726 THE RURAL COMMUNITY 



there is a specific rural social problem it is only this: Whether and 

 how the no longer existing rural community or society can arise anew 

 so as to be strong and enduring. 



But also in the United States, at least in the vast regions producing 

 cereals, there does not exist now what might be called "rural soci- 

 ety." The old New England town, the Mexican village, and the old 

 slave plantation do not determine any longer the physiognomy of 

 the country. And the peculiar conditions of the first settlements 

 in the primeval forests and on the prairies have disappeared. The 

 American farmer is an undertaker like others. Certainly there are 

 numerous farmers' problems, mostly of a technical character or 

 pertaining to the politics of communication, which have played their 

 role in politics and have been excellently discussed by American 

 scholars. 



But there exists not yet any specific rural social problem. This 

 is not the case since the abolition of slavery and the solution of the 

 question, how the immense area of settlement which was in the hands 

 of the Union have been disposed of. The present difficult social 

 problems of the South are also in the rural districts essentially eth- 

 nical and not economical. You cannot establish, on the basis of 

 questions concerning irrigation, railroad-tariff, homestead laws, etc., 

 however important these matters are, a theory of rural community as 

 a characteristic social formation; this may become different in the 

 future. But if anything is characteristic in the rural conditions of 

 the great wheat-producing states of America, it is to speak in 

 general terms the absolute individualism of the farmers' econom- 

 ics, the quality of the farmer as a mere business man. This is quite 

 different on the European Continent. It will, therefore, probably be 

 better to explain briefly in what respect and for what reason it is 

 different. The difference is caused by the specific effects of capitalism 

 on the soil of old civilized countries and the much denser population 

 of these countries. If a nation, as the German, supports its inhab- 

 itants, whose number is but little smaller than the white population 

 of the United States, in a space smaller in size than the State of 

 Texas, if it has founded and is determined to maintain its political 

 position and the importance of its culture for the world upon this 

 narrow, limited basis, the manner of the distribution of the soil gains 

 determinative importance for the differentiation of the society and 

 all economical and political conditions of the country. In conse- 

 quence of the close congestion of the inhabitants and the lower 

 valuation of the bare working forces the possibility of quickly acquir- 

 ing estate which has not been inherited is limited. Thus social 

 differentiation is necessarily fixed a fate which also your country 

 approaches. This increases the power of historical tradition, "which 

 is naturally the greatest in agricultural production, for which the 



