Skip to content

Failure Quote by Wendell Berry

“The family farm is failing because the pattern it belongs to is failing, and the principal reason for this failure is the universal adoption, by our people and our leaders alike, of industrial values, which are based on three assumptions: 1. That value equals price—that the value of a farm, for…” quote by Wendell Berry
Download Open image
““The family farm is failing because the pattern it belongs to is failing, and the principal reason for this failure is the universal adoption, by our people and our leaders alike, of industrial values, which are based on three assumptions: 1. That value equals price—that the value of a farm, for example, is whatever it would bring on sale, because both a place and its price are “assets.” There is no essential difference between farming and selling a farm. 2. That all relations are mechanical. That a farm, for example, can be used like a factory, because there is no essential difference between a farm and a factory. 3. That the sufficient and definitive human motive is competitiveness—that a community, for example, can be treated like a resource or a market, because there is no difference between a community and a resource or a market. The industrial mind is a mind without compunction; it simply accepts that people, ultimately, will be treated as things and that things, ultimately, will be treated as garbage. Such””

Wendell Berry

About This Quote

Source Book: The Unsettling of America, 1977

Industrial values reduce farms to commodities, eroding community and treating people as resources.

In simple terms: Treating farms as factories harms people and land.

Key Takeaway

Support sustainable, community‑focused agriculture.

Themes

agriculture industrialization community environment economics

Mood

critical concerned

Type

social environmental

When to use this quote

  • rural policy
  • urban planning
  • environmental activism

Key Concepts

sustainability social ecology ethical economics

Questions to Reflect On

  • What values should guide modern farming?
  • How can communities resist commodification?
A Different Perspective

Changing deep‑seated economic assumptions is difficult.

4.7 out of 5 (5 ratings)

More by Wendell Berry

Explore all 847 Wendell Berry quotes

More Failure quotes

Browse all 27,122 Failure quotes