased production? This is, as I mentioned before, due to the magical power of money. In order to make more money — that is, in the pursuit of profit — people are manipulated by the magical strings of money, and thus increase production.

No matter what the original purpose of money, it has always been used as a weapon to seize food. At present, however, it is used not only to bring food to the cities, but is also the life blood of all industrial activities. Thus its role is to carry on by force the destruction and contamination of the natural environment, the robbery and waste of resources, the overproduction of goods, and dumping of wastes on others ("As long as we pay money, no one will gripe even if we make a mess of things.").

I could have established a separate section for the harm caused by money, but will let this note serve for now.

9

The average lifetime of a one-family home in Japan is now said to be 20-25 years. (Translator's note)

10

A play on the proverb "When a tiger dies it leaves its hide, but when a man dies he leaves his name." (Translator's note)

11

I am not especially trying to ignore the "good" of the city's products, but allow me to remind the reader that there is no denying the harm rendered to people by cigarettes, food additives, and cars.

12

"Idle and gluttonous" (fukou donshoku) is a term from the
Japanese feudal-age thinker Ando Shoeki, whom Nakashima will
introduce later. I have borrowed the translation from E. H.
Norman. (Translator's note)

13

On a special program, "Earth in Flames," aired by NHK on August 5, 1984, they told of the effects of a nuclear attack on Tokyo (a single one-megaton bomb exploded over Tokyo Tower). The many high-rise buildings, the Shinkansen trains, jet planes, and cars on the expressways would all be set afire and blown away in an instant; furthermore, computer operators, people enjoying themselves downtown, housewives shopping in the marketplaces, and children playing on the school playgrounds would similarly be blown away in an instant, their flesh half melted; in this way the six million people within a 15 km radius of the explosion would all die instantly. This is bad, but I must take issue with the view that all these Tokyoites are just innocent, pitiful victims. There is absolutely no difference in this case between the attacked and the attacker, because both are destructive, rapacious, haughty, arrogant, tyrannical cities. The civilization of the city, which produced the high-rise buildings, the Shinkansen, the jet planes, the computers, and the supermarkets likewise produced nuclear weapons. Therefore, if we are to get rid of nuclear weapons, we must also get rid of the cities. Nuclear weapons are like the bull's horns — we cannot just cut off the horns and then believe it is all right to let the bull go on living.

You in the cities! Open your eyes! Your belief that if we just get rid of nuclear weapons then we are assured everlasting peace and prosperity is nothing more than a delusion.

In order to maintain this peace and prosperity how much evil (destruction, contamination, waste) must the city perpetrate? What great catastrophes must the city bring down upon humanity and the Earth?

There is little difference between dying by nuclear weapons and dying by contamination and destruction. If the city is destroyed (of course it will take the rest of us down with itself) by its own nuclear weapons, then it will have reaped as it has sown.

Special Chapter

The City and Food

— The Excess, Insufficiency, and Importation of Rice —

Whether or not to import rice is COMPLETELY the problem of the city. Can there truly be a reason why the farmers must be up in arms over this issue?

It is absurd that this problem of rice excesses and shortages should be fussed over as if it controlled the fate of the farmers! [14]

The Farmers Have No "Food Problem"

Originally farmers were people who grew their own food and survived on that, and if because of frosts they lost half their rice crops, they would get along on the half they were able to harvest. The cities (consumers), however, receive the full impact of that lost half of the rice crop, so this must therefore be considered a big problem which completely controls the fate of the city. If on the other hand there is a bountiful harvest of rice the farmers have cause for celebration, and have no reason to consider this a burden. Even if they have far too much rice for themselves they can give it to their domestic animals, and if they still have some left over (or if they have no animals) they can return it to the earth.

It is also of no concern to the farmers whether the city decides to import rice or not (there is no reason why farmers must eat imported rice even though they still have some stored), so this is therefore purely the consumers' problem. Thus it comes down to being simply a matter of the city securing its staple food from its own country or another country, and making the wrong choice could mean running out of food. If the city relies upon another country for its staple food, and this supply is for some reason interrupted, then logic dictates it is the people in the cities, and not the farmers, who will be in a pickle.

Don't tell me that this is my egotism. What I want to make plain here is that the city (the system) is taking a problem that completely controls its own destiny, and making it look as though it controls the destiny of the farmers, thereby trying to solve the entire food problem by sacrificing the farmers. This is nothing other than another one of the city's deceptive stratagems. Nothing exhibits the stupidity of the farmers to the world more than their being taken in by this trick, and then going down to the ports to demonstrate against the importation of rice. [15]

The insufficiency and importation of rice is the perfect chance to eliminate (or at least shrink) the cities. Farmers! If there is a shortage of rice, we should reduce, not increase, production. Help promote the rice shortage! Don't oppose rice imports! Until the authorities take action, voluntarily reduce your rice acreage! Produce only enough for yourself and your animals! If you prepare yourself for an austere life, then it is the cities, and not the farmers, who will find themselves in a bind.

If the trees do not produce many nuts, then the number of squirrels will decrease. It is a self-evident truth that, if supplies of the staple food fall, the number of cities will be reduced correspondingly.

When farmers have been deceived by the cities, believe the food problem is their own, say that we must at all costs stop the importation of rice, and demand that government rice stocks be opened — when even the farmers begin to talk this way — we can only say that their delusions and stupidity have attained the zenith. Are they trying to bring about again that terrible past of plunder when our ancestors, in years of famine, had even their own stocks of rice taken from them as tax, and starved to death in shame? We must not be fooled by their demands to break out the stored rice. Even if you have to throw it in the gutter, don't give it to the city. This will be the best means of bringing about the shrinkage of the cities. Let the cities import food if they like. When in their dangerous tightrope act they run up against some unforeseen circumstance, it will be of NO concern to the farmers.

Why Feed the Hand that Pollutes?

"The farmers have a duty to provide the citizens (actually the cities) with food." This is the noble-sounding great cause that the city always brandishes, and the farmers believe it without question. This faith of the farmers is proof of what I meant previously when I said that the city (that is, the secondary and tertiary industries) changes a problem that completely controls its own destiny into one which controls that of the farmers, and through this deft trickery attempts to solve its food problem by sacrificing the farmers. And since this is blind faith, the farmers do not realize at all that this is a trick; the city coolly gives the farmers the responsibility for the food problem, and the farmers themselves take on this responsibility wholeheartedly. The city, in other words, has made the farmers believe blindly that supplying the cities with food is their duty.

A duty to feed the citizens (cities)? There is no such thing! I may be repeating myself, but this "duty" is nothing more than an artifice invented by the city — which cannot live even a day without robbing food from the farmers — to take that food; such an unwritten law has not, of course, always existed as a law of Nature. Did not Nature decree that we either gather or produce our own food?

We must not be deceived. Though you farmers believe from the bottom of your hearts that "agriculture is a sacred profession," that is but a belief brought about as a result of your having fallen prey to the city's plundering stratagems, and is no different from before when, controlled by the slogan "Japan is the nation of the gods," young men from the farms gave their lives for the state.

Farmers! When you believe that "farming is the sacred profession," [16] when you fall for the idea that "the farmers have a duty to supply food to the citizens," when, with sweat on your brow and mud on your hands, you are put on the run by your machines in order to answer to the demand for great quantities of food, you are preserving and promoting the "evils of the city" that I outlined in Chapter II.

That which you nourish by working your fingers to the bone is none other than the source of all pollution, the root of all evil, that is, the city dwellers, the prodigal sons. In view of this situation, the "sacred profession" in which you believe is actually an evil that nourishes evil. We must immediately root it out.

If we do not eradicate this evil, there will soon be no hope for us. There is absolutely no reason why you must expose yourself to dangerous agricultural chemicals, suffer under onerous debts, and work yourself into the ground in order to feed the likes of those who make cigarettes, food additives, cars, and jet planes, thus spreading pollution all over the place; those who make guns, bullets, nuclear weapons, and preparations for murder; the people who force needless governmental services onto us; or people like singers, dancers, and athletes who make their living by exciting others.

I will say it once again: Don't answer their demands for great supplies of food! A shortage of the staple food, rice, is an excellent opportunity for us. If the city people do not have enough to eat they will realize their error, and this will engender the shrinkage of the cities, which will in turn bring about the amelioration of the city's evils. This is what Ando Shoeki meant when he said, "The idle and gluttonous should simply be punished by death."

The Alternatives Pressing Humankind

Let us note that allowing land to lay idle is, as a matter of fact, the best possible way to make the switch to organic farming. It is said that making a sudden switch to organic farming is difficult for our arable land, which has been ruined by agricultural chemicals and chemical fertilizers, but if one lets the land lay idle and avails oneself of the following method, the land will come back to life in only one year, and one will be able to raise good rice with absolutely no agricultural chemicals or chemical fertilizers.

On idle paddies just dump great quantities of such things as straw, grass, chicken manure, garbage from your kitchen, and dregs and lees from starch and tofu, if you can get them free. After you have done this, the weeds will grow luxuriously. Cut them and then either let them lie as they are, or (if you have animals) feed them to your animals and return the weeds to the soil in the form of manure. If you continue this for one season you will find that the next year, even if you begin with no fertilizer at all, mature seedlings planted a little late and wider apart than usual will grow beautifully and strong, and you will get big ears of rice even without adding any fertilizer during the season. Truly great is the recovery power of Nature.

By letting some land lay idle you can get two birds with one stone: begin the shrinkage of the cities, and manage the switch to organic agriculture. Remember, the object here is not to produce great quantities of rice, but to produce healthy rice without the use of chemicals; if the farmers eat just a little good-quality rice, that is all that matters.

Now at this time a food panic will arise, and it is inevitable that the cities will ransack the farming villages in their search for rice. But if we do not get rid of the pus, the sore will not heal. In the attempt to deal a blow to the powerful cities, we must prepare ourselves for a little bloodletting. It may be expecting too much to achieve our goal without payment of any kind.

Whether in the country or in the cities, we are faced with two clear alternatives, represented by the following two attitudes: "As long as I can gain happiness (extravagance and prosperity) now, it's all right if humanity perishes in the future," and "Even if we experience more unhappiness (austerity and a smaller scale lifestyle) than at present, humanity will survive." These are the alternatives, and we must choose one of them.

I think that, even if there is a little bloodletting, and even if the cities retreat and life becomes much more inconvenient and difficult than it is now, we should let the human race continue to exist on this Earth.

Fortunately, a full belly (extravagance) engenders laziness, but an empty belly (austerity) engenders hope. As long as, ensconced in the midst of plenty, we continue our extravagant lives, we will never have the opportunity to experience real happiness.

Supplementary Comment on "Rice Shortages"

It is said that the rice shortage (a shortage of a magnitude that brought about the need to import rice) is the result of four continuous years of bad weather, but a bigger cause is man-made — the meddling of the city.

The first of the city's mistakes is its infamous policy of reducing rice acreage. To say that "since there's too much rice you must till fewer paddies" is nothing more than a kindergartner's idea for a solution. Is this the best idea that the elite bureaucrats in the Ministry of Agriculture could come up with? And when we see that the politicians representing the farming villages just let this pass, it is obvious that they are not much smarter.

Long ago, in China, they say that even with nine years' worth of rice stored they still had shortages. So what is all the excitement over a three or four months' excess?

You, in the cities! This is the rice you're eating. Offer all those office buildings as rice storage facilities. We should fill those buildings up with unhulled rice. Should there ever be a food shortage, all those office buildings and hotels will be worthless compared to rice. When the Pol Pot regime instituted the barter system, the capitol of Phnom Penh was instantly converted into an empty shell. This is because the former residents left the hotels and offices behind and went from farming village to farming village in search of food. If we were to set a nine years' supply of rice as our goal there would be no shortages because of frost damage, and no need to import rice; at the same time there would be no need for an acreage reduction policy.

In such a situation there should be no need to discuss costs. Since this is the rice that they would all be eating, they should do the work for free. When it comes down to actually carrying out this plan, the money economy will probably fall apart, anyway. [17]

The second of the human-caused disasters is the infrastructure industry. In order to build infrastructure, the government blows trillions of yen destroying the paddies tilled by generations of ancestors, and for that reason we are seeing a reduction in the rice harvests (let us not overlook the effects of the dense planting by machines, the damage due to causing the rice to grow too thickly, and the ill effects of the great quantities of chemicals).

The government says that the farmers benefit from infrastructure, but we are actually the victims of it. In reality those who benefit are the government; the farming co-ops; the manufacturers of machines, fertilizers, and agricultural chemicals; the rice wholesalers; and the consumers, all of whom belong to the cities. What this means is that the city has created a system by which it can control the production of our staple food as it pleases. The stupid farmers have given the city permanent control over the production of rice for a mere pittance in subsidies.

Our traditional method of producing rice, which boasts a history of several thousand years, has also been negated by the city (government, farming co-ops, machinery manufacturers), and the city has been able to achieve a system of rice production that suits its own purpose, that is, a system which makes full use of large machinery and agricultural chemicals, and which saddles the farmers with debts. That this new system of rice production (involving the planting of immature seedlings, dense planting, and early planting) is susceptible to frost damage, is the price the city must naturally pay.

The third is the desire of the Epicurean city dwellers to eat the famous varieties of particularly tasty rice. It is for this reason that the farmers plant more and more "sasanishiki" and "koshihikari," strains that are particularly susceptible to frost, blight, and wind damage. On the other hand, strains that are resistant to cold and disease, since they do not taste as good, have all but disappeared from the paddies. This is why I say that frost damage is human-caused.

The fourth is the decline in the will of the farmers to produce. It would seem to be a mistake to ascribe the loss of the farmers' enthusiasm to the city, but sad to say, it is completely the fault of the city. It is because the city has meddled with the production of food that the farmers have lost their will to produce. Who was it that promoted the eating of bread (that considered eating rice bad) and increased the imports of wheat? It was not the farmers of Japan. It was clearly the city — the politicians and traders and nutritionists of the tertiary industries — who made deals with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and grain traders. It was then that the farmers began to lose the will to produce.

The creation of agribusiness in the early 1960s by means of the structural improvement of agriculture, in which the government was highly instrumental, resulted in debts for the farmers, the increase in the scale of agricultural operations, and the supply of great amounts of agricultural produce, which was accomplished by making the farmers busier than ever. The ability of the farmers to supply themselves with food — their independence — was completely lost at this time, and agriculture became highly dependent on the secondary and tertiary industries (chemical fertilizers, machinery, fuel, subsidies, etc.). This dependence is in other words the loss of autonomy; the farmers became prisoners and lackeys totally controlled by the politicos, the co-ops, the manufacturers, the trading companies, and the consumers, and their will to produce rice declined precipitously.

And what did they do to the remaining small-scale farmers? They made a big deal of the difference in income between the secondary/tertiary industries and the farmers, and promoted the move to the cities. As the number of farmers shrank, the urban population burgeoned, and where the government was not successful in getting them off the farm, they at least managed to create many Sunday farmers and part-time farmers. So the farmers, who were busy making money in town, lost interest in rice production, and they performed field work hastily with machinery, and neglected to apply compost to their paddies.

During the same period of time the raising of domestic animals became an industry independent of agriculture, this because Japanese agriculture was taken in by the stratagems of the big U.S. grain companies. Feeding great numbers of domestic animals with nothing but compound feed burdened the farmers with heavy debts, and this situation remains unchanged to the present day. [18] But an even greater problem is that the loss of domestic animals to the farmer has resulted in the loss of manure (compost) to be returned to the soil, and this has in turn resulted in the forced use of larged amounts of chemical fertilizers and agricultural chemicals, and the weakening of food plants because of damage to the soil.

The fifth is the standardization of rice-growing techniques by means of standardized agricultural education.

Just as I mentioned earlier, it is needless to say that much of this standardization is the result of the interference of the government and farming co-ops, which is part and parcel of their infrastructure. But the farmers themselves, who accepted this system, looked with disdain upon the traditional and appropriate farming methods of their ancestors who farmed the same land, prevented these methods from being passed on, went off to far away schools to learn standardized modern farming methods from a teacher that had never once held a hoe, and thus created an environment conducive to the acceptance of intrusion by the government and the co-ops (of course, most of the people who received this education became white collar workers, and so became those who also control agriculture and the farmers). In this way both Hokkaido and Kyushu now grow rice in the same way, and no longer have the diverse methods to deal with problems such as unusual weather, diseases, insects, and wind damage. Still, they may claim that the per-hectare yields of modern agriculture are increasing, but how far can we trust the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture? It is my suspicion that true yields will not jibe with desktop statistics which take into consideration such things as Staple Food Control Act accounts, the rice acreage reduction policy, and incentives for importation.

The above is a very general explanation, but we can see the "rice shortage" (or decrease in stores) does not find its only cause in unavoidable things like frost damage, but is due largely to the gratuitous meddling of the city.

Postscript

Without really planning it, I touched upon something I am going to cover in Chapter V, "Down with the Cities!", so I would like to mention here that by "Down with the cities!" I do not mean "Down with the people in the cities!" This I shall treat in detail in Chapter V.

SPECIAL CHAPTER NOTES

14

This chapter was written at the time the Japanese government imported rice from South Korea. The government suddenly discovered that it had no reserves of rice except for very old stores, unacceptable because of the high level of bromine (caused by fumigants). (Translator's note)

15

Some groups of farmers went down to the ports during the unloading of the South Korean rice to protest. The January, 1985 issue of Gendai Nogyo ("Modern Agriculture") published a photo story about some young farmers in Miyagi Prefecture who protested the government's policies by producing all the rice they could. (Translator's note)

16

If harvesting rice is a sacred occupation, then a snake's capture of a frog is also a sacred occupation. There were originally no human occupations which could be considered sacred.

17

It was at a time when China carried on no trade with other countries that they said, "Though we have a nine years' store of rice, it is still insufficient" (of course, at that time other countries were also incapable of exporting). However, at present, when arable land all over the globe is eroding and being otherwise ruined, and the population is growing explosively, there is no doubt that food for human beings is heading for insufficiency. Though for Japan imports are still possible, it will become difficult to import in the future, and we will be in the same position as ancient China. When such a food crisis results, we must not allow the money economy to interfere with food storage. Also, since money serves as the lubricant by which all the city's evils arise, we must get rid of it sooner or later.

18

Debts are an excellent means of exploitation. In order to pay back their loans, the farmers must work themselves into the ground and offer large amounts of animal products.

CHAPTER III

The City and the Country

In Chapter II we learned that as long as the cities continue to exist, urban pollution — which is the product of the cities' activities — is unavoidable. We also learned that urban pollution is at the same time the pollution of the Earth, and that, other than the cities, there can be no other destroyer and contaminator of the Earth.

In only a brief, cursory inspection we saw that there are far more deadly, serious kinds of pollution than we can count on two hands, and that the city is the sole perpetrator of these pollution crimes, and the source of all the evils that threaten humanity and the Earth.

The Entire Japanese Archipelago Has Been Urbanized

However, the cunning and arrogant city has shifted the responsibility for the destruction of the Earth — a responsibility that is clearly its own — to others, insisting that the pollution is the product of the science civilization or that it is brought about by the industrial state. And it goes without saying that the country is included within that civilized state.

In the country as well as in the city they drive cars, burn propane gas, use electricity, smoke cigarettes, waste paper, spread agricultural chemicals, and drain detergent into the rivers and lakes; as long as the country belongs to the civilized state, it cannot escape the fact that it is an accomplice. Thus saying, the city attempts to shift part of the blame for pollution onto the country. And what is more, the city also tries to justify its own pollution as an unavoidable phenomenon of a modern state.

But sorry to say, this is not at all consistent with reality.

The "country" that the city speaks of — as if it had made some great and wonderful discovery — is not the real country at all, but a fake, a red herring meant to keep us from seeing the truth. The real country is what is left after we have removed all urban influence. It is, in other words, that which can still exist after the cities have disappeared from the Earth.

The country that the city speaks of is a fake country that is under the influence of the city. When country people (actually half-urbanized people) ride in cars, drive tractors, watch television, smoke cigarettes, eat processed foods, burn petroleum, use electric lights, and read the newspaper, they are living a life that would be impossible without the city; this is therefore what we should probably call an "urbanized country." If we go a little bit further we could say that such a place does not even deserve the name "country" for it is none other than the city itself.

