516 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 63 



amorphous mass in shanty towns, without streets, lights, water, or 

 doctors, thus creating a kind of cancerous growth, a subproletariat, a 

 class of i)ariahs or untouchables. Once they have enjoyed just a few 

 of the amenities associated with the bright city lights, the modern 

 Lorelei, once they have lived in modern times, even if just barely on 

 the margin of modernity, getting literally fringe or crumb benefits, 

 they will never willingly return to isolation and a way of life that has 

 not changed in thousands of years — their eyes will continue to be on 

 the stars, rather than on the pitfalls of slumdwellers. Even illiterates 

 can enjoy electric lights, moviehouses, radios, television, music, as- 

 phalt streets, running water, and sanitation, and they can dream of 

 the time when they might enter the Promised Land of decent houses, 

 schools, libraries, and supermarkets ; one of the ways then to build up 

 uninhabited or sparsely settled rural areas is to make some of these 

 amenities available in the county as well as in town. 



A kind of national service on the land might be instituted, since the 

 only investment most self-sufficient rural dwellers can make toward 

 the development of their country is their labor ; and in future there is 

 going to be less and less employment for the unskilled worker, either 

 manual or clerical. In many of the less- developed areas where self- 

 sufficient agriculture is the norm for a large part of the population, 

 authoritarian regimes are well-entrenched and represent the political 

 status quo and continuum. Barriga llena^ corazon contento (a full 

 belly, a contented heart) is an old Spanish proverb; people used to 

 authoritarian regimes would find little to complain of regarding 

 national service on the land if performing that service meant receiving 

 three square meals a day, along with even a few of the amenities 

 usually available in a modern urban community. 



CONCLUSIONS 



The small-scale independent farmer simply cannot bring the full 

 weight of modern technology to bear on the problem of producing 

 food, fats, oils, fibers, rubber, medicine, and lumber, which is modern 

 agriculture's job. Wherever the new methods of scientific technology 

 are being applied to farming, there are huge surpluses, a veritable 

 cornucopia of tropical plenty, of bananas, palm products, coffee, cacao, 

 pineapples, and so on. 



Agricultural surpluses are a m.ajor source of the investment capital 

 necessary to finance the development of the less- developed countries, 

 but small holdings do not seem to attract the enlightened manage- 

 ment or the capital required for the modern equipment, fertilizers, 

 pesticides, marketing, and so on, necessary to produce agricultural 

 surpluses ; hence, if governments adopt policies of land fragmentation 

 that make agriculture less rather than more efficient, they invite 

 economic stagnation, or worse. The subsistence farmer is in many 



