This is what happened: since 1870
as the industrial food system became ever more "efficient"
it lowered the price of basic agricultural commodities.
Consequently most country folk rejected their self-sufficient-farm
birthright for a better-paying job in town, abandoned their technologically
primitive free-and-clear homestead in favour of a city apartment
(with electric power and running water) and soon became wage-enslaved.
The ones who remained on the farm borrowed to invest in capital-intensive
production methods and so became debt slaves. Wage- and debt-slaves,
like all other kinds of slaves, feel insecure and think that
in order to survive they must not reveal their true feelings,
must suppress themselves whilst pleasing those in authority
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