Let us take a look at a typical farm family. The son is a white collar worker, and so of course belongs to the city. The head of the household is a part-time farmer who farms on Sunday, and belongs to the city Monday through Saturday. Even on Sunday when he does his farm work, he belongs to the city if he benefits from petroleum and agricultural chemicals. If, after he comes home from the fields, he drinks beer and watches television, he belongs to the city. In this way we can see that, in the entire country of Japan there is not a single place that has not been urbanized, not a single place that deserves to be called "country." Yea, it is not going too far to say that the chilling breath of this devil the city can be felt now in the remotest corners of the villages, and that the country has been completely occupied by the city, or shall we say, the commercialism of the city.

But this is reality, says the city. We must recognize reality as it is. We must respect reality.

The Real, Invisible Country

However, when we take a close look we see that though they chant Reality! Reality! we can at any time invert this reality, and having done so we can see that what has been inverted is just as much "reality" as that which came before. There is no mistaking the fact that the country before urbanization was reality, and that the country after urbanization has become the kind of reality we now have. It is therefore assured that after inverting the present reality (that is, after eradicating the cities and doing away with their influence) the real country that remains will immediately become reality.

And so, rather than saying "The reality is that the country no longer exists," it is more accurate to say "If we remove the presently existing 'urbanized country,' that which remains is in reality the country itself."

I will say it once more: The real country is what remains after we get rid of the cities.

If propane gas stops arriving from the city, then we will burn firewood; if matches to light our firewood stop coming from the city, then we will warm ourselves by burrowing under piles of straw, and eat uncooked brown rice and raw potatoes instead of cooked food; if the city stops sending shrimp taken from far out at sea, we will give up eating shrimp and catch and eat locusts and digger wasps; if salt no longer comes from the city we will consider it an unexpected blessing since it is only human beings who ruin their health by eating too much salt (we never hear of wild animals ingesting too much salt and damaging their health); if shoes stop coming from the city we will make sandals out of straw; if aluminum sashes and bricks stop coming from the city we can build sunken huts with logs and straw; if there is no electricity we will go to bed at sundown and rise with the sun to work in the fields. This is the country. This real country at present no longer exists (except in certain "uncivilized" places in the world), but if we get rid of the cities everyone will find themselves plunged immediately into this kind of country life, and that will instantly become "reality." And is there in this real country any place where pollution can be produced?

The Fate of the Wealth- and Prosperity-Seeking Cities

The city and the country — this is none other than the contrast between extravagance (wealth) and austerity (indigence).

China, which aims to modernize itself, has begun saying that "Being wealthy is the Right Way" (essay in the People's Daily), and has found it necessary to discard the immortal virtue, alive in China since long ago, that "Wealth is evil, indigence is honorable." That such a thing has come to pass is proof that China could not overcome the lure of extravagance.

The present urbanization of the developing countries (including that behemoth, China) is proceeding relentlessly as they seek "wealth," "modernization," and "extravagance." In the near future, it is said, Mexico city will become a city of 20 million, outstripping New York (UN population survey). When in this way the developing countries achieve the same level of modernization as the developed countries, it will be time for humanity to pay the fiddler. If, for example, 90 percent of China's one billion people, in their quest for ease and gluttony (i.e., modernization, wealth, and prosperity), come to live in the cities, they will demand an incredible amount of resources, and create an equally incredible amount of poisons. The reason the developed nations achieved modernization is that they were able to rob the developing nations of all manner of materials, and discard the leftover garbage in every place imaginable. If urbanization spreads to every corner of the globe there will no longer be anyone to rip off, and no place to stash the trash.

Needless to say, the developed countries will not stand for "the slide back into poverty," nor the developing nations for "eternal poverty." So of course we find everyone insisting that they won't listen to anything like "Let's now wear straw sandals instead of shoes," or "Let's continue to wear straw sandals." They all believe that indigence (austerity) is an evil, but it is nothing compared with the much greater evil that we shall perish from the Earth.

Listen! Steamed dumplings will of course fill your empty stomach, and you therefore consider them beneficial. However, should you eat too many you'll get sick, and those dumplings that you considered "beneficial" will suddenly become "harmful."

Changing the planet into fields and gardens may be all right, but changing it into cities is not. This is because the city depends upon urbanized land for it survival (oxygen and food), and cannot continue to exist even one day without it. But the country, even if it does not depend upon the city, can always continue to live as long as it depends upon nature (self-sufficiency and austerity). In spite of this, the country suffers losses day by day, and the cities continue to expand. [19] Has humanity finally been marked for ruin?

Supplementary Remarks on the Distinction Between the City and the
Country

If there is no money the city cannot survive, but even if there is no money, the country will continue to exist. Unless Nature itself disappears, the country will not disappear.

It is money that supports the city (allows the city to control and exploit the country); money maintains the functions of the city, and allows it to continue its activities. If the use of money were to be outlawed the city would immediately find itself unable to maintain its functions, and its activities would cease. This is not an empty argument, for in Cambodia the Pol Pot regime demonstrated that it can be done. The use of money was prohibited, and the people were forced to conduct business by barter. Immediately the city people went from farming village to farming village in search of food, and in no time at all the capital city of Phnom Penh was reduced to an empty shell. This was a great experiment in which we saw that , without dropping even one bomb, and by merely banishing currency, it is possible to eliminate the cities in a single stroke. [20]

Money is used in the country because of the influence of the city (the damaging influence of urban commercialism). Even if we have no money, things will be peaceful. But perhaps it would be better to express it this way: If we have no money things will be far more peaceful than if we do. Money is making a mess of the country, and it allows the city to rob the country of its food.

Long ago our ancestors lived outside the bounds of the money economy, and so as long as they had salt, there was no need to buy anything. [21] "Farmer" means a person who does a hundred different kinds of work, [22] and originally the farmers did everything for themselves, supplying their own food, clothing, and shelter. They wove cloth, and they made sandals. They dug wells, and they thatched roofs. They made ropes, and they gathered firewood. Not only that, almost all the materials they used were recyclable products of the fields and forests (I will later discuss the necessity for the tools — hatchets, sickles, and saws — they used to cut and assemble these materials).

"As long as they have salt…" I wrote, but even if they do not have salt the farmers can somehow get along. Wild animals such as squirrels, raccoons, and monkeys do not ingest so much salt, but they maintain themselves in perfect health. It is only human beings who eat too much, thereby suffering from hardening of the arteries and high blood pressure. There is plenty of salt contained in natural foods; Nature, I expect, made human beings the same way it made squirrels and monkeys. * * * Since the city depends mainly for its existence upon nonrenewable underground resources, its functions will of course be paralyzed, and its activities will come to a halt, when the resources run out. The cities, therefore, will perish first with the discontinuance of the money economy, and second with shortage of natural resources. The country can always get along without such underground resources, just as wild animals and primitive societies do.

Next (and this is directly related to my remarks on money), the cities will disappear with a cutoff in the supply of food. The reason the cities will perish if there is no money is because, first and foremost, it is money that the city uses to plunder the country for food. As I have said time and again, the city itself is nonproductive, and cannot supply its own food. It cannot continue to survive without robbing (this includes imports) every last grain of rice from the country. A cutoff in the food supply is the best means of triggering the fall of the cities.

It is the city which, for its own benefit, and for progress and development, continues to control and destroy the natural environment, and it is the country that lives by being in accord with the flow of Nature. This is the decisive difference between the city and the country, and the all-important fork in the road where we separate that which perishes from that which will endure.

The flow of Nature is a cycle. The four seasons come and go, night and day are repeated (the Earth repeats the rotation on its axis, and its revolution around the sun). Rain falls, the water soaks into the earth, and becomes a spring. Spring water flows into mountain streams, then makes its way to rivers, and then into the ocean, where it evaporates. Rising into the sky it forms clouds, and falls once again on the Land, starting the cycle anew. Parents give birth to children, children to grandchildren; from seed to seed the relay of Life continues. And the remains of all things that have died are converted into humus by the Land (its self-purifying mechanism), where they again become the source of nourishment for life (soil). Plants grow, animals then consume the plants, and the cycle starts all over again.

There is no end to this repetition. We may say that this cycle is eternity itself. [23] It is therefore not a mistake to say, "Nature is a cycle, and that cycle is eternity."

The Cycle Is the True Substance of the Country and Agriculture

Furthermore, in this cycle, i.e., repetition, there is no "progress." From time immemorial the Earth has continued its rotation and revolution. In the center of the solar system the sun has continued to blaze. For tens of millions, hundreds of millions of years, there has been not the slightest development or improvement. In Nature there is no "progress." The biological idea of evolution is adaptation to the environment, and is different from progress. For example, the functioning of human brains and hands has advanced, whereas the sensitivity of our ears, eyes, and noses has regressed. These changes are the results of the adaptation of intelligence and nerves to the environment, i.e., external stimuli. For the same reason, the necks of giraffes and the ears of rabbits became long. If evolution is the same as progress, then can we also say that it was progress when the dinosaurs became too big?

Well then, the country (agriculture) must be in accordance with the eternal cycle and progress-less repetition of Nature. Last year I planted seeds in the spring, watched them grow in the summer, and harvested my crops in the fall. This year I will do the same. And next year I will no doubt do it again. It only stands to reason that if the cycle of Nature never changes, a kind of agriculture that is closely joined to the cycle is also eternally unchanging (needless to say, I speak here of true country agriculture, not of modern agriculture). It is a simple and boring repetition, but this is what makes agriculture what it is. The essence and true characteristic of agriculture must be this simple, boring repetition.

In the modern city, which holds industry supreme, there is no such repetition. Yea, it is the very essence of the city that it cannot have repetition. Even if, after the limited resources have all been dug out of the ground, the city tries to repeat something, it cannot because there is nothing left. Such ineffective one-way movement means stagnation, and stagnation means an irrevocable loss. The more the city becomes aware of the inevitable future awaiting it after the depletion of its resources, the more it tortures itself with worry. The cities then fight among themselves, each trying to grab more resources than the others, thus hastening their own demise by frantic squandering. Momentary (as opposed to cyclical and eternal) prosperity is the fruitless blossom that blooms upon buried resources. To the modern industries (i.e., the city), repetition is a fatal blow. The city has a short life, and therefore no time for leisurely repetition. The categorical commands given to the city are Progress, Development, and Prosperity.

In the country it is possible to eat rice even if we produce it just as we did one hundred years ago, but in the city you'll not find anyone who is able to watch the same television they watched ten years ago. The city must have even one step forward, even one millimeter's change. The same can be said for people who make their living by getting the attention of the world with literature and painting, for they are always thrashing about wildly, trying to find a new style, or trying to breathe newness into things. This quest for novelty ultimately leads to poetry and prose and pictures that we find are impossible to understand. Nikita Khrushchev termed this "a pig's tail" thereby earning the reprobation of the literati, but I think he was correct and justified in saying so. Ah, the idiocy of those who believe they are the cultured just because they follow what is new or strange.

So in this way people put all their energies into this mad rush forward, ever forward, while single-mindedly screeching about such things as Creativity, Challenge, Freedom, Individuality, and Progress. If they just sit around they'll be left behind, and being left behind is serious business (this is the urban competition mentality).

This stern competition mentality has started the big race to ruin, and continues its fearsome advance with the entire society in tow (an effect produced in combination with the Pursuit of Profit). * * * And now a final word to modern agriculture —

Nature has repeated the same cycle over and over again for billions of years. If agriculture, which is in an inextricably close relationship with this cycle, shows unusual progress and development (by accepting the intervention of the secondary and tertiary industries) in spite of this relationship with the natural cycle, then it is not at all surprising that distortion will arise. By distortion I mean the contamination of the land (our food), the loss of topsoil, the accumulation of salts in the soil, and the loss of humus.

If we assume that progress in agriculture has made our lives more affluent, then we must pay a terrible price for that affluence. In order to live an extravagant "life," we must give up our survival.

CHAPTER III NOTES

19

By invading the country and urbanizing it, the city is, more than anything else, destroying the very source of its life.

20

Please note that I do not support any of the barbarisms perpetrated by Pol Pot.

21

Since in those days (the feudal age) the feudal lords seized food directly from the farmers, there was no need to include the farmers in the monetary economy. The farmers were dragged into the monetary economy when the Meiji government decreed the switch from payment in kind to cash payment.

22

A literal rendering of one of the Japanese words for "farmer."
(Translator's note).

23

It is said that even in space everything disintegrates in the end, but if a part of the universe (for example, the Milky Way Galaxy) disintegrates, the planets and stars turning to dust and scattering throughout space, then this becomes interstellar matter which floats about in space; this dust again gathers to form stars, and a new system is born. This too is the repetitious movement of the universe, movement which requires tens of billions of years.

Chapter IV

The Origin of the Cities

Just as the sun exists in the heavens, the cities exist on Earth. Just as there is water in the great oceans, there are the cities on land. Or at least this is what most people seem to believe. If one does not believe so, then it would probably be impossible to blithely make one's home in the city.

But sorry to say, the city is nothing at all like the sun or the oceans, for it has only the most tenuous, bubble-like existence.

The World before the Appearance of the City

No matter how grand an existence urbanites try to give the city, it is unfortunately nothing more than a phantom born a mere ten thousand years ago or less as the final bubble of human history — or as the explosive with which it will destroy itself. This is just like the Japanese Army, which, though it called itself the Imperial Army, and (believing that it had existed from the beginning of time) boasted of its own enduring existence, was wiped out in less than a hundred years. It would not be at all strange if, just as the Japanese Army (I am here distinguishing it from the Self Defense Forces) perished in only one hundred years, the cities perish after ten thousand. * * * Let us take a look at the origin of the city. At the time when human beings kept themselves alive by hunting, fishing, and gathering, it seems that there were no cities. And there were probably no cities even after the beginning of agriculture, when people made farm implements, clothing, and houses while tilling the soil. Why was it that way? It was because at that time people gathered their own food or produced it themselves, and in this kind of world there is no need for the cities.

In Japan this corresponds to the period of time from the latter half of the Jomon Period to the first half of the Yayoi Period (the first half of the Jomon Period and the time prior to that does not concern us here). During the Jomon Period, in which the economy was based on gathering, the resources in any one given area were limited, so that if the population increased this would cause a shortage. It was therefore impossible for people to concentrate in one place; they kept moving around so that there were always small numbers of people living scattered over the land (just as wild animals stake out their own territory). There was some cooperation in their life of hunting, fishing, and gathering, but for the most part each person took part in gathering, making religious offerings, and dividing up the food according to the customs of the group (Yazaki Takeo, The Developmental Process of Japanese Cities).

Under such an economic system it was impossible to store anything for a long time, so there were no rich and no poor. Since this was a society which had no written records, the people had to depend upon their rich knowledge of past experience for the methods by which they adapted to the extremities of Nature, and this was the reason that experienced elders were respected, and in positions of leadership as the heads of groups.

In those days each individual made all tools for gathering and for consumption, so that there was no one who specialized in handicraft, and thus no distinctions of social position. Even the head of a group did not step out of his bound, for the head of a group, while leading, did not exploit. [24]

The Yayoi culture came from the continent (China). Therefore the transition to the metal culture was not a natural development of the Jomon culture, but a revolutionary change that occurred suddenly as a result of the influence of the continental culture.

The technology of wet rice agriculture also came to Japan at this time. Rice became a staple food along with those things obtained by hunting and fishing. It became possible for people to live sedentary lives in the vicinity of their fields; communities increased their supportive power, and there appeared villages of several hundred families. People began to work together ever more closely, and there were divisions in social functions. On the whole, society took on a class structure that was based upon power.

Land, which was the principal means by which each family made its living, was not individually owned, but held in common by the village, and so it was necessary to tightly control the use of land and water, and the distribution of agricultural implements and labor. The headman succeeded to this position of authority.

One can sense that the birth of the city is nigh, but in the first part of the Yayoi Period people were still abiding by the law of Nature, which states that one must either gather or produce one's own food. Even the village headman still had to grow his own rice.

The City's Origins

When did the city make its appearance in Japan? We may say that it happened when the gods marked the human race for ruin. When a system made up of the dominators and the dominated, the exploiters and the exploited, became necessary, the city came into existence as none other than the mechanism of domination and exploitation (see note 24).

Whether it be Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, or whatever place where ancient civilizations arose, the city did most decidedly not arise as an instrument for the prosperity of civilization (or culture); it was without doubt a mechanism for idleness and gluttony set up by the dominators and their ilk, as well as those hangers on who hoped to profit, such as merchants and craftsmen. Urban civilization (culture) is nothing more than a means of achieving idleness and gluttony.

In Japan the city appeared in the latter part of the Yayoi Period. Technology (culture) developed, the scale of communities expanded, and the social organization became complicated. As a result the various regions took on distinctive cultures based on their respective functions, and there appeared villages which were groups of people specializing in the manufacture of clay, stone, or metal implements. Groups of people whose sole occupation was the manufacture of things — this was without a doubt the beginning of the city.

Just as I stated in Chapter I, the city is the base of the secondary and tertiary industries, or the place which is home to those employed by those industries; it is none other than the organization of idleness and gluttony. If there are even a few people who, finding their sole employment in the secondary and tertiary industries, make their living at it (or if there is the possibility of such), then we must consider this the beginning of the city. Scholars believe that in the latter part of the Yayoi Period there were people whose sole occupation was the manufacture of things, and this means that the city came into being at that time.

There is no proof that in the later Yayoi the group heads — that is, the dominators — grew no food but were engaged solely in politics. But judging from the general conditions in late Yayoi society (particularly the considerable advances in technology, and the furthering of functional divisions in the economy), it is possible that there were a few group heads who filled their bellies by engaging solely in politics (in the Tomb Period there were countless such people). It is here that I see the origin of the city.

And if we agree with those who say that the city was created by merchants, then, whether they dealt in necessities or luxuries, with the appearance of even a small-scale place where the merchants work (i.e., the market), we must again consider this the birth of the city. In the late Yayoi there was of course bartering, but there is no evidence that this was conducted by those who did nothing but barter (perhaps full-time merchants did not make their appearance until the Nara Period). In addition we find there were Buddhist monks and Shinto priests, as well as soldiers and bureaucrats, who are the very models of idleness and gluttony, and they came in droves to the early cities.

From the continent came Buddhism, and from the Tomb Period to the Nara Period, the number of monks increased steadily; it is said that in the 32nd year of Empress Suiko's reign [623] there were 46 temples and 1,385 monks and nuns. Public officials and soldiers no doubt showed a similar increase. There were 12 gates surrounding Itabuki Palace of Empress Kogyoku [reigned 642-645] in Asuka, and there were guards posted at each one of them.

In the fifth century the Yamato state unified the land, establishing the Jingikan and the Daijokan departments in the central government; in the Daijokan there was a Prime Minister, as well as others like a Minister of the Left, and a Minister of the Right. Under them there were eight ministries, which handled all the business of the state, and a system of officials. The land was divided up into Kinai, and seven Regions, and the seven Regions were further divided into over sixty locally governed provinces. These were further divided into smaller districts and villages. And to govern all of these the state appointed provincial governors, district governors, village heads, and so on.

When the capital was based in Nara there were, among those assembled in the city, over 130 persons who were what we may call the aristocracy, and the officials, including those down to the lowest ranks, numbered about ten thousand (the population of Nara at that time was 200,000). And since these officials, monks, and priests had their attendants, assistants, concubines, servants, errand boys, and slaves, it would seem that the greater part of the 200,000 people living in Nara in some way or another belonged to the temples, shrines, and the palace.

The City as a Means of Supporting Idleness and Gluttony

In this way the city came into being, underwent transformation, and developed. To put it more simply, politics brought the city into being as a place for domination (exploitation). Those who wished to fill their bellies under the wing of the rulers gathered in the same place, thus causing the growth of the city as an organ of exploitation.

Now let us take a jump into the future.

The city as a political entity has a 5,000-year history, but it is said that the industrial city has at best a 200-year history. According to Toshi Mondai no Kiso Chishiki ["Basic Knowledge of Urban Problems"], "Ancient cities were by and large organs of exploitation built upon a ruler, the priesthood, and the military, but with the advancement of industrialization, exchange and division of labor became the principal means of control in the social organization, and when that happened the scale and form of the city changed fundamentally. [25] These phenomena, known as industrialization, and urbanization in the age of industrialization, transcend the differences between capitalist and socialist states, as well as the differences between developed and undeveloped nations. [26] These are, we may say, phenomena which represent a change common to the whole world."

In this quote the author is describing the limitless expansion of the modern city that I spoke of in Chapter I, "Urban Sprawl." This is the problem that we must concern ourselves with solely; what I wanted to get a general idea of here was whether or not it is historical fact that the ancient city, which is the ancestor of the modern city, came into being as a system (even on a small scale) made up of the dominators and the dominated, and the exploiters and the exploited, and if it arose in order to establish a World of Laws [27] (a society based upon laws devised by human beings) for idleness and gluttony. And I also wanted to know if the city, which now stands before us like the Rock of Gibraltar, was really born long ago as humanity's golden banner, and if, in a Natural World (a world governed by the laws of Nature), it is a necessity.

I wonder if it was really the wish of Nature that the city come into being?

By looking into the past we have been able to get an idea, however vague, of the process by which the city came into being, and just as we thought, it came into being at the hands of master politicos and men of the cloth as a means of abandoning agricultural labor, skillfully plundering the fruits of the farmers' labor, and achieving idleness and gluttony. To put it even more tersely, the city came into being the moment such activities began. It is virtually impossible for the city to come into being any other way. According to the previous quote, the ancient city was an organ of exploitation, and this is the essence of the modern city as well. The only difference is that the modern city has made it possible to plunder more skillfully, in a more complex manner, and in greater amounts. To put it another way, it was not the desire of the farmers (the country, that is, the Natural World) that the city came into being. It is true that many farmers helped to build the palaces, but this was corvee labor exacted at the request (or rather the command) of the city. I am quite sure that an examination of history will show that the farmers did not willingly have anything to do with the establishment of the city. The city, in other words, was brought into existence by the urban ego itself, and not at the request of the Natural World or the country; it was not born as the golden banner under which all are to gather naturally.

The city is therefore a foreign body borne by the World of Laws; its existence is merely temporary, and we would be better off without it.

The city: Is it not the crystallization of human greed and wickedness? (Convenience and extravagance and ease. Trinkets and gewgaws and amusement. Progress and change and expansion. Plundering and destruction and contamination…)

Therefore we should not feel a sense of loss at the disappearance of the city. It will, in the near future, perish anyway because of dwindling natural resources and nuclear war. So we must realize that it would not be such a terrible thing to get rid of the cities.

Supplementary Remarks

In just the last 5,000 years human beings have achieved rapid progress. Even the Jomon Period was a mere 10,000 years ago. When we consider it in the light of the millions of years since humanity appeared, 10,000 years is only the most recent few moments of our existence.

It is extremely unusual that we should have achieved such fatal development in this short a time. Perhaps we should assume that the gods have, during this short time, allowed humanity this rapid progress. Let us note the fact that wild animals have shown no progress in millions of years, for foxes and raccoons are still living the same lives as foxes and raccoons. The rapid changes, increasing complexity of social structure, and urbanization achieved by humanity in the last 5,000 years must seem extremely unusual when considered in the light of Nature's timeless cycle. The city: the final, transient bubble of human history. It would not be strange at all if the gods had chosen the city as the means to destroy humanity.

The city is the explosive that will bring about the ruin of humanity. If we assume that in order to cause the manufacture of that explosive, Nature took the unusual step of allowing us a single great leap in progress in a short period of time, then this was either done on a whim of Nature (the gods) or a severe test by the laws of evolution (yes, I will say evolution here).

The gods gave human beings wisdom (by means of evolution), and that wisdom built the city. The city has visited us with a crisis. When the laws of evolution led to wisdom, the gods perhaps decided to use humanity in an experiment to see what would happen. The gods are no doubt grinning and watching to see what happens to the human beings who think themselves so clever since they have invented jet planes and computers, recombined genes, and made nuclear weapons and nuclear power plants. [28]

To the gods: You granted humanity wisdom, but I don't believe you meant that wisdom to be used in vain for progress, expansion, and prosperity.

To the people: How about giving up the use of this wisdom for the attainment of convenience and development, and using it instead now for regression and austerity? And how about, if not eradicating the cities, at least resolving to shrink the cities?

Let us get rid of nuclear weapons. And while we're at it, let's tear down the nuclear reactors. Let's remove escalators and automatic doors. Let's drastically reduce the numbers of jets and automobiles. Let's give up traveling abroad (and that goes for trips within the country as well — being one with the land also means that we remain stationary). Let's cancel the construction of airports. Stop using moving walkways and walk with your legs instead. Stop using pulp to make idiotic comic books, handbills, and wrapping paper. Let's stop the manufacture of cigarettes, detergents, and food additives. Let's stop taking so much medicine. Reduce further the amounts of agricultural chemicals and chemical fertilizers. Let's stop building so many roads. Let's leave the seashore in its natural state. In order to shrink the cities let's send the extra labor to the farms. Let's promote the redistribution and further division of land. Let's all work hard for the production of food that isn't poisoned. Weed the fields and gardens by hand, and return compost to the soil.

There is no limit to that which we must do for scaling down, regression, and austerity. It is for these things that humanity must use the gift of the gods (wisdom) to its fullest extent.

People! (Assuming that the gods are even a little bit good), they know that wisdom is a double edged sword, and they are testing us to see how we will use it.

CHAPTER IV NOTES

24

Domination and exploitation are actually two sides of the same coin. But if we must make a distinction, then domination is a means of exploitation. It also follows that the city does not come into being by means of domination without exploitation.

25

The scale and form of the modern city is basically different from that of the ancient city, but in essence they are basically the same. We should note that both the ancient and the modern city are organizations for plunder and domination; the modern city, by means of industrialization and technological innovation, has grown to huge proportions.

26

In this instance, instead of saying that it transcends the differences between developed and non-developed countries, we should say that urbanization itself constitutes the efforts of the non-developed countries to overtake the developed countries by progress and development (or by means of living beyond their means).

27

"World of Laws" and "Natural World" are terms from Ando Shoeki.
(Translator's note)

28

Truth is absolute, but good is relative. Since the gods are absolute they are truth, but they cannot be good. To the farmers the rice weevil is an evil, but to the manufacturers of agricultural chemicals, it is a good. And to the gods the rice weevil is, just like the farmers and manufacturers of agricultural chemicals, merely another form of life.

It is nothing more than the arbitrary decision and wishful thinking of human beings to believe that the gods are on the side of good. This is where we find the fundamental error of religion.

CHAPTER V Down with the Cities!

"Down with the cities!" means that the people of the cities will survive, and "Prosperity for the cities!" means that the people of the cities will perish.

If We Do Not Halt Urbanization, There Is No Future for Humanity or the Earth

There is no problem with turning the entire planet into country, but we must not turn it all into cities. If the entire planet is country then, even though we cannot hope for an extravagant and convenient life, the survival of humanity (as well as the lives of all other living things) is completely assured. However, if the entire planet is urbanized, then we cannot hope for our own survival or that of any other living thing. This is because it is impossible for the city to survive even for a day unless it depends upon the country.

Anyone should be able to understand this much. Unless one has gone completely bananas, it should be impossible to believe that the city can keep itself alive. Yet in spite of this fact, every day sees the loss of the country, and the expansion of the cities. Just look at the donut phenomenon (the building of more apartment complexes) occurring around the big cities. Just look at the plastering of everything with concrete and the leisure facilities along train lines and roads. Just look at how the polluting industries are evacuating to the country. Just look at the rise in tourism all over the country (tourist facilities represent urbanization: cable cars, scenic roads, parking lots, rest facilities, hotels, stores). And look also at the centers of towns and villages that are now halfway between the city and the country.

The cities continue their amoebae-like expansion. This limitless prosperity of the cities means the decline and fall of the country, which is the city's life line, and that means the strangling of the city's prosperity, and the end of life for the city.

If at this time people do not find the courage to curb urbanization and begin the return of the city to the country, we will have eternal regrets. Time has all but run out, and it may already be too late. Still, we must do what can be done to exercise the little remaining hope for humankind and the Earth.

We must get rid of the cities.

In Saving the City We Will Lose Everything

No matter what counterargument, no matter what reason there could be, we cannot expect to save ourselves while preserving the city. If we exterminate ourselves we will lose everything. [29] What could be more important to us than our own survival?

Freedom? Will we still have to defend it even after we are gone?

Progress? Must we continue with it even if it means self-destruction?

Scholarship? Must we still pursue it even if it drives us to catastrophe?

Culture? Must we maintain it even if it brings about a crisis?

All these great and grand things will be worth nothing after we are gone. It is the same for the prosperity of the nation-state, the elevation of national prestige, the flourishing of a people, and for convenience, extravagance, and ease, as well as traditions and customs. Even while humanity is still around they are not worth a pig's tail (this is because they come about by oppressing and exploiting the country, and by destroying and contaminating the environment, or they are the means whereby such things are accomplished). How can there be a reason for preserving such things when it means our own ruin?

ANDO SHOEKI:
A Great Sage Who Taught Us to Eradicate the Cities

"Scholarship and learning steal the way of tilling and gain the respect of the people by means of idleness and gluttony; since they are created by means of private law they are plots to steal the Way. Therefore the more one engages in learning, the more one glorifies the stealing of the Way. Learning is that which therefore conceals this theft… Learning is scheming words meant to deceive the people and eat gluttonously, and is a great fault. Therefore the idleness and gluttony of the sages and Buddhas is a stinking and filthy evil. Learning is a means of hiding this stench and filth." (This quote and the following are taken from The Struggle of Ando Shoeki by Terao Goro.) Ando Shoeki lived during the Genroku Period (1703-1762), and was a doctor in northern Honshu. A great pioneer sage who took a path taken by no one before him, he is the only revolutionary thinker which Japan can boast of to the world. [30]

Learning is not the Way of Heaven, but a means of achieving idleness and gluttony which human beings created with private law — this is the truth which Shoeki expounded. We must not, I should think, preserve the cities for the sake of that which "conceals theft," thereby driving humanity to catastrophe.

"The sages of all the ages, the Buddhas, the bodhisattvas, the arhat, Zhuangzi, Laozi, physicians, those who created the laws of the gods, all scholars, ascetic practitioners, priests and monks — they are all the idle and gluttonous, the dregs of society who steal the Way. Therefore all laws, the preaching of the Dharma, and storytelling are all ways of justifying theft, and nothing more. Their books, which number in the millions, all record justifications for theft; the more wise their aphorisms, and the more clever their turn of phrase, the more they justify theft, and the more we must deplore them… They steal the Way, establish their private laws, and live lives of idleness and gluttony while lecturing on their various theories… They deceive the people with their many theories in order to eat gluttonously… Note well what they are doing…! We should behead them."

And this is the reason why it has always been the object of education to teach the techniques of idleness and gluttony. At present, moreover, education is aiming for more than that. It is no overstatement to say that, either directly or indirectly, all education exists to bring upon us the catastrophic ruin in which progress ends. If we intend to keep this from happening, we must not preserve the cities.

"The way of agriculture… is the way found naturally in all people; so we naturally till the soil, and naturally weave clothes, that is, we produce our own food, and we weave our own clothes; this comes before all other teachings."

You in the cities! We do not need all your extra baggage. The
way of direct cultivation [31] depends only upon the blessings of
Nature; it is the Way of Heaven in which we live by flowing with
Nature.

"When we carry on tilling and weaving by being in accordance with the four seasons, with Nature, and with the advance and retreat in the motions of the essences, we are living with the Way of Heaven, and there will be, therefore, no irregularities in the agricultural activities of human beings."

Nature is a cycle, and this cycle is eternity; in this repetition there is no progress. Shoeki is saying that there must be no progress or change in the agriculture which is carried on in accordance with the flow of Nature (the cycle). Shoeki saw from the beginning that progress in agriculture spurs on the development of the secondary and tertiary industries, that is, the city, thereby abetting the city's evils, which would in the end wipe out humanity. It is idiocy to stubbornly defend that which invites ruin, and that which invites ruin is the progress of the city.

Business and Money are the Prime Evils

"Merchants do not till the soil; business in its profit-seeking is the root of all evil.

"Merchants are gangsters who buy and sell… They come up with schemes for increasing their profits, they curry favor with rulers, deceive the scholars, farmers, and artisans, and compete with each other in their profit-seeking… They are the men of monstrous profits and harmful greed. They wish to make their way through the world without tiring themselves with labor; they curry favor with those both above and below themselves with artifice, a servile countenance, flattery, and lies; they deceive their own fathers, sons, and brothers… Immoral in the extreme, even in their dreams they do not know of the natural way of human beings.

"Money is the great originator of all desire and all evil. Since the appearance of money we have lived in a world of darkness, confused desires, and rampant evils."

Is it not exactly the same in the present day? Money and
Business — they have always been the symbols of the city.

"And the master artisans, the makers of vessels, the weavers — the sage uses them to build towers, fancy houses, and beautiful chambers, or for military purposes. And the artisans curry favor with those of all classes by means of artful language; seduced by the lust for more commissions, they hope for the occurrence of disasters."

In the present age we see parallels in the manufacture of such needless, and often harmful, things like trinkets and gewgaws, cars, cameras, televisions, jets, and computers, which only waste resources and spew forth pollution, and in the fact that the manufacturers of weapons and explosives hope that there will be a war, that pharmaceutical companies hope there will be lots of sick people, that manufacturers of agricultural chemicals hope there will be more rice weevils, and that construction companies hope there will be more natural disasters.

"Songs, dancing, chanting, teas ceremonies, go, backgammon, gambling, drinking and carousing, the koto, the biwa, the samisen, all arts, drama, plays… are the evil accomplices of confusion and disorder; they are all worthless amusements of the idle and gluttonous, and the businesses of pleasure; they are the frivolity which destroys oneself and one's family."

Shoeki is saying that games and the arts are merely means for achieving idleness and gluttony. Festivals! Amusement! Leisure! say our modern tertiary industries (the city), investing great amounts of resources, time, and money in their wild abandon to idiotic entertainment and events. Shoeki's statement was a severe criticism of just such things.

The Idle and Gluttonous Dominators "Should Simply be Put to
Death"

It is with this that Shoeki then concentrates his stinging attack upon those in command of the secondary and tertiary industries (the city, i.e., an assembly of the idle), their thieves' bosses, the sages and clergymen (dominators), who are the very incarnation of plunder.

"Those who eat gluttonously without tilling the soil are the great criminals who steal the True Way of Heaven and Earth… Though they be sages and men of the cloth, scholars, or great wise men, they are still robbers.

"Sage is another name for criminal.

"The Confucian Gentlemen are the leaders of the highway robbers.

"Sage Emperor is another name for robber.

"Know ye that those of later ages will call them horse manure, but they will not call them the scholars and the clergy. This is because horse manure has more value." ("Scholars and the clergy" here refers to the dominators and their ilk — all harm and no good.)

It would not do to get rid of these worthless and harmful robbers and criminals (the leaders of the idle and gluttonous) with such half-baked methods as trying to educate them. It is impossible to change these inveterate robbers by talking with them, by persuading them, or by educating them. Shoeki here makes a timeless statement:

"They should simply be put to death" — there is nothing to do but to overthrow them. This is nothing other than a call to an heroic, unparalleled revolution.

Of Ando Shoeki Terao Goro says, "Shoeki is worthy of being called the Marx of the Genroku Period," but I think that Shoeki's theory is backed by thorough revolutionary thought and a penetrating view of society that far exceeds that of Marx, and is more highly developed. Shoeki was a more radical revolutionary thinker.

* * *

Whereas Marx sought the source of class confrontation in the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, Ando Shoeki found it in those who practice direct cultivation on the one hand, and the idle and gluttonous on the other.

The factory workers, distributors, and buyers and sellers who were, to Marx, "our camp," were not so to Shoeki, who thought that they too belonged to the idle and gluttonous classes, and that if we do not dismantle such a system, we will not be able to realize a true "communistic society" (Natural World).

The Overthrow of the Urbanizing Mechanism Is Essential to a True
Revolution

Verily it was the dominators (feudal lords) and farm operators who were the medium of plunder by which were fed the huge secondary and tertiary industrial population — the city — which loomed behind them. (The scholars, clergy, and officials were subjectively the chief instigators of plunder, but objectively they were merely the medium of plunder.) Shoeki insisted that, before anything else, we must close the portal, we must block the doorway of plunder.

These ideas are quite different from the theories of Marx, who considered the medium of plunder (the bourgeoisie) to be the ultimate enemy while believing that the great hordes of the idle and gluttonous slithering in the shadow of the bourgeoisie were the allies of the revolution. Shoeki was truly the first to insist upon the eradication of the cities.

In Marxist revolution theory, there is a surprising — and actually quite fatal — error in that it does not call for the dismantling of the city, that is, the liquidation of the idle and gluttonous. Without the overthrow of the urbanizing mechanism in human society — a mechanism which cannot but engender the formation of the idle and gluttonous hordes — we cannot achieve true revolution.

So just take a look, please, at where the spreading world socialist revolution is leading (even if it is but a precursor of the communist revolution): power, oppression, progress, expansion, modernization, urbanization, industrialization, militarization, destruction, contamination, prodigality, and corruption.

A Natural World in which All Till the Soil Directly, and There
Are No Groups of Idlers

The "natural world" that Shoeki imagined had no exploitation or oppression whatsoever; its aim was a self-governing commune with common ownership, labor by all, and equality. It was a primitive communist society which could not be realized without, first of all, the overthrow of the bloodsucking ruling class, and then that of the non-tilling idlers (those who contaminate and destroy). It was a society of contraction, regression, austerity, and one in which all practiced direct cultivation.

If one leaves the great hordes of the idle, plundering, and gluttonous just as they are, and then tries to achieve the transition to communistic society (of course, this assumes the abolition of capitalist society), can we really expect the establishment of a utopia in which there are neither the exploiters nor the exploited?

Sorry to say, agriculture has always had a relationship of confrontation with business and the manufacturing industries, as well as with the tertiary industries. The famous Meiji-era Marxist, Dr. Kawakami Hajime, lamented, saying, "If agriculture declines, how can business and industry prosper?" But in his book Respect for Japanese Agriculture he wrote, "The development of a healthy national economy depends upon the balanced prosperity of agriculture, industry, and business." Ever true to Marxism, he did not at all notice the antagonism between agriculture on the one hand, and industry and business on the other.

And so the modern socialist revolution, which does not include the dismantling of the urbanization mechanism, is not in the least what could be called a revolution, for it is merely a system in which the corrupt bosses plunder the produce of the regime in place of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, and this holds even if they are able to make the transition to the communist revolution, but have not dismantled the cities. In other words, we end up with a situation in which state power, in place of the bourgeoisie, carries out oppression and exploitation. This is a mere passing of power from one hand to another (I will disregard here the relative merits and demerits of the various regimes), so that there is no real difference between the old regime and any new one brought to power by an election victory. Perhaps this is the reason that both the Socialist Party and the Communist Party switched their tactics to those of emphasis on election campaigns.

Military Power, Religion, and Money as Instruments of Domination

From long ago, force of arms and religion have been used as the means of domination. In a state governed by laws, it looks as though laws take the place of these, but behind the laws is the force of arms (the military and the police), and out in plain view is money, about which I shall have more to say later. And the backbone of laws is religion, which includes morals, ethics, tradition, and customs.

There is no need to say much about military power. Control and oppression by military force, a conventional technique, is very common, with just a few examples being the ancient attempts to subjugate the Korean peninsula, the struggles between the Taira and Minamoto, the Warring States, the feudalist military government, Manchuria, the China Incident, and so on without limit. In addition, as everyone knows, in between these big wars and incidents the dominators were constantly making use of military force to gain power for themselves. And the present military, though they call themselves the Self Defense Forces, will, when the time comes, point their guns in this direction.

I will have to say a little about religion. I speak here not only of Buddhism, Shinto, Christianity, and the new religions, but also of all blind faith and superstitions. There is no telling how, from ancient times, the blind faith of loyalty (originally Confucianism) has been an advantage to the dominators, and a disadvantage to the dominated. Good examples of this are the elimination of those in the way by harakiri, and the honoring of the war dead at Yasukuni Shrine. The dominators have always deceived us with superstitions which say that if we are not perfectly loyal, we will be punished. And now the blind faith in the omnipotence of science [32] is making possible the augmentation of the city's functions, thereby inviting the growth of the plundering classes.

The traditional religions teach us not to become attached to material things, and as proof to that they tell us to make offerings. Show the extent of your belief, they say, with a widow's mite. And in this way, with each small drop adding to their ocean of wealth, they have built not only their head temples and headquarters, but boast of their branch temples, missions, and other splendorous buildings, ostentatiously display their decorations, feed their priests and officials, and scale the heights of prosperity with only contemptuous regard for the poverty of the people. And very important here is the fact that the dominators, in the shadow of religion, have used these religious teachings as tools for the placation of the people, and through exchange have offered the riches concentrated in the shrines and temples as the capital resource for domination. This is without a doubt the reason that the central government has, from the Tomb Period through the Nara and Heian Periods, helped the religions prosper.

If We Banish Money, the Cities Will Perish

In addition to the force of arms and religion, money has been an instrument of domination and exploitation.

Money: It would be hard to find anything else that is so convenient, so easily used, so powerful an instrument of domination. The arrogant belief that, as long as one has money, one can do anything, is not mere arrogance; money is in actuality the mechanism by which the functions and activities of the city are supported, and the means by which people so freely manipulate the city's functions in order to bring about prosperity. The reason burglars and thieves (in this case I am not referring to the dominators) always take money is because they too, as long as they have money, can get anything they want, be it goods or services. Big shot politicos get sweaty palms at the thought of fat bribes because as long as they have money they can feed great numbers of hangers-on and wield great power.

Simple logic, then (and here we at last come to the stage where we get rid of the cities), dictates that all we have to do to get rid of the cities is banish money.

This is not idle speculation, for the Cambodian regime of Pol Pot actually proved it could be done (forgive me for harping on this one example, but no other government has had the guts to do the same thing).

Proving no exception to the rule, the growing urbanization phenomenon in the developing countries has brought about unfavorable trade imbalances and the devastation of the countryside, as well as the importation of food, which engenders even more losses of foreign currency. No matter how high the government raises its voice and orders the citizens to till the fields, once the people have had a taste of idleness and gluttony they squat in the city and refuse to budge. The Pol Pot regime, which had come to the end of its rope, prohibited the use of money and made everyone barter. So the citizens, who could no longer get food with money, went from one farming village to another in search of food, and the capital of Pnom Penh immediately became a ghost town. This was a great experiment which proved that, without dropping a single bomb, and by merely banishing money, the glory of the city can be wiped out in the space of a day.

Criticism of the Productivity Remarks by Sony's Honorary Chairman

Ibuka Masaru, the honorary chairman of Sony, said, "There is a 1,500-fold difference in productivity between agriculture and industry." (A statement made during a committee meeting on the issue of internationalization in agriculture, and included in the book Food, published by the Asahi Shimbun.) He also said, "Rather than having the farmers produce crops, it would be better to hand them money and let them be idle." And, "All agriculture should be transferred to Southeast Asia." [33] He even declared that "hanging on to an industry which has lost its competitiveness is none other than a big loss to the country."

A difference of 1,500 times — this means that agriculture has but 1/1,500th the productive capacity of industry, and is therefore a great loss to the country. What a jump in logic that is. It is natural that there is a difference in the productivity of industry, which night and day produces things in time intervals of minutes and seconds, and agriculture, which harvests farm products only once or twice a year. So if we proceed along the same logical lines, it means that we must destroy all farmland in the world and build upon it efficient factories.

So, Mr. Chairman, let us assume that the cities of Japan end as Phnom Penh did (ultimately it will surely happen when the food runs out). If you try to exchange 1,500 Sony transistor radios for one bag of rice, do you think the farmers will listen? Even if a farmer received 1,500 essentially worthless transistor radios, he would not even have a place to put them.

Mr. Chairman. If industry has 1,500 times the productive capacity of agriculture, then does it not make sense to say that agricultural products should have 1,500 times the value of industrial products? This is the reason that, if we were to barter, you would not even be able to get one bag of rice for 1,500 Sony products. This is a good example of how the interposition of money has evilly exploited farm produce.

There Are no Mice with the Requisite Bravery

We have seen that if we banish money, industry will perish, commerce will languish, the services will tread water, and the cities will die, but is there a mouse with the bravery to put a bell around the cat's neck? Outside of Pol Pot, there is probably not a mouse in the whole world with the bravery to try it.

As long as "the government" does not find the resolve to banish money, it will not be possible, but if we get rid of money, the first to be put out on a limb is none other than "the government" itself. Is it possible that any government in the world could find the guts to make the rope for its own hanging?

Money: The means by which domination and exploitation can be most easily and effectively achieved. It is inconceivable that people would abandon it, at least voluntarily. (Of course, if the situation grows objectively worse on a global scale, money will perforce change into worthless little pieces of paper and metal.)

Is Stopping the Food Supply Possible?

The reason that the city would perish immediately with the banishment of money is that the city would be unable to purchase food. (With the banishment of money the movements of raw materials, wastes, and merchandise will slow, and the functioning of the city will become paralyzed, but the city will not perish immediately.) But if we carry our thinking one step further, we see that, even if we do not get rid of money, we can get rid of the cities by merely shutting off the food supply.

There is no doubt that, if shipments of food stopped right now, the mountains of food in the grocery stores would not even last two days. No matter how badly the residents of the cities want to stay there, no matter how well they hunker down, no matter how many new and wonderful machines they make, no matter how rare the arts they display, no matter how far they pursue abstruse learning, they cannot do a thing on an empty belly, so they will all abandon the cities, crying, and go to the country in search of food. Thus the cities will become ghost towns.

Cutting off the supply of food is, at the distribution stage, known as shipping refusal. If the farming cooperatives would find the bravery to do this, cutting off the food supply would not be impossible. But sad to say, the co-op is on the side of the city; it is the city itself. Even if the heavens and the earth reversed themselves, it is doubtful that the co-op would ever stand with the farmers. The co-op makes it look as though it is the ally of the farmers, but this is a mere gesture. Anyone will tell you that, if there were to be a rice shortage, the co-op, which is the wicked agent for the city's plundering, would never let the city starve, even if it had to scratch together every last grain of the farmers' rice stocks.

So much for the co-op. There is no need to discuss the traders and the wholesalers. Shipping refusal would, ultimately, end in total failure.

The Mammonistic Farmers Cannot Become Revolutionaries

Would it be possible, then, for the farmers to refuse to sell? This would not be impossible if the farmers would not fear repression, if they would steadfastly refuse to supply the city with food even if the military came with their guns, and there was a little bloodshed. The city can live a bit longer by importing food (the president of Sony can take charge when the time comes), but that cannot be helped. How long the city can keep itself alive depends upon the skill of the president.

The real problem, as I see it, is that among the farmers there are quite a few mammonists who have for some time been nursed along by the money economic system. There are without a doubt great numbers of traitors. If there are many farmers who, taking advantage of a food shortage, sell food for high prices in secret deals, any efforts to stop the sale of food to the city are bound to end in failure. The "farmer power" of those farmers who gird their loins and go into Tokyo to demonstrate is actually greed power. It is their greed which gives the city a place into which it can dig its claws. The city then rips off great amounts of food for a mere pittance (or for loans).

Ah, the pitiful farmers! This greedy egotism is the (historically and socially inevitable) pathetic mentality that has been deeply implanted in the farmers who for generations have suffered from the poverty brought about by cruel plundering. Was this the reason Marx chose the city laborers as the soldiers in his revolution instead of the farmers?

* * *

To say "Refuse to sell food!" or "Down with the cities!" seems extremely cruel and subversive, but it is nothing compared to the unmitigated robbery and tyranny that the city has committed during the last five thousand years.

It Is the Plundering and Destructive Idlers Who Are the
Subversive Elements

When we say "Down with the cities!" we do not at all mean that we should kill all the city dwellers. We are merely saying, "Give up your extravagance." We are saying, "Stop your insatiable plundering." We are saying, "Dismantle that mechanism of plunder." We are saying, "Let us create a society of austerity in which all practice direct cultivation." [34]

Why is it cruel and seditious to say "Give up being a robber"? Why is it wrong to say "Stop driving others into poverty so that you can, by their sacrifices, live an extravagant life"?

Long ago the farmers, no longer able to bear the burden of harsh exploitation, sent representatives to the feudal lords to plead for reductions in the amount of rice they had to send as tribute. The reply was, "You insolents! Do you not fear your master? Such effrontery cannot be forgiven!" And they were decapitated. This is outrageous. The insolents were the feudal lords (idlers) who, in order to continue their own extravagance and gluttony, cruelly robbed the farmers. And their spirit of idleness comes all the way down to our modern city. Even now if we were to say, "Stop plundering for your own extravagance!" "Stop destroying for your own ease!" or "Be satisfied with a life of austerity!" the city would surely consider us subversive elements, and look upon us with severe disapproval. The real subversive elements are the city dwellers themselves, who continue their rapacious and destructive ways as if it is their natural right, who nonchalantly continue their lives of convenience, while contentedly patting their fat bellies.

Should We Be "Thankful" for Urban Civilization?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, there are many who believe that the flourishing of civilization and culture is more important than anything else; that the city, the value of which is absolute, is contributing 100 percent to such; and that the city is sacred and must not be desecrated. Though I have already said quite a bit on this subject, I would here like to go into it in a little more detail.

For example, the believers say that the civilization of the Shinkansen train and the jet has made considerable contributions to politics, economics, and culture. A company of singers that performs in Tokyo at noon can give the same performance in Osaka in the evening. "Is this not a wonderful world we live in?" they say. Who are they kidding? This silver-tongued, idiotic lot of singers, these idle and gluttonous bloodsuckers, go from Tokyo to Osaka on the Shinkansen which wastes incredible amounts of energy, assaults our ears with noise, and runs on rails over the concrete ties which are destroying the land. Then in Osaka they sing the same idiotic songs. Now, tell me what I should be thankful for. Should I be thankful for the activities of such people who, with each passing minute, bring about the increasing devastation of the Earth?

Politicians can take jets to other countries, thereby enabling them to take care of important political affairs in little time, and the believers claim that this is a blessing of our modern urban civilization. They say that the ability of international traders to jet to other countries and quickly conclude business deals is due to the same. And they say that, thanks to the jet civilization, it is possible for old and young alike to freely go to other countries, learn more abut the world and soak up culture.

Let us not be fooled. When politicians hurry to other countries by jet and confer with other politicians, it is almost always to insure the progress and prosperity of their own countries. And as I have said before, progress and prosperity are inseparable from environmental contamination and the destruction of the Earth. Should we really be thankful when politicians, in order to discuss such things, jet to other countries, destroy the ozone layer, waste energy, produce noise pollution, and do it all with tax money?

When international traders (the "economic animals") go to other countries, the purpose is of course to plunder the developing nations, or to suck up to the industrialized nations (although an overabundance of merchandise in their warehouses is clearly the result of squandering resources and squeezing labor to produce more than is necessary, they believe implicitly that this state has come about because other countries do not buy, so they try to hard-sell more by dumping). Should we be thankful that they hurry by jet to other countries so that they can cause trouble for the developing countries and cause more trade friction with the industrialized countries?

Everyone and his dog are going to foreign countries these days. Quiz programs on television usually bait people with promises of foreign travel. What are all these people whizzing off to other countries for, on the jets that boast of being the worst polluters? Is it to see the rare beauty of foreign scenery? Are there no mountains in Japan? Is there no ocean? There is little difference between the ocean at Boso and that in Hawaii. In the mountains near their homes there are places they are unfamiliar with. All those people who have no time to consider the appearance of a single tree, to feel the pathos of a single blade of grass — what do they expect to experience abroad? Is it that the scale is different? If you pine after magnificence, then stand where you are and look up at the sun's great orb. Lift your eyes to the night sky and gaze at the cosmos.

What? Your want to research foreign sexual customs? You lecherous slobs! [35]

Travel abroad in the name of study and training is none other than for the purpose of learning the techniques of idleness and gluttony, or to make preparations for contamination and destruction. Even in Japan there is much of this going on, but in whatever country it is the extreme of evil. Are we supposed to be thankful when people go abroad for sightseeing, sex, or study, and then come back bug-eyed with amazement? Are we supposed to be thankful that, because of their activities, the Earth is more devastated minute by minute?

The "wonderful world we live in" is the "city." We must take drastic measures to get rid of the city.

Even If We Do Not Eradicate the Cities, They Are Fated to Perish

But the city has underestimated the situation. "If you think it's possible to get rid of the cities, then go ahead and try," it says. "What can you accomplish in your frenzied condition?"

Well, this certainly is true. Once the city realizes that it is impossible to banish currency or get the farmers and co-ops to stop food shipments, it is natural to sit back and relax, for the city is right.

However, let us note once more that, though we cannot get rid of the cities by our own actions, the cities are in actuality bound to perish (I will treat this in a later chapter). The city's underestimation of the situation will lead to its own fall in the near future.

The depletion of mineral resources, the drying up of the oil fields, nuclear war, the destruction and contamination of the environment, food shortages, economic panic, computers, robots, overproduction, backlogged inventories, trade friction, violence by the unemployed — these will all lead to uninhabited cities. But the city's swaggering, unconcerned attitude toward these things will only bring about a crises state that much sooner. As long as the city continues to underestimate the dangers, to waste without a moment's afterthought, to make more nuclear weapons, to urbanize farmland, to change the forests to desert, to contaminate the land and the sea, to develop convenient machines, to produce an overabundance of goods — as long as the city continues in this manner, how many more years can it live without a care?

The prophet Nostradamus, who has been 99 percent accurate, says that in July 1999 the Great King of Fear will come down from the sky, and humanity will face annihilation. This would seem to be right on target, since the cities are heading for destruction at full speed, and will probably perish at that very time. Unfortunately, this bit of prophecy cannot but hit the bull's eye.

There Will Be No Cities in the Twenty-First Century

The cities are bound to perish, and they have not long to live. Even if we do nothing but stand by and twiddle our thumbs, the cities will suffer automatic annihilation.

There will be no cities in the twenty-first century. It is nonsensical to believe that in the next century the Earth will be covered with 20 million cities. This is almost the same as the estimate that, should the population continue to increase at the present rate (and assuming the absence of epidemics, war, and starvation), population density 700 years hence will be such that there is one person per each square foot, including the mountains. If people estimate that in the twenty-first century 20 million cities will swell to cover the Earth, then it is for that very reason that the cities will perish. And if they estimate that the population density will become such that there is one person for every square foot of land, then it is for that very reason that humanity will perish.

There is no doubt that this will come to pass. The rails have been laid, and the city is rolling along right on course. From whatever angle, and with however sympathetic eyes, we look at the city, we cannot but conclude that it is bound to perish by reason of the urbanization phenomenon itself.

Even now, Nostradamus is surely watching from afar, boasting over the accuracy of his prediction, and laughing at the insatiable progress, prosperity, and obsessive delusions of us human beings.

I will say it once more: The cities are bound to perish. Even if I were to swing at the ground with a maul and miss, there is no mistake in predicting so. Even if the sun rises in the west, and even if the rivers run upstream, there is no way to stop the annihilation of the cities. Verily, in the next century the city must make reparations for its 5,000 years of wickedness.

The Only Way to Save Ourselves and the Earth Is to Cut Ourselves
Off from the City

But if the cities are bound to perish anyway, why not just let things go on as they are? many will say.

The fact is, we cannot just sit around and wait for it to happen, because it will then be too late. The cities are trying to ruin the whole Earth in order that they themselves will perish. We must not allow ourselves to be dragged down with them. Though it may appear cowardly, we must cut ourselves off from the cities before that time comes.

Cutting ourselves off from the cities will first of all help prevent their further expansion, and begin their contraction. And this is not impossible, for our ancestors long ago did the same thing. Let us not allow this to be a mere dream; let us try to use that one slim chance given humanity and the Earth.

Now is the Time to Escape from the City

I now appeal to the people in the city to give up those white collar jobs and get out of the city.

If even one of you leaves the city and takes up farming, that makes possible the contraction of the city by 1/9,000,000th. It also makes possible the lessening of the city's evils by the same 1/9,000,000th.

Escape from the city is not only the victim's flight from the city, which he feels cannot last much longer, but it is also a withdrawal from the position of the malefactor — those accomplices of evil, the city dwellers who refuse to budge.

And I also want to appeal to those in the farming villages to stop producing vast quantities of food, and to embark on self-sufficient farming.

For every one of you that ends your dependence on the city (actually the dependence of the city on you) and becomes an independent farmer, we will be able to chase 1/90,000,000th of the city's population out of the city, and reduce the city's evils by the same amount. (At present 10 percent of the Japanese population farms, and the other 90 percent lives in the cities. This works out to one farmer feeding nine idlers, so for every one farmer that stops feeding the city, we can shrink the city by nine people.)

The city is, of course, perfectly free to feed itself with food imports. It can import all the vegetables, fruit, meat, and eggs that it likes. When the time comes, the president of Sony can take charge.

Becoming an independent farmer — I can call this the "Bagworm
Revolution."

The combined effect of leaving those white collar jobs and becoming an independent farmer will without a doubt prevent the expansion of the cities and begin their contraction. I am sure that this is the one ray of light, the one hope, we have of assuring our survival, and we must take advantage of it before the cities see their final collapse.

CHAPTER V NOTES

29

Optimists will say, "Humanity will not necessarily perish because of the cities. As a matter of fact, it is not impossible that, because of the progress of science and technology, we will perpetuate ourselves by the acceleration of prosperity." But before coming at me with this counterargument, they must prove the following: ->
that no matter how many resources we squander, they will never run out. ->
that no matter how much we contaminate the atmosphere and the oceans, it will not affect living things. ->
that the more drugs and food additives we ingest, the healthier we will become. ->
that matter (trash) is not imperishable, that it can be destroyed. ->
that the more land we cover with concrete, the greater our chances of survival. ->
that nuclear weapons were made so that they would not be used (in other words, that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were exceptions).

And there are still zillions more that they must prove! And what is really important is that the opposite of each one of these zillions is extremely easy to prove.

30

See E. Herbert Norman, Ando Shoeki and the Anatomy of Japanese
Feudalism. Reprint edition published in 1979 by University
Publications of America, Inc. (Translator's note)

31

A term of Shoeki's which means that all people grow their own food. (Translator's note)

32

This blind faith is implanted in us, on a national, yea, an international scale, from the time we are in elementary school, and we have come to the point where there is no greater "faith" than this.

To the question, "Science is the standard for everything; if we cannot believe in science, then what must we believe in?" one must reply, "There is only the Way of Heaven. The Way of Nature is a cycle with neither progress nor development; wild animals commit themselves to this cycle and live out their lives this way. Blind faith in science is a privilege given only to human beings, but unfortunately they will perish in the near future because of scientific progress.

33

The land in Southeast Asian countries is the precious means of food production to those who live there (there are also the forests which maintain the ecosystem and convert carbon dioxide into oxygen for us). It is preposterous to abandon the agriculture of one's own country and invade another. Such arrogant corporate minds crowd the cities of the entire world so that now reckless development runs rampant in Southeast Asia, Africa, and the Amazon basin, and desertification and devastation of the land proceed at an astonishing pace.

It is said that "before civilization there are trees; after civilization there is desert," and this will probably come to pass since the land is being sacrificed for the sake of today's prosperity, and in time we will find the survival of all things on Earth (including ourselves) seriously threatened ("The Twenty-First Century's Warning," special program aired on NHK, November 8, 1984 at 8 p.m.).

34

Japan has six million hectares of arable land, and this works out to five ares per person. One person can probably grow enough on five ares to live. It is therefore possible for all 220 million Japanese to become direct cultivators. Let them sing songs, draw pictures, and make trinkets and gewgaws during the time they are not working in the fields.

35

The author is referring to the so-called "prostitution tours" in which Japanese men allegedly travel to Southeast Asian countries to shop for many things, including women. (Translator's note)

CHAPTER VI Disengagement from the City

The cities will perish of their own accord, [36] but we do not know exactly when that will happen, and we must in the meantime work for the contraction and decline of the cities. It is therefore necessary for us to immediately begin building a society in which it is possible to live without the cities. We need resolve, mental preparedness, countermeasures, and a warmup.

Helping the City Perish so that We Can Make the Escape

To build our resolve and begin our warmup we must prepare for the collapse of the city. Without a rehearsal our resolve is a mere fantasy, and our warmup is nothing more than flailing our arms about without throwing the ball.

How can we, during this time when the city still stands grandly before us, bring about conditions under which it will perish? There is only one way, and that is to disengage ourselves from the city. Looking for a way to avoid the evils of the city while at the same time receiving in full the blessings of urban civilization is like trying to get milk from a bull. There is no difference at all between this and the Zen priest who, while attired in a resplendent brocaded robe, preaches to people on how to rid themselves of earthly passions. "Disengagement" from the city is the first of the preparations we must make in order to get ready for its collapse, and it is also a means of shrinking the city.

So disengagement from the city comes first — but this is easier said than done. Once one makes the attempt, one finds that there are countless obstacles, and that virtually all of them are difficult to overcome since they are not of our making (for example, a lack of courage or resolve), but are obstacles put in our path by the city.

The Structure of the City Does Not Readily Permit "Disengagement"

For example, the city (government) commands us to pay taxes. "Since, as a citizen of the state and of your local government, you receive their benefits, it is only natural that you be required to help support them," it explains. And what happens if one replies in the following manner? "You make it look that way, but in actuality tax money is none other than the capital for the nourishment of state power and for your compulsory, excessive services. With your power and services, and with the farming villages as your springboard, you maintain the urban social structure, develop the urban economy, spur on urban prosperity, and protect and nurture urban civilization and culture. I do not need the blessings of the nation-state or of the local government, and so I'm not going to pay taxes." And with that they come to take it from you, a classic example of power in action. Should you remove them by force, you are arrested and thrown in prison. * * * The city also orders us to pay for education (textbooks, school supplies, transportation, uniforms, etc.). "Education is necessary," says the city, "so that you can live as a member of modern society." Our reply is, "Though it first appears that way, education in actuality only teaches people how to be idle and gluttonous. It merely teaches people that which is used for contamination, destruction, and waste. I do not want to pay money for education that endangers the future of humanity." The city comes back with, "Don't you realize how helpful education is in the formation of human character?" "Are you telling me that one of the gifts of education is the skillful concealment of evildoing by those in positions of power? Wild animals receive no education, yet we see not one criminal among them." At this the city waves tradition, custom, and the constitution in front of us, and finds a way to force education on us. * * * Shrines and temples (these are also the city) try forcing us to contribute money. "That family over there gave some tens of thousands of yen; the family next door donated several thousand. Please give what you can…" It is only natural, they say, that the believers (?) bear the costs of decorating the temples and buying new robes for the priests. "You idle and gluttonous bloodsuckers! The insolence of you to try and clothe yourself in warm robes and fill your bellies, without tilling the soil, by the mere glib chanting of some sort of incantation. I won't give you a single red cent." And at this their eyes emit fire and they reply with a threat: "You'll pay for this! May the gods (Buddha) punish you immediately. In the near future you will be visited by calamity, so get ready!" And then they continue to press for donations through the back door by sending the shrine or temple representative who is some influential citizen of the village. * * * The farmers' co-op comes to ask for help in raising more capital. "The co-op is a cooperative union which exists for the sake of the farmers. It is natural that the members must come up with the capital to support the co-op's activities." "The coop as a union for the farmers exists only in charter; in actuality it is operated solely for its own benefit. Is this not the reason the co-op, whether it be loans or sales, constantly exploits the farmers? It is as if the co-op has switched from 'cooperative union' to 'corporation.' I cannot give you money for capital which will be used for corporate profits, or to exploit the farmers." And the reply is, "So you have no need for loans or farm machinery or fertilizer, do you? Well then, don't come crying to the co-op when your crops are destroyed by blight or weevils!" * * * The United States tells us to stimulate domestic demand in order to redress the trade imbalance, and the politicians join the chorus, promoting aggressive fiscal policies (throwing wads of money in every direction), and insisting that we must vitalize the economy. Of course the manufacturers are delighted, and put pressure on us to Buy! Buy! However, we have reached the saturation point, and cannot consume any more; we have no more time or energy to expend on consumption (our drawers are full of clothes, our houses are full of all manner of electrical appliances, and our bellies are ready to burst; we have to play golf, we have to travel, we have to play pachinko and mahjong, we have to enjoy our stereos and video recorders, we have to read newspapers and weekly magazines — all 24 hours of the day will not take care of it). We don't want anything else; don't come at us with the need to stimulate domestic demand, we say, but they counter by asking if we are traitors who intend to stand by and watch as our country goes down. It's all right if your belly bursts, so eat more bread! Use a car for only one year and then trash it and buy another! Wear clothes only once and then throw them away! Forget and leave your camera at the station! Throw your watches in the ocean! And so the government and corporations imperiously demand. Let us note incidentally that Japan became a trading country precisely because there was no hope for an increase in domestic demand. If there is a trade imbalance because of excess exports, they ought to address the cause. In fine, it would help much if they would stop overproduction. It does not make any sense to compete with other manufacturers in overproduction, and then try to shove the products down people's throats. Could we hope that they won't try to solve this problem by war?

The Only Possible, Sensible Way Is the Practice of "Independent
Farming"

We have seen, therefore, that it is virtually impossible to disengage oneself from the city completely since the city clings to us tenaciously. It is said that when Saigyo [37] was ready to leave on his sea voyage he kicked his own child away from the boat — that is, he shook off earthly passions — and departed resolutely. However, the city will not bow out so readily; with the strongest manacles (and, when the need arises, with police, courts, and the military) it tries to prevent our leaving. This cannot be helped. If we cannot then completely rid ourselves of the city's entanglements, then we must allow only the least possible involvement with the city, and shake off the major restraints it imposes on us. Let us do as the lizard does when it flees, leaving only the tip of its tail. There is no other way to flee from something that clings to us like our very shadow.

To be specific, the only way to accomplish this is to practice "independent farming." Unless we do this, there is no way at all to escape the city. For example, let us say one quits a white collar job and takes up painting in order to support oneself. This will not do, for unless one is recognized by the city for one's art and is compensated for it — that is, joins the plunder activities of the city — then there is no way to make a living. Indeed, such activity is the city itself.

Independent farming, as I mentioned in the previous chapter, is natural cycle farming, which depends upon nothing but Nature; animal and human wastes are returned to the soil, and the produce of the land then feeds the animals and human beings. As long as one continues this type of farming, there is no room for the city — government, co-ops, manufacturers, corporations, and consumers — to butt in. One is self-sufficient and independent, and there is no fear of failure whatever may come.

Reducing One's Contact with the City to the Least Possible Extent

These are the basics of readying oneself for the demise of the city. If one does just this much, then it does not matter when the city perishes. However, during the transition period, one cannot escape the entanglements of the city, so while receiving in the smallest measure the blessings of the city (that is, while supplying the city with only the smallest amount), we ready ourselves for the impending demise of the city, decide how to deal with it, train ourselves for it, and continue to deepen our relationship only with Nature. And this is also the best way to bring about the contraction of the city.

Let us now, in light of the foregoing examples, see how one can, while beginning the practice of independent agriculture, lessen one's ties with the city to the maximum possible extent. * * * The more money one makes, the more they take in taxes. If one has only enough income to barely get along, then under the present tax system it is not necessary to pay very much. However, it seems that one is still bound to pay local and prefectural taxes. * * * Compulsory education as required by the constitution cannot be helped, but we should think carefully about anything more than that. The universities, in particular, are none other than training facilities for the Contamination and Destruction Reserve Corps, [38] so we must regard them as the enemy and stay away. The only education necessary to independent farmers is the farming methods peculiar to their family and region as passed on to them by their parents, grandparents, and village elders. The study of anything more than that is the sham egotism of the urban economic society, the urban competitive society, the urban cultural society, or the urban glory society.

If the co-op threatens us with no more loans, no more fertilizer, and no more agricultural chemicals, this is actually something to be thankful for, since to natural-cycle, self-sufficient agriculture such things are needless and harmful. Since the co-op cannot force us to do things as the government can, it is all right to refuse their every request without worrying about being arrested and thrown in jail. * * * Since religion is a narcotic used as a means of plunder, one must resolve never to fall for any of their tricks. The only thing we need consider important are the laws of Nature. Though it was never possible for the gods and Buddha to be Good, they make them look like a bundle of Good, and, using this to their own advantage (that is, for plundering), they make judgments concerning Good and Evil; it is this deceptiveness of the established religions which we must pass judgment on. The judgments of the gods and Buddha must be those of Nature. Truth, equality, cold impartiality — the Net of Heaven lets no rebellion against Nature go unpunished. If the religions use the magisterial authority of the gods and Buddha to extort, establish themselves in idleness and gluttony, bring about the contamination of their food by joining the city in exploiting the farmers, and take part in the city's plundering, prodigality, and destruction, then Nature (the gods) will surely make them pay.

Even if one says, "Stick it up your nose!" to the gods, one will not be punished, but no matter how much one prostrates oneself before the gods, if, at the same time, one contaminates the Land and food by spreading agricultural chemicals on them, the gods (Nature) will surely visit one with cruel punishment. * * * Independent farmers must be mentally prepared for a life of austerity. So it should not be worth getting excited if, quite suddenly, things like televisions, cars, cameras, computers, videotape machines, pianos, refrigerators, and washing machines disappear from our lives. Having them is convenient, but even if we do not have them, there should be no problem. In fact, such things only bring about sloth, obesity, and surfeit, not to mention the pollution engendered by their production and use. It is stupid to shackle ourselves to the city for such things.

Just because we cannot go see a play or take a trip does not mean that harm will befall us, so there should be nothing to worry about. Living without such things does not even require the aforementioned warmup; as long as we have our minds made up to live without them it does not matter even if they disappear tomorrow. Though it may be all right if we make occasional use of needless things during the period of transition, we must not run after them crying when the time comes to bid a final farewell. No matter how often the government and big business enjoin us to consume more in order to improve the economy, we should calmly ignore them. We must not forget that the best action we can take to bring about the contraction of the cities is to live a life of austerity, and to stop giving them so much food.

What Do We Need Most in Order to Guarantee Our Survival?

In order to keep themselves alive, what do wild [39] animals want, search for, and find value in? They desire no government, they desire no agricultural cooperatives, they desire no education or learning, paintings, travel, glory, or praise and recognition (no medals and awards). They desire food (finding food sums up their existence) and a simple place to sleep. And a little sex once or twice a year…

With only those things wild animals find everything they need to live out their lives. To them, all other things (like education, government, religion, the Tee Vee, automobiles, travel, and medals — that is, the city) have not the slightest value whatsoever. Even automobiles worth millions of yen, and paintings worth billions of yen are not worth a pig's tail to them. It is only human beings who madly seek things which are, to the sustenance of life, utterly worthless, thereby bringing upon themselves incalculable harm, and hurrying down the road to ruin.

Human Beings must Learn from Wild Animals

It should be quite evident, then, what is most necessary for survival. The sun, air, water, the land — these are by far and without a doubt the most precious things to us. Yet, even if we do not seek them, Nature will give us unlimited amounts free. Or perhaps one should say that it is always there in the form of "Nature itself"; as long as we do not contaminate it, destroy it, or cover it with concrete, it will always be there for us. Just as with wild animals, if human beings have food, a modest dwelling, and clothing, it is possible to survive, self-sufficient and independent. Most other things are add-ons, playthings, luxuries, trouble, disaster (like recessions), and poisons (like cigarettes and food additives).

Therefore, indispensable to us now is preparation — a warmup — this in order to get the things we really need. As for all other things, especially those which are to Nature worthless and harmful — convenience, extravagance, ease, glory, praise, and all other urban paraphernalia — it would be best to shut them out of our lives from the start.

One does not need gorgeous clothing. The desire for beautiful clothing is the desire for a means to conceal one's own shortcomings. Clothes make the man, as they say; trying to increase one's own value by dressing in fine clothes is a way of advertising one's own worthlessness. A uniform is a means of boasting of the city's power; military uniforms, medals, parliamentary ID tags, and priests' splendorous robes are all means of domination devised to make people bow down before them. And decorating armor and helmets, which are supposedly meant to ward off arrows and swords, was the creation of display calculated to impress, not only one's enemies, but also allies and common people with one's majesty.

If the stable boy gets nice clothes, then why not a military uniform on a fox, and a fancy kimono on a badger? But whether or not their status rises as a result is another matter. First of all, they hate wearing such troublesome things, and will show considerable resistance if someone tries to put them on; you may not be able to get them on the animal at all. It is because they are natural. And it is here that we find the difference between the city, which is built upon human law, and wildness, which finds its foundation in the law of Nature.

The purpose of clothing is to ward off the cold and to keep from getting wet in the rain. If need be, we should be prepared to cut a hole in a gunny sack for our head and wear that. And we should wear light clothing, because it is best for our health to expose our skin to the outside air. Let us begin preparing ourselves right now.

Preparation for our Escape from the City

Concerning living quarters: Putting up grand buildings, equipping them with all sorts of conveniences, and decorating them lavishly is, just as with clothing, done to boast of one's own greatness, and in order to satisfy one's desire for convenience, extravagance, and ease. And most important, in order to build such structures, precious resources are used unsparingly, great destruction and contamination are wrought by the mining, transport, and processing of the said resources, and great amounts of pollution are generated by the use of such homes or workplaces. What is more, this increase in the number of buildings causes the further decrease in the area of the country, and the cities continue their expansion.

There is no limit to the desire for an anti-Nature, modern urban lifestyle. Small or old houses are continually being torn down (the remains are discarded in the country or in the ocean), and big, new buildings are put up. They call this the development of the cities, but just as I have demonstrated, this development is actually what is threatening the continuing existence of the cities.

It was some foreigner who made fun of Japanese houses by calling them "rabbit hutches," and a certain idiotic Japanese critic then used the same expression as an instrument of self-deprecation. However, Kamo no Chomei [40] demonstrated that a ten-foot square hut was quite big enough as a place to live. If the population continues to increase at the present rate, without war, epidemics, or famine, in 700 years we will reach a population density at which there will be one person per square foot, including the mountains. It seems to me that it would be much more important to put up with living in rabbit hutches and saving our farmland.

Living in cramped, stuffy apartment buildings and falling on your face every time there is an earthquake is naturally the price one should pay for living in the city in order to realize a life of ease. If you do not like it, then leave the city and go to live in the country. Build a log cabin in the country and live there. Even if it is destroyed by a typhoon or an earthquake, you can repair it the very next day. What is more, you can repair it by yourself, without the help of anyone else.

It would do us well to prepare ourselves by learning how to build the sunken dwellings of ancient times. We should ready ourselves by recognizing that it is best for human beings to live on a dirt floor.

Is It Possible to Produce Food without the City?

Concerning food: The intervention (interference) of the city (that is, the secondary and tertiary industries) in the production of food is considerable, and for this reason it has become possible to produce great quantities of high-yield crops with reduced labor. If the city's participation were to disappear it would mean the instant disintegration of this production system, and agriculture would be dealt a severe blow. At least this is the way the city boasts of its superior position, and causes the country to bow before it, cutting a magnificent figure.

But we should not worry too much about this. The kind of agricultural system that would become unable to function without the city is actually none other than a suck-up-to-the-city agriculture that is locked into the city's plunder system. However, to natural cycle, small-scale, self-sufficient agriculture, the city's meddling is actually a nuisance; as long as we have the blessings of Nature there is not the slightest difficulty. The object of the city's interference is to continue plundering the country.

There is here perhaps one thing we should be aware of, and that is the necessity of certain tools — not tilling and threshing machines, but such things as sickles and hoes. Without the help of the city it might be difficult to find such things unless we revive the part-time blacksmiths of the Edo Period or earlier. In former times the part-time farmers who made water conduits, baskets, and sifters lived in every village. When they were not working in the fields they made and repaired farm implements and household goods. But since their main occupation was farming, they had little time to make such things, and thus did not become real merchants. They do not make things to sell, but when they were asked (modern industries that produce too much can learn something here). And there should be no need for large-scale iron works if they get the raw materials from iron sand as the swordsmiths did.

Abandon Anti-Nature Urban Dietary Habits

The city haughtily tells us that we must have, if not refrigerators, electric rice cookers, propane gas, blenders, artificial flavoring, and sugar, then at least essential items like pots and bowls and salt, and that without such urban blessings we would not be able to go on living. But let us not get excited.

If there be a need, we should be ready to do without even pots and bowls and salt. And if at the same time we make up our minds to do without such things, and begin the preparations for a new dietary life, we begin to see to what extent urban dietary life is anti-Nature, and how it is leading us down the road to self-destruction.

Wild animals all eat what is natural for them to eat. Squirrels eat nuts, cats eat mice. Should we ignore this simple fact, feeding mice to squirrels and chestnuts to cats, neither will be able to go on living. This is the great iron hammer of Heaven that falls on those who ignore these laws.

What an animal naturally eats is decided by instinct, and instinct here is preference, and the ability to obtain what it needs. A cat is not able to eat chestnuts, nor does it care at all for the taste or flavor of chestnuts; a squirrel, on the other hand, has the claws and teeth with which to open and eat chestnuts, and it finds them quite delicious as well.

But how about human beings? Extremely clever and arrogant as they are, human beings ignored the laws that governed what they should eat. Learning how to use utensils, fire, and various seasonings, they were able to eat things which, originally, they could not eat, or should not eat.

The things human beings desire and can obtain and eat without the use of tools or fire are, for example, nuts and fruit, plants, seeds, potatoes, small fish, and eggs (if you give a monkey an egg it will skillfully break the shell and suck out the contents — monkeys and human beings naturally eat the same things). So it is that, no matter how much of a brave and strong Tarzan one is, it is probably quite impossible to catch and butcher bovine animals and whales with one's bare hands.

The Human Diet: Crime and Punishment

By the use of utensils, fire, and seasonings human beings changed their natural diets, thereby increasing almost limitlessly the things they can eat, and by transforming themselves into hunting, eating animals, have increased their numbers dramatically. On the other hand, however, they weakened themselves physically. Not only that, they also process their natural foods with heat and seasonings, thus killing the life within their food, destroying the cells, and substantially decreasing the beneficial effects of the food. Thus if we do not stuff our bodies full we cannot get enough nutrition, and this has brought about the transformation of the human being into the greatest eating animal on Earth.

Note first of all that human beings suffer serious tooth decay, something we don't see much in wild animals. We catch colds all the time. We are troubled by chronic digestive disorders (only humans use bathroom tissue; if an animal is healthy its excrement will not stick to its body). We perspire profusely (since perspiration is a means of getting rid of wastes, sweating a lot is proof that one's body is full of sewage; no matter how hot it is, one should perspire only moderately). And in recent years we have come to live in fear of chronic illness brought on by the compound effects of many chemical substances that are foreign to our bodies.

Though the net of Heaven is course, it has not overlooked the human rebellion against our natural diet. The fact that human beings have barely managed to survive in spite of this is due to the fact that we have continued, as we should, to consume some fruit and vegetables raw. Raw vegetables with meat, pickled vegetables with white rice, and fruit for dessert.

Our Modern Diet has Brought about Sickness and the Weakening of
Our Bodies

Utensils and fire and seasoning — the great transformation in the natural diet of human beings, and the great rebellion against Nature. This is known as cooking or cuisine. And in cooking we find the following three regrettable elements:

1.

How can one, using utensils and heat and seasonings, make it possible to eat things which one cannot ordinarily eat?

2.

How can one make things taste good, and stuff a lot into one's stomach?

3.

How can one destroy the life and cells of one's food, thereby diminishing its effect? What we must be aware of here is that even the provincial cooking of a hundred years ago varies not a bit from these themes, and even if we look back 50 or 100 thousand years, there is little difference. They say that our remaining canine teeth prove that primitive human beings were carnivorous animals, but I do not believe it. Almost a million and a half years ago human beings had already learned how to use fire, thereby changing their natural diets. Canine teeth were no doubt used to open and eat chestnuts and other hard nuts.

Human beings are born with both fists tightly clenched. If you put a stick in a baby's hands it will hang from the stick, and if you lift the stick, the upper half of the baby's body will follow. If you provide some stimulus to the soles of its feet, the baby's toes will bend as if they are trying to grasp something. This indicates that, even now, the structure of the human body is adapted to climbing trees in search of fruit and nuts, and it has changed little from millions of years ago. This also shows that there ought to be no change in the human diet, either. It was, after all, quite impossible for human beings to become lions or hyenas.

In addition to (or in connection with) the three elements of cooking described above, human beings have committed further crimes: They have changed the shape and appearance of their food, pulverized it, analyzed it, extracted it, mixed it, and compounded it.

Wild animals eat what is natural for them to eat, and they eat it in its original form, thereby obeying this iron-clad law of Nature. Thus they maintain their health without a single doctor, a single pill, or a single hospital. It is only human beings that make brown rice into white rice; remove the hull of wheat and grind it into white powder; remove the head and bones of fish, leaving only the soft flesh; separate the fats from milk and make it into butter; or extract vitamins and make them into pills. Because of this it is only human beings that suffer from corpulence, undue loss of weight, sickness, and early aging and death. Seeing that they were in trouble, people then founded the nutritional sciences, and began calculating everything — consume a certain percent of this, so many grams of this, or so many milliliters of that. But it turns out to be half-baked, for we can see that the results of those school lunches, which are models of nutritional science, are fat and sickly children. Just compare these children with wild animals, which do not study the nutritional sciences, but manage to keep themselves fit and trim.

Let Us Begin Training Ourselves to Eat Things Raw

We ought to begin training ourselves to eat things raw and in their original form, and we should eat things that we can obtain with our bare hands. Even if it is only a handful a day, we should try eating brown rice, wheat, and corn (not to mention fruit and vegetables) raw and unprocessed. We should not underestimate the positive effect of even this little bit. Eating even one grain raw will do us that much good. The net of Heaven is coarse but lets nothing escape — those who make light of one grain of brown rice will find themselves bound by the erroneous idea of "permissible levels." There is no gainsaying that, for every one milligram of food additives one consumes, the liver suffers correspondingly. The law of permissible levels, which is convenient for the manufacturers of such additives, is not to be found in Nature.

One must chew a hundred times and secrete three cupfuls of saliva in order to eat a handful of uncooked brown rice. It is impossible to eat it otherwise. Is the reader aware that the hull portion of cooked brown rice passes through the gut and is found in great quantity in one's excrement? This is the result of cooking the rice in order to make it easier to eat, but if one eats it uncooked the hull too is well chewed. In saliva there is a hormone called parotin which helps order the body's functions. What is more, chewing something hard strengthens the teeth, and also stimulates the working of the brain.

In addition, the real flavor of something is revived by eating it raw. For instance, if one eats and compares raw corn and cake, one is well aware of how the cake is a tasteless lump of dead matter, and how the raw corn is most delicious, and overflowing with life force. Just try offering a lion raw and cooked meat, or a chicken wheat and crackers, and see for yourself which one they will choose.

For those people whose sense of taste has been artificially deadened and who claim that they cannot eat raw food because it tastes terrible, I offer the following advice: Go a day without eating and then try it. And those who have bad teeth and cannot eat raw grain can grind it into powder with a stone mortar and knead it with water.

Health Recovery and Food Conservation: Eat it Raw

If you eat cooked brown rice instead of cooked white rice, you will need only two-thirds as much, and if you eat the brown rice uncooked, you will find you can eat only one-third as much. By making white rice one discards the best part, and by cooking it one kills the cells and the life within; thus, in order to take in sufficient nutrients, one must stuff great amounts into one's stomach. By eating it uncooked, one needs only one-third as much. If you cook your greens you can eat a lot, but uncooked you can only eat about one-third as much.

And this leads us to a great discovery — that eating things raw and uncooked contributes substantially to food conservation. A special program on NHK noted that, in the event that food imports were totally halted, even if we made all our golf courses and superhighways into bean and potato fields, still 35 million people would starve to death. But if we ate all our food raw, all those people would be saved. In addition, by eating things raw there would be no leftovers. It is said that in Japan cooked and killed leftovers that are discarded amount to 10 millions tons a year, but if we eat, for example, brown rice and corn uncooked, then there will never be any leftovers.

And even if we converted all our rice paddies to organic production, causing the yield to drop to one-third, there would be no shortage of rice even under present conditions if everyone ate uncooked brown rice.

It Is the City that Needs the Country

So we have seen that, just as I wrote earlier, eating things in their original form, as well as unprocessed and raw, can contribute to the recovery of health. In addition, it will also help conserve food. We will not be troubled in the least when the food imports stop, or when the hospitals and drug companies fold. What is more, there is yet a third great service done by eating things raw and in their original form: It is possible to become totally independent of the city. When we become independent the city will be in a pickle, but we shall not suffer.

As long as we have hands and feet and a mouth, it is possible for us, just as it is for wild animals, to nourish ourselves without bowls, chopsticks, pots and pans, propane gas, knives, chopping boards, oil, soy sauce, sugar, or even salt.

Wild animals do not take in an especially large amount of salt, and yet I have never heard of wild animals damaging their health because of this. It is only human beings who take in abnormally large quantities, thereby suffering from arteriosclerosis and high blood pressure. It is said that human beings only require 0.1 grams of salt per day. But Japanese on the average take in 20 grams per day, and even those people who are on reduced salt diets ingest 10 grams a day, so this means that we are taking in between 100 and 200 times the needed amount. One-tenth of one gram is an amount naturally found in food, and that should be enough; human beings should not be any different from wild animals. The salt refining factories and the salt retailers can go belly up any time they like. It is idiotic to believe that people must ingest the same proportion of salt as is contained in the blood. One should consider that 0.1 gram of salt has accumulated in the blood.

If you suddenly reduce the amount of salt you ingest you will experience a kind of "cold turkey" in which you feel tired, but this is just because the body is used to a lot of salt. If you put up for just one week, it will pass. One should require no warmup even in order to reduce one's salt intake to 1/100th of the usual.

We have therefore seen the city's last bastion of control — salt — crumble before our very eyes. We do not need the city at all in order to live. It is the city that needs the country in order to continue its existence.

Chapter VI Notes

36

The cause of the city's demise will be, for example, a lack of resources, the insufficiency of food, or the contamination of the environment. However, this all depends much upon the changes surrounding the city, so perhaps one should say that the city will perish from "without." Still, the entity responsible for engendering this cause from without is none other than the city (it is the city which squanders resources, brings ruin upon the farming villages, and contaminates the environment), so I think it is correct to say that the city will perish "automatically."

37

Buddhist monk and poet (1118-1190). (Translator's note)

38

It goes without saying that some disciplines, like technical chemistry, civil engineering, mechanical engineering, and nuclear physics are directly linked to the destruction and contamination of the environment, but those leisurely disciplines that seem to do no harm, like the fine arts, archeology, and anthropology, are indirectly responsible for harming the Earth since their practitioners refuse to sweat or dirty their own hands, and continue to pat their fat bellies, which are full of the labors of the few remaining farmers, thus forcing the farmers into labor saving, high-yield, contaminating, plundering farming methods.

39

The characters for "wild" are here read as those for "natural."
The author therefore equates "wild" with "natural."
(Translator's note)

40

Poet and writer (1155-1216). Nakashima refers in particular to a work called Hojoki, written when Kamo no Chomei lived in a small hut.

CHAPTER VII The Disintegration of the City

Even if we do absolutely nothing, and let things continue on as they are, the city will automatically perish. Even if I should swing at the ground with a maul and miss, the demise of the city will surely come to pass.

Indulging in Ease, the City Destroys the Future

In a corner of northern Africa, out on the desolate sands, there was a small stand of trees, barely keeping itself alive. In the top of a tree was a boy lopping off branches with a hatchet, and below there were a few goats greedily eating the leaves. This was a scene of Africa's final hour as shown on television. [41]

Around the trees, as far as one could see, there was only barren land; after the goats consumed the leaves on these trees, there would be nothing. The goats were facing starvation, and the boy, who lived on the goats' milk, would be visited by the same fate.

"Does this boy know," said the voice of the television, "that he is cutting his own throat? Even if he does, this is the only way to live until tomorrow."

You, in the cities! Can you view this merely as the misfortune of others? The fate of this boy is the fate of the city.

You too are cutting limbs off trees every day. In order to live through the day (or, more precisely, in order to continue enjoying convenience, extravagance, and ease, to continue the pursuit of profit, to seek glory and praise, and to continue your stupid competition) you keep on lopping off branches. It does not matter to you if this is the march of death; you continue to waste the few remaining resources, to destroy and contaminate our irreplaceable natural environment, to reduce the amount of farmland, which is your lifeline. How much longer do you think you can live while sacrificing your own future?

Petroleum: the City's Support;
Petroleum: the City's Demise

Even if the prediction that petroleum will run out in another 30 years is wrong, this does not mean that there is an unlimited amount. It is an undeniable fact that, for every drop of petroleum used, the reserves will be reduced by that same amount.

And it is not just petroleum, for the same rule holds true for iron, copper, aluminum, and uranium, and it is no different for the so-called new materials. As long as there is no proof that these new materials are made from a vacuum, and that their process of manufacture requires no energy, there is no denying that any new material invented is subject to the same fate.

Let us note also that since these buried resources are used in close conjunction with one another, the city will be threatened by a lack of even one of them. For example, should there be a shortage of manganese, steelmaking will suffer. If we run short of copper, there will be no more motors that use copper wire in their coils, and whole industrial sector will be paralyzed. Here they cannot say that "even if we run out of copper, we can use tin or nickel."

Petroleum is the same in that there is no replacement. We hear that nuclear power will act in its place, but then nuclear power cannot be used as the raw material for manufactured articles, and even in the field of energy it is said that, if we do not have an amount of petroleum which corresponds to one-fourth the energy gained from nuclear power, it is impossible to operate the nuclear power plants.

Nature's Retaliation Is Assured

So we have seen that when the petroleum runs out (whether it be 30 or 50 years in the future, it does not matter) the modern city will perish, but there is one other noteworthy matter here, and that is, before the oil wells run dry, the city must perish twice for the sake of petroleum.

One reason is that, because of the poisons released by petroleum, the city will become uninhabitable. We have already seen that, when one traces them back to the source, the physical cause of all forms of pollution is petroleum. No matter to what extent the city was made to flush untreated wastes into the rivers and oceans, no matter how impudent the urbanites are, and no matter how much the people at the Environment Agency shirk their duties, if petroleum suddenly disappeared from before our very eyes, it is sure that 80 percent of our present pollution (including chemicals, food additives, and agricultural chemicals) would disappear along with it. Will the city perish because of petroleum's poisons, or because of its disappearance?

It is almost as if petroleum was discovered for the purpose of eradicating the cities. Verily, the sum total of the petroleum poisons in the whole world is exactly that needed to get rid of the cities. Nature is making an example of the cities for us. No matter what reason there could be, the arrogant and extravagant city cannot be expected to give up petroleum until it has consumed the last drop, so noting what the future will bring, Nature promised the Earth that the cities would perish. The city must pay a price commensurate with the convenience and extravagance (in reality, the destruction and contamination) it has thus far enjoyed, and that price is the demise of the city. This is the great Iron Hammer of Nature (Nature's retaliation).

The Petroleum Grabfest Will End in Total Nuclear War

The second way in which the city will perish for the sake of petroleum is the total nuclear war brought on by the frantic scramble for petroleum. The city will have no choice. The urbanites are steeped in the prosperity of the city — convenience, extravagance, ease, the Pursuit of Profit, production competition, glory, and praise, all gained by means of squandering petroleum — and there is no mistaking that, when they begin to have that terrible feeling that the oil is about to run out, they will go mad and try to rob it from others. [42] Should the city just try to be gentlemanly about the matter, it will be totally paralyzed, so no matter what stands in the way, the city will without reserve begin the fight for petroleum. Nuclear war will begin in this way, and most of the cities in the world — including the urbanized country — will be destroyed. It will be the end of humanity except for those in the back country of New Guinea or the Amazon.

When this time comes it will be too late for warnings, countermeasures, or practice of any kind. We must realize that our time for extinction has come, and calmly reap as we have sown. [43]

The Inevitable Fate of the City:
Development = Doom

"Digging one's own grave" — Here is the expression which has described the city since it first appeared on Earth. In Chapter IV, I noted that the city itself is the explosive that came into being in order to get rid of the city, and verily, the city has, by means of choosing the course of growth and development, rushed down the road to oblivion since the time it first appeared. There has never been an instance of the city lessening, even for a day, its efforts to destroy itself, or resting in its labors to dig its own grave. The reason for establishing the city is to achieve ease and gluttony, and the attainment of this objective necessitates plunder, destruction, and contamination; this is none other than the rush down the road to ruin. There is no other possible course for the city to follow. Should one hope for another course for the city to follow, it would have to be the complete negation of the city's reason for being, and the cessation of ease and gluttony (plunder, destruction, and contamination, i.e., the functions of the city). One must always keep in mind that, should one, with one's mind set on ease and gluttony, establish the city and allow it to continue its activities, ruin is its inevitable fate.

Therefore, since ruin is the city's mission, it is only natural that the city's all-pervading image is that of a person digging his own grave. And then, in order that the city can execute its mission with even greater effectiveness, it continues adding on, stacking up, coupling, compounding, and amplifying, in that way helping to hasten its own demise. Recently the New City Image has made its appearance.

The Self-Destructive Apparatus of Civilization Cannot Be Stopped

A robot manufacturing company introduced robots into its own robot factory. This is because it was impossible for the company to compete in the marketplace unless it made an example of its own factory. No longer able to continue operations, it went belly up. In this way the manager of the robot factory was forced to risk his life in the establishment of a roboticized robot factory. Upon completion of the factory, the manager and 600 employees all lost their jobs. It was for that reason (and also to become a model for the industry) that they did it. In order to remain on the cutting edge of technology and stay out in front of the competition it was necessary to build a factory that would allow the presence of not a single human being.

"Right now we are working like bees in order to build an apparatus that will cut our own throats," said one of the employees in a television interview. "This will eventually take place in all factories. It can't be helped — if we don't do it, the company will fold. Lately I've been giving serious thought to becoming a hired hand on a dairy farm in Hokkaido after I lose this job."

But not all 600 could find jobs herding cattle, and not all of them could do the job even if they were asked. An economy based on money generates legions of idle people hungry for money, and they come up with all sorts of schemes to make a living, such as the investment magazines, and the recent Toyota Trading Company scandal. [44]

Nowadays robots can do just about anything, and we rejoice over how convenient and quick everything has become, and over civilization's progress, but we had better look again, because civilization is robbing us of our jobs. Whether in developed or developing countries, civilization is the enemy of human survival.

I have described one of the new conditions under which the city will self-destruct (or become uninhabited). The city, which once achieved prosperity by means of civilization, will soon perish by means of civilization. How could this possibly be stopped?

The Contradictions and Tyranny of the City Render Recycling
Impossible

I have noted many times that by means of destroying the forests and transforming the land into desert the city is not only bringing about crises for the developing countries, but is also threatening its own existence. Knowing just this is enough to tell us that the city has not long to live. It should be evident to anyone that the city is responsible for the fearsomely rapid spread of the deserts in the developing countries, the increase in barren land, the decrease in the amount of oxygen, the increase in the amount of carbon dioxide, and, more than anything else, the shortage of pulp.

The future of the city depends in a large measure upon its all-important paper — wrapping paper, cardboard boxes, bathroom tissue, newspapers, magazines, and computer printing paper. So the city is saddled with the contradiction that it cannot stop its profligacy. The regions which produce the wood for this paper are turning into deserts minute by minute.

The other day an employee of a factory that makes chips from imported wood came to see my chickens. "Every day my factory converts an awesome amount of imported wood into chips," he said, "and it is all used to produce the wrapping paper used in department stores. For stupid vanity and convenience we are plunging the developing countries into crisis, and cutting our own throats at the same time. I can no longer bear the futility, or being party to the great crime of doing such work. I want to become a self-sufficient farmer, and so came to see your chickens." * * * I also noted earlier that the city continues its limitless expansion on a global scale, and that, inversely proportional to this, farmland is limitlessly plundered. This too shows us that the city is not long for this world. The contradictions and tyranny of the urbanites, who seek to continue their gluttony even as they steal the farmland that produces their food, are beyond the comprehension of the ordinary person.

A short time ago I happened to visit a public facility in Fukui, and spoke to one of the personnel. "This area used to be prime rice paddies," he explained. "But as you can see, it is now a fine public meeting hall and a big parking lot. In this way we continue to lose farmland. When I think of what will eventually happen, shivers run down my spine."

In the neighborhood of my daughter's farm they are talking about making a golf course. If they go through with the plan, the developers will purchase the fields and wooded areas around my daughter's farm and make it all into a golf course. I asked if anyone was opposing this plan and was told that not one person in the village was against it. If anyone were to oppose the plan they would be ostracized from the village since, once the golf course is completed, not only will the fields and woods be transformed into piles of money, but there will be a rest facility, a restaurant, and jobs. In this way little effort is required of the city in order to steal more farmland and urbanize it. And what is really surprising is that I have not yet heard of any plan to convert the city into farmland.

Biotechnology: Violating the Province of Nature

The city is replete with evidence of self-destruction, and it projects many images of people digging their own graves, so one could not possibly write about all of them. But I would like to add a final word about biotechnology.

The work of evolving and fostering the species is the province of Nature, and has taken billions of years. Whether it be a single grass seed or a single tree leaf, nothing came into being overnight; each thing is the product of the complex and wondrous interaction of species that have repeated adaptation and selection over an incomprehensibly long time. If, in this net of interaction among species, even one of the nodes should exhibit unusual development or disappear, the balance of the ecosystem is disturbed; species that cannot stand the strain will perish, and the ecosystem then reorganizes itself to seek a new point of balance. This is what I mean by natural selection (the dispensation of Nature).

But now we see those cleverly conceited, high-handed, and arrogant human beings invading the province of Nature, and trying their hand at biotechnology; in a short period of time they are attempting to change that which Nature has taken billions of years to make, or to create something new. The species adapt to their environments (air, water, sunlight, the Land, and the net of interactions among species) and survive by maintaining their balance through mutual assistance, but in order to do this it requires the total history of its own evolution since the time it appeared.

If human beings now carry through with their desire to make sudden changes in the species, there is a danger that the balance of the ecosystem will require a great upheaval (the iron hammer of Nature) in order to correct the distortion brought about by human violence and seek the next level of balance. This is Nature's retaliation.

Nature's retaliation will first of all attack human beings directly (in correcting the imbalance brought about by biotechnology, there is no better way than striking down its inventor, human beings).

If we continue eating strange new creations which are not of the earth and which violate the natural diet of human beings (for example, soybean protein cultured in tanks with colonic bacteria, or isomerized sugars and oligosaccharides made from transformed biomass) cell regeneration will be adversely affected, and assimilation will be disturbed. By changing our diets and ingesting synthetic chemical compounds we will increase the incidence of cancer and liver disorders.

Because the purveyors of news will perish as well, they will not give us the news that "humanity perished after eating artificial food." By producing our own food and by assimilating the blessings of Nature in our own locale, we can at least preserve the unurbanized portion of the land. The city will take a lot with it when it goes.

Chapter VII Notes

41

The reason Africa is turning into a wasteland is not because of drought, but because of the city's meddling. It was the deception of the city that made the native peoples of Africa, who formerly, though poor, managed to provide themselves with all their own food, believe they must escape poverty, keep domestic animals, destroy their verdure, and ultimately dig their own graves. (Rain clouds do not arise in regions with no trees. Droughts are man-made, and they further make it difficult to reestablish trees. In this way deserts form, and the land dies for good.)

42

It appears that the United States, in order to prepare for the future shortage of petroleum, is now embarking upon a policy of closing its own oil fields and depending solely upon imports. When the world's petroleum starts to run out and other countries begin to panic, the U.S. will quietly tap its own carefully stocked reserves, and, ignoring the panic of other countries, work for its own prosperity and world hegemony.

But it remains to be seen if things go as they plan. If the U.S. tries to keep all the oil to itself it will have to fight with other countries, whether they be enemies or allies, and it will no doubt come under concentrated nuclear attack.

43

Gensuikin [The Japanese Congress against A and H Bombs] is expecting too much if they believe that world peace will come about with the disappearance of nuclear weapons. If you want to get rid of a skin eruption you must see to the health of your entire body; it does no good just to remove the eruption. Should you get rid of nuclear weapons but leave the city — totally dependent upon petroleum and other buried resources — just as it is, new eruptions will continue without end. Even if there are no nuclear weapons, new machines of mass killing will appear without end. In time the oil will begin to run out, and the city will sense that it is about to perish; at this point the Great Petroleum Grabfest will inevitably begin, and it will not matter whether or not there are nuclear weapons. After all, the city will be desperate. The city will no doubt use chemical weapons. It will spread deadly bacteria all over the place. It will use neutron bombs and death rays as well. The city will make use of the latest high technology, and all manner of new weapons which have been secretly developed will have their first battlefield tests here.

Once this war begins there will be none of those half-hearted attempts at talking peace. If, because of a reconciliation many human beings remain, the problem of who gets the oil will still remain, and everyone will feel as if they have not attained the object of their war, which is the maintenance of the prosperity of the indolent classes. In this war it is impermissible to allow the continued existence of those who do not belong to the indolent classes.

Prisoners of war and slaves are nothing but an impediment. As long as one has oil (and mineral resources) machinery will act as one's slaves and servants. That is why the urban indolent classes will start the petroleum war.

By "indolent classes" I mean those people who claim that they "cannot live" without elevators, air conditioners, refrigerators, jets, trains, cars, telephones, computers, robots, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, propane gas, instant noodles, bread, ice cream, sake, beer, cigarettes, songs, dancing, sports, television, newspapers, and magazines. These people are, in other words, the city people, the secondary/tertiary industry people. If they did not have oil, it would be impossible for them to maintain the civilization and culture I have described above, so to them oil has a greater and more necessary existence than does the Earth. The disappearance of oil is of greater significance to them than the disappearance of the Earth. This is why they will do everything in their power to seize the oil.

44

A company that allegedly cheated countless people out of great amounts of money by means of high-pressure sales tactics and fake gold. (Translator's note)

CHAPTER VIII Everybody Farms

— Escaping the City, Becoming a Farmer —

Since the city is the Great Evil that will ruin humanity and the
Earth, we must somehow get rid of it.

In order to accomplish this, it is important for as many people as possible to break away from the city and become independent farmers, and to take up Natural Cycle Farming, in which one does not depend upon the city, but only upon the blessings of Nature. It follows that the conventional professional farmers must extricate themselves from modern urbanized high-quantity agriculture and establish themselves in self-sufficient compound small-scale farming.

As the numbers of such farmers grow, the city will shrink and weaken, and when the effect has grown sufficiently, the city will perish.

A Society in which Everyone Farms Guarantees Our Future

Above is the blueprint for the eradication of the cities that I gave in Chapter V. To express it succinctly, it is the return to primitive communistic society in which everyone farms; it is the sliding back into an anarchistic agrarian society that has no need of state power; it is the realization of an agrarian society that has ceased all harmful and wasteful activities (i.e., the activities of the secondary and tertiary industries). [45]

Getting out of the city and beginning to farm is, as I noted in Chapter VI, easier said than done owing to a number of difficulties. Especially difficult to the city white collar worker is getting land.

I have repeatedly said that the agriculture problem is one of agrarian population, [46] and that the problem of the agrarian population is one of land. [47] Not only is the land problem the root of the agricultural problem, it is of such great significance that it influences, not only the city, but also all of humanity, all other living things, and yes, the fate of the entire Earth (just look at the present state of things — the city digs up the land and continues to cover it with concrete; the end result is that we will have starvation in the middle of convenience).

The Land Is Nature Itself

And now we arrive at the obvious question — who shall possess the Land? The answer is that it shall not be possessed by individuals; it is not the territory of local governments nor of nation-states; it was not meant for the public use of all the peoples of the world; and it is not held in common by all the living things on the Earth.

The Land is none other than Nature itself. Long before living things — including human beings — appeared on the Earth the Land already existed. It is therefore perfectly well for us to conclude that the Land belongs to no one; it is the Earth itself, it is Nature itself. So it is unpardonable for anyone, no matter who, to destroy or contaminate the Land. It is the vilest act of desecration to use the Land for selfish purposes, or to use it arbitrarily for the benefit of a group or a nation-state.

What is known to the city as construction and development is to Nature (the country) nothing less than violent acts of destruction and contamination. The countless large buildings in the big cities (which look like the many monuments in a cemetery), paved roads, amusement parks, subways, factories, and public facilities found in the country also tear up the Land and cover it with concrete. [48] None of these things can be made without hurting the Earth.

There is no need to go into detail over what will happen as the final result of destroying the Land and wounding the Earth. It is mistaken to believe that Nature will continue to put up with the high-handedness of the city. Nature has been bent almost as far as it can be bent, and when it reaches its limit it will slap back at us with a force equal to that exerted upon it (just like an earthquake). Nature will surely deal a great blow, and sadly, that time is near. [49]

The Only Laws We Need Follow Are Those of Nature

As things stand now, there is no future for humanity or the Earth. We are hopelessly locked into the mechanism of the economic society, but if we do not put a stop to all construction work now, we will regret it forever. We must find the resolution to overthrow the economic society (the city). Material productive power is a poweful force that shackles us with money, so we must first of all reexamine material productive power, and then return to the ancient past (material productive power did surely not exist from the start) to see how things were.

What we will probably find is that, while there were no "rules of the economic society," there were the Laws of Nature. Since wild animals all live according to these laws you will never find a wolf or a pheasant destroying the Earth. What wild animal has ever tried to make the Land its private possession, and then used it for its own selfish purposes?

Abolish Private Ownership of Land

The Land is, most emphatically, the property of Nature, yea, it is Nature itself. Human beings also, when they use the Land, merely borrow it from Nature for the time they need it; when we have finished we must return it to Nature in its original state.

Returning the Land in its original state — this requires the abolition of private land ownership. Human beings, presumptuous as they are, mistakenly believe that the Land is their own, and that is why they harm it without a moment's reflection.

The same goes for farmland. Since farmland is treated as a private asset, people occupy it and try to increase their wealth; they fall prey to the idea that because it is their own they can do whatever they like with it (like contaminating it with agricultural chemicals); and they believe that land is a commodity, and so they scheme to make money by selling it. The culmination of these effects has brought about the present, all but hopeless, plight of agriculture. (Though it is called "agriculture," modern agriculture is actually a harmful practice and a rebellion against Nature. It is only natural cycle agriculture that can claim the right to borrow land from Nature.)

At first sight, it looks as though the private ownership of land engenders a feeling of loving attachment to one's farmland, and supports an ideology by which the land is well taken care of, but it is actually the opposite. "It's my land, so if I want to tear it up or sell it, that's my business." And particularly depressing is the fact that ruining the land before selling it brings in a higher price!

The tenant farmers of yore, though they did not own their land, took care of it as they did their own children, maintaining and building its fertility by applying great amounts of composted organic matter. Nowadays everyone farms their own land, but we see that in all parts of the country the farmland is going to ruin. (Another major factor influencing the degree of farmland deterioration is the amount of imported food.)

So what I would like to see the government do here is, in place of Nature, take full responsibility for the preservation of the Land, and embark upon a program of national management (it is of course best if we can live like animals in Nature, for they experience no disorder even without government, [50] but since it will be some time before we reach that stage, this is the one thing I would like the government to do).

Private ownership of farmland (and all other land, too, for that matter) should be abolished, and the government, acting on behalf of Nature, should lend the farmland to those who wish to till it, and only for the time they actually use it. When the tiller has finished, the land is returned, and the government lends it to the next person. If the government reorganizes the present Registry Office and brings in the necessary personnel, they should be able to take care of this much without the use of computers. If they attach a serial number to each plot and lend farmland according to the number of family members, this could be done even without the Ministry of Agriculture. Even if everyone in Japan decides to farm, and requests flood the Registry Office, there should be about five ares of land for each person, which is enough to grow one's own food. Needless to say, the large-scale farms should be dismantled.

Even if those in the city want to farm but can find no land by themselves, we should be able to help them find it. We must not overlook the fact that those who have had it with big city life (or those who sense the danger in big city life) are burning with the desire to take up farming. Without these conditions, it is impossible to get people out of the cities and onto the farm. Under the present system the people have a right to quit farming, but urbanites have no opportunity to take up farming. This faulty policy is responsible for the drop in the farming population, and the rise of the urban population.

The sons and daughters of farmers, who show aversion to farming are free to seek destruction by moving to the city, but urbanites who fear the collapse of the city are unfortunately prevented from leaving because of the land ownership system. It seems to me that, rather than those who hate farming and run to the city, the urbanites who, deeply concerned with the future of humanity, have given up on the city and burn with the desire to take up farming, will be of far more use to the future of humanity and the Earth. * * * And now a word to those who, hunkering down in the city, continue to dream of a luxurious and pleasant life:

As long as you exploit the farmers, and live in the city with the intention of continuing your easy, gluttonous lifestyle without dirtying your own hands, it is only natural that you must be satisfied with very little space and with an anti-Nature environment. That is urbanization. If the population did not abandon the country, gather together in one place, and destroy the natural environment, urbanization would be impossible.

Not satisfied with their cramped quarters and unpleasant environment, the deluded politicians and arrogant urbanites came up with the "Urban Planning Law," which is legislation meant to seize more farmland, and by means of this law they force the conversion of more farmland into urbanized areas. The urbanites had best not forget that the farmland which they desire to urbanize produces the food that keeps them alive. Perhaps they want to live in great mansions without eating anything.

The spacious gardens we find in the Tanaka Mansion and other such places should be used to grow soybeans and vegetables, and the urban residents, including the rich, should put up with living in cramped, high-rise buildings. It is only natural that such people, seeking ease in the city, pay such a price. Though their buildings fall over in an earthquake, and though they are cramped and stuffy, they must accept these conditions. When the time comes, as it inevitably will, they will have to make up for the shortage of imported food by growing their own in baseball fields, parks, and roadsides. * * * In the dominating classes of the present system there are great numbers of people who, using the institution of private land ownership as a basis to make money, attempt to maintain their own superior position (there are very few famous politicians who have never conducted any land dealings), so hoping for the abolition of this institution is like seeking hot water under the ice. To these dominators, losing land (or losing the means to pacify the land-dazzled dominated classes with land) means loosing everything, and that everything is power and property; they would be cutting their own throats. Since abolishing private land ownership is far easier said than done, we must push forward with our plans for escape from the city and taking up farming while under the present system.

It is fine for those with financial resources to buy land in an depopulated part of the country, but it is not advisable for those without money to borrow it and buy land.

Money moves around according to the laws of business and industry, so trying to match it to the speed of agriculture, which is bound by the laws of Nature (an extremely slow-paced productivity) is like entering an automobile race with a horse-drawn cart. Unless one is, from the very beginning, prepared for failure, it is dangerous to borrow money to get one's start. Even if the interest rate is half that for business, or if someone will pay the interest for you (as with a subsidy, for example), it is likely that you will be paying the loan back for the rest of your life. No matter how much you work the amount you owe will not diminish, but will in fact increase steadily due to the devilish plundering effect of money (a stratagem known as the market principle). Thus it is best to borrow or rent land first.

The age when people inherited farms from their parents is coming to a close. Children who grew up watching their parents labor hard on the farm rarely ever choose to follow in their parents' footsteps, and experiences. Of course things are different for people who are in line to be doctors, teachers, or actors — professions which can skim the sweet juices (jobs which, no matter how hard one must study, offer far greater financial rewards than farming) — but most farm children choose not to follow in their parents' footsteps, so they study hard, get into a university, and choose a fruitful profession (one that makes them a lot of money).

The eldest son (almost all children are eldest sons) goes to the university, gets a job, and settles down in the city. In time his parents on the farm grow old, and find that there is no one to inherit the farm and carry on the work; the parents cannot, at this point, demand that their son return to the farm, and the son, for his part, has gained a respectable position, and does not want to sacrifice this in order to become a farmer (besides, he has tasted fully the sweetness of idleness and gluttony, and could not possibly, in such a physical condition, take on the work of a farmer). So he has no choice but to take in his aging parents and look after them. And thus the reduction in the farming population continues.

This phenomenon can be found in every farming village in the country. The people who flowed into the city on the crest of the rapid economic growth tidal wave are now, 30 years later, finding that the time has come to take in their parents, whether they like it or not. This problem will grow rapidly more serious within the next 10 years or so.

Needless to say, as is symbolized by such officialese as "farmland mobility," "coordination of farmland use," and "fostering core farmers," the farmland that thus goes unused will be gathered up and passed into the hands of aggressive farm operators (i.e., those who affirm the good of mass offerings to the city and who like to be on the receiving end of the city's plundering), whereupon they will increase the scale of their operations and carry on with the industrialization of agriculture (this is known as the "intensive" use of farmland). Because of this policy most of the farmland will either be sucked up by such farmers, or will be invaded and exploited by other industries.

However, this policy will be successful only in the easily-accessible farming villages. There will be no dilettantes who, knowing from the start that they will lose money, will rent much farmland in the inconvenient mountain villages where people never made much money to start with. We can therefore expect the farmland in the remote villages to fall into permanent disuse after the aged farmers move to the city.

For those who wish to get out of the city and take up farming, such isolated mountain villages are good places to borrow land and get started. Long ago human beings lived and survived in the foothills of the mountains, so such a place — the border between the plains and the mountains, is certainly the ideal environment for people. Though it may be an economically poor place to live, it is ecologically ideal. * * * Even though one may have left the city and fled to an inconvenient mountain village to take up farming, it is impossible to guarantee that one will thus be able to survive into the twenty-first century. Even if, in the event of a nuclear war, one managed to avoid a full-scale nuclear attack, the Earth will cool as a result of nuclear war, and agriculture will suffer a severe blow. There is no assurance that those who have left the city and taken up farming in the mountains will be safe. One may of course conceal about two years' worth of grain in a pit solo, but there are yet difficult problems such as residual radiation and the pillaging of starving people.

Still, when the city destroys itself by means of its own poisons (the peace of waste, contamination, and destruction), the independent farmers will not, as the modernized mass-offering farmers will, be dragged down with it.

I shall explain the reason for this in the final chapter.

Chapter VIII Notes

45

[The author actually uses a term meaning literally "all the members of an ethnic group farm."] The reason I say "ethnic-group farming" instead of "citizen farming" is because I deny the existence of the nation-state. I believe that the nation-state is a power structure, a structure of domination and plunder (i.e., the root of urban evils). If we negate the great evils of the nation-state, then of course the nation-state itself is negated. If we negate the nation-state, then of course there are no "citizens," and what remains is a group of people known as an ethnic group or race.

On the other hand, the use of distinguishing terms like "ethnic group" and "race" breeds racism, small-mindedness, and exclusivism, so perhaps it would be better to employ terms like "humanity" or "Earth people."

But since my discussion in this chapter concerns mainly the island country of Japan, I will ask the reader's indulgence and slip by with this makeshift term.

46

A social structure in which few farmers feed a great number of idlers forces the farmers into labor-saving, high-yield, mass-supply agriculture, and this necessitates the heavy use of agricultural chemicals and chemical fertilizers, as well as making the farmers neglect the application of compost to the land. The inevitable result is oil-soaked fields and a kind of agriculture characterized by contamination, plunder, and destruction. One could also say that the idlers, by means of the progress of science and technology, have promoted the mechanization and contamination of agriculture, thus making it possible for a handful of farmers to feed legions of idlers. The city sucks up everything.

Therefore food contamination is, simply put, brought about by the social structure, not by the laziness and greed of farmers.

Needless to say, the contempt for agriculture and the priority of the secondary and tertiary industries are also causes of the fall in the farming population. When over half the people were farmers, half the content of our language and song books were based in the farming villages, and the stories and songs glorified agriculture and the farmers, but now that less than half the population are farmers, such stories and songs have all but disappeared. For the same reason, one rarely if ever sees the farming villages or the farmers in television shows or in the piles of magazines and novels.

In this case it is an inversion to say that the contempt for agriculture and the respect for urban industries have brought about the reduction in the farm population. Changes in the social structure are brought about by the power relationships of material productive capacity (or the money economy); social trends and consciousness is merely a reflection of such.

Therefore the contempt for agriculture is not a problem of education or attitude, but decidedly one of social structure.

47

This is the main theme of this chapter, and so I will write in more detail about this later. But now I would like to emphasize here that increasing the agrarian population (that is, sending the secondary/tertiary population back to the farms), getting everyone to pull weeds by hand, make compost, give up agricultural chemicals, and produce modest quantities of clean vegetables, while being our goal, is quite impossible and unrealistic unless we solve the land problem.

48

There is no other building material which has so well built the arrogant city and wrought such damage to the Land as concrete. Has there ever been an instance in which cement was used for a purpose other than to plaster over the Land? Whether it is made into buildings, fences, wharves, Hume pipe, or to make channels, its ultimate role is inevitably to block off the Land. So for every bag of cement that is produced, that much more of the Land will be covered over. And the cement factories are running at full capacity every day, turning out great amounts of cement (to cover over the Land), and sending it to be sold in the city. "Urbanization" can now be perfectly equated to "concretization."

49

Nostradamus hinted that "the crisis of humanity will come raining down from the sky," but, while I have no intention of contending with the Great Nostradamus, I believe that the crisis of humanity will come from the Land — not as fast as falling from the sky, but just as surely.

I have said it many times, and I will say it again: As long as our present "peace" continues as it is — destruction of the forests, desertification, the loss of topsoil and the accumulation of salts, the contamination of soil and water with synthetic chemicals, and the accompanying expansion of the cities — we will see the desolation of the Land continue. "Peace" signifies the stability, prosperity, and prodigality of the city, and it is impossible to maintain this kind of peace without sacrificing the Land.

It is "peace" that destroys the Land and leads humanity to ruin. Furthermore, if a war should start Nostradamus will be correct; either way, it means we have no future.

The only thing that will barely guarantee our survival is a scaled-down life, a life of regression and austerity. To put it another way, our survival depends solely upon the disappearance of the Maker of Peace (the peace of prosperity and ease), that is, the city.

50

The reason wars over land do not occur in the natural world as they do in the human world is because other living things take and accumulate no more than they need. A lion kills no more than it needs to eat its fill, and a sparrow will not store up more insects and seeds after it has eaten enough. Only human beings, for whatever reason, establish economic societies, and go wild over the accumulation of wealth. If we too do not know sufficiency we will surely perish. Wild (natural) animals should be our model.

CHAPTER IX Independent Farming

Of all the occupations on Earth, the only one that allows us to be independent is farming. All occupations other than farming must depend at least upon agriculture, or else they have no source of life; for this reason independence is impossible. If, as a result of their contempt for agriculture, the other occupations try to become independent of it, their practitioners will soon die!

Agriculture is, at the least, none other than a "means in itself" for maintaining one's own life, so as long as one does not seek excesses such as convenience, extravagance, and ease, and is prepared for a life of austerity, it is possible to become totally independent.

What on earth do people mean, then, when they say, "It's impossible to get along just by farming. One can't keep food on the table by being a farmer"? It is one thing if one is referring to factories or apartment buildings in the concrete cities, but such a remark is quite incomprehensible if the speaker is a person who has the land which produces the food by which he can keep himself alive. But of course we know that these people mean it is impossible for them to acquire the trinkets and gimcracks and pleasures that urban extravagance offers.

The secondary and tertiary industries, in their infinite mercy, make their governments grant subsidies to agriculture, which is the only occupation on earth capable of independence, but this is nothing less than a clever reversal meant to pull the wool over our eyes. That agriculture must continually curry favor with others as well as suffer great difficulties is without a doubt because of the deception, dirty tricks, and schemes of Money (or the schemes and plundering of the money economy, known as the "market principle"), as characterized by agricultural subsidies. Could there possibly be any other reason?

I therefore believe that in order for agriculture to avoid the interference of the secondary and tertiary industries, it must first become independent of money. Money cheats the farmers; the devilish machinery of the money economy makes the farmers take on debts, and its phantom money (loans) make double plunder possible.

Note well that the ultimate cause of the farmers' privation lies in the exchange of food for pieces of paper, and that subsidies are mere bait to prepare for plunder.

Money: An Instrument of Plunder

The mint churns out tons of money, and with government bonds as the medium, wads of this money roll to all corners of the country (as, for example, the salaries of public employees and appropriations for public works projects). [51] Some of this paper money is saved, and some of it is used to buy food. If you take it to the store and throw it into a shopping basket, it changes magically into food. So there is absolutely no basis for asserting that money will not be used for the plunder of food. If there were no such plunder by means of money, it would be impossible for the city to survive for even a day unless it took food by force.

Let us assume now that part of that money which was saved is now lent out to the farmers in the form of agricultural loans. It will be immediately consumed by the purchase of machinery, fertilizers, and agricultural chemicals, whereby it is returned to the pockets of Capital; all that remains with the farmers are debts. And just as I pointed out before, these debts contribute, over a long period of time, to the plunder of agricultural products. In order to pay back their loans, the farmers must work themselves into the ground, continually offering great quantities of farm products to the city.

Money is none other than a weapon for the purpose of ripping off agricultural produce.

Control of Agriculture with Debts

During a meeting at which was discussed the internationalization of agriculture, Ibuka Masaru, the Honorary President of Sony, said that "Agriculture has only 1/1,500th the productive power of industry." Since money as well is produced at 1,500 times the efficiency of food, it too functions according to the same logic as industry does. (For example, let us say that you borrow money from the bank. If you turn out goods at the rate of several tens a minute, you can pay back the principle with interest in only a short time. Or, if you move several thousand units of your product around in a certain way, you can always pay back the money you borrowed for capital.) But Nature moves according to very slow rhythms, and agriculture is bound by the laws of Nature; to try and make agriculture move at the fast pace of money inevitably means that agriculture will be left behind. Should one borrow money in order to get started in agriculture, one will find that, even if the interest is half what it would be for business or industry (or even if one gets someone to pay the interest for one — for example, a subsidy), it will be quite impossible to pay back the loan by means of agricultural produce alone.

The same goes for dairy farmers in Hokkaido, for those who raise cattle, for those who raise broilers and laying chickens, for citrus farmers, for mechanized farmers, and even for the American farmer, the incarnation of the large-scale modern farming method (it is said that, as of 1985, American agriculture is 54 trillion in debt). And this is not the only way money oppresses agriculture, for it has yet to rout the farmer decisively. * * * If, for example, there is a bumper crop of cabbage, the total cost of harvest, sorting, packing, shipping and kickbacks at the market is sometimes far greater than the selling price of the cabbage. The more the farmers ship, the more money they lose, and so there are times when they plow the cabbage into the fields with a bulldozer.

The more the farmers work (the more food they offer the city), the more money they lose. Has there ever been such an idiotic system? And that is money economics for you — the devilish machine (the market principle) invented by the city.

It is quite true that, after a certain point, one needs no more agricultural products since stuffing oneself full might bring about digestive disorders. An excess of other products will not bring about indigestion, and as long as one has a place to put them, it is possible to have many in order to feed one's vanity. It is the market principle that takes advantage of this one weak point of agriculture.

The market principle — another way of expressing this is "business." For example, the price of eggs is not decided as a result of competitive selling on the market; in actuality, a few market big shots make the decision after seeing how many and what kind of eggs are being shipped into the market at Tokyo. Local prices are based upon the price in Tokyo, so when Tokyo gets a lot of eggs, the price in other places is low even if there are not enough eggs. Therefore the market principle is a business technique, the art of wheeling and dealing.

Back a hundred or so years ago, this was a tea-producing region. Every year at tea-picking time the broker would visit the farmers. "This year the price of tea is higher than ever. Give it everything you've got, and pick every last leaf."

Joyful at the news, the farmers would work their hardest, squeezing every last bit out of their tea fields. The broker, watching for the moment when the tea was ready, would run breathlessly to the farmers with a telegram in hand: "This is terrible! I've just received a telegram from Yokohama — the price for new tea has fallen to rock bottom!" Thus it was the simplest thing for the merchant to use business technique to deceive the farmers.

Thus the merchants, waving the golden banner of "market principle," used the necessity and preservability of agricultural products to their own advantage. We must not fall for such tricks. Food is none other than that which supports life. Even if the harvest brings in more than is needed, the food that ends up in the stomachs of the idlers must have, as that which supports their lives, a very great value. If, Mr. Ibuka, agriculture has only 1/1,500th the productive capacity of industry, then agricultural produce must have 1,500 times the value of industrial products, right? This is the true market principle, and the just appropriation of value. A proper deal would exchange 1,500 transistor radios at 30,000 each for one bag of rice.

Thus the market principle is a tricky scheme whereby the merchants do the same with the essential portion of agricultural produce (i.e., that which goes into the bellies of the idlers) as they do with the excess — they cause the price to hit rock bottom. In Nature, where there is no such scheming, there is also no market principle. No matter how many zebras there are, if all it takes is one to fill the belly of a lion, the lion will find infinite value in that one zebra.

Therefore, the market principle is the illegitimate child of the money economy. Merchants cannot carry on business without money. It is money that causes prices to nose-dive. With bartering, it is impossible to get a head of cabbage from someone without giving something fair in return. Getting that head of cabbage without giving something of like value in return is robbery, pure and simple. The techniques of business, then, are the same as the laws by which robbers operate.

We must get rid of the robbers. We must also get rid of the city, which inevitably brings robbers into existence. And we must get rid of money, which makes possible the functions and activities of the city. If we allow the continued existence of money, it will not only keep plundering agriculture, but it will also destroy us.

Getting away from Money: The Bagworm Revolution

Money makes us squander resources, destroy Nature, and contaminate the environment. These urban evils (the activities of the city) are all carried out "under duress" because of money. It is because of money (the pursuit of profit) that, even though there is absolutely no need, we continue to squander resources, strew pollution, and compete madly in the production of yet more. [52] It is because of money that we search desperately for more construction work to do. The purpose of public works projects is to "make the money circulate," but this cannot be done without destroying Nature. Money is trashing the Earth.

"Money is the root of all evil. Since money appeared, all of creation has been dark, and greed and evil have ruled the world." Shoeki was already saying this in the middle of the Edo Period, before the advent of industrial society.

Money is the root of all the above evils, and if we do not immediately (it may already be too late) banish it from the Earth, we will experience a most grave crisis, but since money is the life blood of the city, banishing it will require an earthshaking occurrence, and the useless softies in the city will not be able to bear it. They will put up a desperate struggle, and, using everything at their disposal (the cream of science and technology), they will try to preserve money. It is for this very reason that we will be unable to avoid disaster.

This is a despairing situation. We must despair of banishing money, and we must despair of avoiding catastrophe. Previously I examined this problem from a different angle, and said that we must not waste our effort trying to change something that is hopeless to change, but that we should begin by putting distance between ourselves and money. Should we continue to cling to, and depend upon, that which is a weapon of plunder and the ultimate cause of destruction, the plundering will become worse, and we will advance toward ruin with ever greater speed. Before anything else, we must cease our tightrope act. Getting away from money will not insure our safety, but we can at least avoid direct entanglement. The more we depend upon economic ties with the city, the greater is the danger, but the more distance we can put between ourselves and the city's poisons, the less chance there is of our being dragged directly into the morass when the city begins to disintegrate. To depend completely upon the city (listen up, you large-scale farmers!) while expecting at the same time to come out unscathed when the city falls is like hoping for safety in an airplane that is about to crash. When the city begins to disintegrate, shrink, and recede, pollution will lessen and Nature's power of recovery will awaken by the same degree. In time we will again have a livable environment.

Until that time comes, we must, without the help of the city,
establish ourselves so that we can survive without it. This is
the Bagworm Revolution.
City Prosperity, Country Destitution

Parting company with money is exactly the same as parting company with the city. In Chapter VI, I wrote in detail about this, but I would like to make some comments here on lessening one's dependence on the city, and increasing one's dependence on Nature. Here I offer some concrete proposals for Natural Cycle Organic Farming.

Until relatively recently, almost all Japanese farmers practiced self-sufficient farming; they had some domestic animals, returned the manure and their own wastes to the Land, and fed themselves and their animals with the food harvested from the Land. If one farms thus, it is not at all difficult to be independent, and the blessings (i.e., interference) of the city are totally unnecessary. Even though these farmers are independent, they were poverty-stricken, but this was not at all due to the retrogressive and closed nature of self-sufficient agriculture. Their destitution was due fully to the high-handed plunder of the city. You critics out there! You must not evade the real question. If the farmers of both former and modern ages were destitute because of agriculture's retrogressive character, then why is modern petroleum-based agriculture, as represented by American agriculture, suffering under such onerous debts? There has never been any problem other than that which has always dogged agriculture: the plunder of the city. The problem is that the critics and politicians take for granted their right to fill their bellies without soiling their own hands.

Note that the proletariat and farmer literature of the recent past examined in detail the destitution, greed, and ignorance of the farmers, and wrote that almost all of it had been brought about by the high-handedness of the bourgeoisie and the evil landlords, but this is ridiculous. As I demonstrated in Chapter V, the true criminals are the vast hordes of non-tilling, gluttonous idlers, the proletariat writers among them. The landlords, who were held up for criticism as the bad guys, were merely the medium though which the city carried on its plunder. Such off-the-mark literary investigation does not even rate a snort.

If, as Shoeki wrote, we establish a system wherein emperors, scholars, and beggars all till the soil and produce their own food, then how can there possibly be "the glory that plunders," "the prosperity of the city," and "the destitution of the country"?

Independent Agriculture

Let us now imagine a kind of agriculture that is like the natural cycle self-sufficient farming of former times (the kind they told us needed nothing as long as they had salt), but which in addition is not the object of plunder. And, using this as a blueprint, let us see how we can establish it in this modern world, in which modern agriculture is flourishing.

Since I have some chickens, I will talk about this from my own experience of chicken farming. If one has chickens then rice is free, vegetables are free, potatoes and fruit are free; things we human beings eat — that which keeps us alive — are all free.

Since I produce rice to feed myself, I do not sell it, and I do not produce much more than I need. And of course there is no need to pile on agricultural chemicals. Even if for this reason the amount harvested drops a little, no one will complain. As long as I grow enough to eat for one year, it is not worth worrying about the amount of the harvest. If one applies poisons and produces so much poisoned rice that one cannot eat it at all, the final result is only damage to one's health.

I sell a few eggs. Since they are natural eggs, they have great value, sometimes selling for twice the market price. I feed the chickens many things that are ordinarily thrown away, so I spend about half as much as usual on feed. Even when the chickens lay fewer eggs than usual I always come out ahead. The money I get from these eggs represents what I described in Chapter VI: the smallest possible link with the meddling city. With this money I pay what I must, like taxes, contributions, education, and the like. When the cities perish I will no longer need this money, and I will not have to sell eggs any more. When that time comes I will substantially reduce the number of chickens down to where I can supply all their feed myself.

Every year I apply chicken manure to my fields to build up the soil, so my plants are highly resistant to insects and disease. Of course there are insects, and disease sometimes occurs during cold and wet weather. However, I have never lost everything to insects or disease, and for the past 30 years I have always had enough to eat.

Healthy human beings have resistance to worms, tuberculosis, tooth decay, and viruses, but sickly people are always suffering illness. We can observe the same phenomenon in food plants. If one raises the plants organically and supplies them sufficiently with the blessings of Nature (air, sunlight, water, the Land), one will have healthy plants that are highly resistant to disease and insects. Even if you lose 20 percent, the other 80 percent will survive. We need only eat this to insure our own survival. This is what I mean by self-sufficient agriculture.

We must also supply ourselves with farm implements and items for household use. Our forebears all did this, and that is why they apparently "needed only salt." In addition, almost all of these implements were made of recyclable materials like bamboo, wood, and straw, where they did not have to live in fear of running out of underground resources, and they did not pollute the environment in their manufacture. What is more, once these things wore out, they could be discarded just as they were, for they would in time decompose and return to the soil.

Is there any room in this kind of agriculture for contamination, destruction, and profligacy? What need is there of money, or of living in fear of the self-destruction brought about by money?

Become a Lone Wolf

To summarize: Independent farming signifies that which is independent of money, and independence from money is the same as independence from the city. Independence from the city means independence from government, from agricultural cooperatives, from the manufacturers and services, and, if we go a little bit further, independence from the consumers. The consumers are not being kind to the farmers by buying their produce; the farmers are blessing the consumers with what is left over after they grow enough for themselves. So if we stop giving food to the consumers, we will become independent of them.

The independence described above is independence from our immediate enemy, so our mission is clear. If one has the determination and resolution to carry through it should somehow be possible. As a matter of fact, though our numbers are still small, people doing just this are scattered throughout the entire country, so it is not at all impossible. Though difficult, one can in fact avoid the disaster assured by our present society of prosperity.

But there is one thing I would like to emphasize here, and it is that we must endeavor to achieve an even more difficult kind of independence. Allow me to explain.

First of all, independence from one's neighbors (this can be construed as independence from custom, from convention, and from history).

"Solidarity" and "cooperation" sound good, but in reality this means merely giving in to the meddling of one's neighbors, and what is more, those neighbors are repulsive cowards who have been dirtied by their toadying to the city. The "common sense" and "reality" that they value so highly are none other than the old customs that have been cultivated in order to make them nourish and preserve the city. Do you have the bravery to become independent of these shackles?

The farmer spirit is almost the same as the sycophant spirit. That spirit of sycophancy — it is licking the boots of the feudal lords, the landlords, the politicians, and the agricultural cooperatives; it is sucking up to the extravagant and self-centered city housewives, to the teachers, to the policemen, to the celebrities and writers and critics (just recall the servile fawning of the farmer who is asked to say something on television in front of some celebrities).

That spirit of sycophancy is directly concerned with the farmer next door. If the neighbor does it, I will too. "What? The neighbor got a new combine? Quick — call the co-op!" In the world there are legions of farmers like this. They must stay abreast of their neighbors in everything. They cannot stand to get behind their neighbors in rice planting, harvesting, contributions, or travel.

But it is not only their neighbors. They observe the movements of everyone in the neighborhood, worrying so much about getting behind that they are quite forlorn. This mental state has been brought about by the strong will to stay together with the other farmers, a strategy which was meant to help them bear the oppression of the city. It is not mistaken to say that this crisis mentality — the constant fear of falling out of step with the group and being trampled to death — has engendered this complex toward "the farmer next door."

Every farmer should become a lone wolf. Any farmer who is not prepared to become a lone wolf is not qualified to preach independent farming. Only a perverse person will establish true independence. "The neighbor planted his rice? Well then, I will wait another month before I plant mine." This kind of perversity will bring about true independence. As long as one produces food only for oneself, why should it be necessary to keep watching one's neighbors and worry about what they are doing? Even if you make a mistake and harvest only half of what you had planned, then consume that half and survive on it. If that is not enough, then eat wild plants. Independent farming does not necessarily mean following in the footsteps of large-scale agriculture, which produces an overabundance of contaminated food and makes great offerings of food to the city (in actuality, this is none other than urban-dependent agriculture).

Go ahead and laugh (it is the laugher who must expend the effort; the act requires nothing of me), but we must plant when and what we please. Still, this does not mean we should ignore the right time to plant. It does not matter if we have coincidental similarities with our neighbors. Perversity for the sake of perversity is not good.

If you want to reduce your acreage then do it without worrying about government policy. If you are producing enough rice for yourself, then there is no need for any more paddy acreage. Instead produce beans or potatoes, or whatever you like. But when you reduce paddy acreage, you must not consider taking subsidies for it. This is just a clever government device for shackling you. * * * But there is an unfortunate side to this as well: We must even consider becoming independent of our families.

Even a family is an individual subject to independence. It has a character with its own individuality. Even the education mothers [53] know very well that things never go the way they wish. "The neighbor has planted his rice," say Grandpa and wife, "so if we don't plant ours soon, we'll become the laughing stock of the county." And they keep harping on this. If one plants rice too early it will grow too quickly, and one is sure to be visited by blight, leafhoppers, and blow-downs. Yet, one's family members, in their drive to do as the neighbors do, continue to insist on early planting. But here is where one must firmly stand one's ground, and standing one's ground means independence from the family. No matter what Grandpa and the wife say, stand by your own beliefs. If they will not listen, then let them plant their own half early, and when their paddies are overrun with blight and insects, make sure they realize that it is their own fault.

Farmers should note well that true independence signifies an existence of splendid isolation in which one holds to one's own principles. * * * If in this way lone wolves (i.e., self sufficient, austere people of splendid isolation) populate the world, and if, no matter where one looks, there are only perverse farmers who do not toady to the city, then before we know it (that is, without the need for violence) and inevitably, the social revolution will have taken place. The city, on its way to deconstruction, will begin to shrink (the city will not be able to bear the food shortage), [54] and the secondary and tertiary industries will find there is no way to stop their decline. Therefore the pollution of the Earth — the waste, contamination, and destruction — will decrease precipitously, and we will be able to have a little hope for the future of humanity and the Earth. It is then we will realize that there is still a little hope of saving ourselves. When that time comes, we will want to tear down the now useless city buildings and return the Land to its original form, but we will find that tearing them down and discarding the waste requires vast amounts of energy, and that, no matter where we discard this rubble it will cover Land, so the city may just become a huge ghost town. Therefore we must now try to prevent its further spread.

The people will till the little remaining land, and will reproduce only as many people as that arable land will support.

Thus, if we take a cold, hard look at the future, we see that the only way for us to survive is to either exterminate the urban poison, or to eke out an existence as lone-wolf farmers.

Even if the city perishes, we must not let it take us down with itself.

Chapter IX Notes

51

Government bonds are ordinarily distributed among, and forced off on the city banks, and after a time the Bank of Japan pays the interest and purchases them. Then the government buys them back from the Bank of Japan with the paper money it has overproduced. Problems such as whose account book the bonds are listed in, when they will be redeemed, etc., are of only superficial concern because the principle objective is to spread overproduced money around the country. It is just like a magician transforming leaves into wads of money, for there is hardly any sleight of hand which is as easy, advantageous, or interesting. And since every government in the world is competing in this maneuver, no one can avoid inflationary government debts. Inflation during times of recession is a strange phenomenon that owes its existence to this magician's trick. That is why every year sees a rise in prices and countering pay raises, as well as greater amounts of money in circulation. On the other hand, if there were no inflation (i.e., if they did not print more money and flood the country with it), there would probably be another economic panic as there was in the 1930s when the big capitalists had all the money and everyone else had none.

52

One could say that the spirit of urban competition and glory has brought about excessive production, but this spirit has been nurtured by the money economy itself. It is no mistake to say that, if there were no money, there would also not be such insane competition and glory-seeking.

53

Term describing a common type of mother in Japan. Since people are usually judged not by ability, but by their academic credentials, the education mothers send their children to private evening schools and make them study hard so the children will be able to pass the difficult examinations for the most prestigious high schools and universities. (Translator's note)

54

When this time comes, there will be no way to get by on imported food. The city will forget that it has repeatedly invaded and plundered other countries, driving them to desperation, and will, in order to continue its own gluttony, attempt to maintain its food imports by force, ignoring the starvation of other peoples. But where on this depleted planet is the city going to find the land to nourish itself?

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Table of Contents

- CHAPTER I
- CHAPTER II
- CHAPTER III
- Chapter IV

- CHAPTER V Down with the Cities!

- CHAPTER VI Disengagement from the City

- CHAPTER VII The Disintegration of the City

- CHAPTER VIII Everybody Farms

- CHAPTER IX Independent Farming

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE