The National Being · Chapter
Chapter V: The Rural Community and the Cooperative Ideal explained
This chapter contrasts the ancient Irish rural community, bound by common interests and land ownership, with the modern unorganized rural population that has decayed due to the rise of centralized states and emigration.
What happens
This chapter contrasts the ancient Irish rural community, bound by common interests and land ownership, with the modern unorganized rural population that has decayed due to the rise of centralized states and emigration. It argues that without cooperative organization, rural areas stagnate, while cooperative societies can revitalize them by enabling economic, social, and intellectual life. The author illustrates this with a successful cooperative in northwest Ireland and warns that the exodus to cities threatens national health, calling for rural organization to make the countryside a place no one would willingly leave.
Themes in this chapter
Cooperative Economics and Rural Community
The chapter extensively advocates for cooperative societies as the solution to rural decay, detailing how they transform a scattered population into a true community with common economic and social interests.
Emigration and Rural Decay
The chapter identifies emigration as a major threat, describing how the lack of rural organization leads to stagnation and the exodus of youth to cities, draining the countryside of vitality.
Critique of Individualism and Materialism
The author criticizes the unorganized rural population where individuals have only sentimental ties to the community, leading to decay, and contrasts it with the cooperative model that fosters collective action.
The National Being and Identity
The chapter links the health of the nation to the vitality of its rural communities, arguing that a strong national identity depends on organized rural life rather than urban centralization.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
The narrator presents a detailed analysis of rural community versus population, advocates for cooperative organization, and describes a successful cooperative society in northwest Ireland.
- Patrick Maloney
Mentioned indirectly as part of the rural population; the chapter discusses the plight of farmers like him who were at the mercy of gombeen traders before cooperative societies.
- Sir Horace Plunkett
Implied through the advocacy of cooperative societies, as Plunkett was a key figure in the Irish cooperative movement; the chapter echoes his ideas.
- Kathleen ni Houlihan
Symbolically referenced as the embodiment of Ireland, whose rural children emigrate, and whose needs for a fuller life are neglected.
- Whitman
Mentioned indirectly through the phrase 'the federation of the world,' which echoes Whitman's democratic and universalist vision.
- Christ
Referenced in the phrase 'that we might have it more abundantly,' alluding to Christ's words in the Gospel of John about abundant life.
Key passages
“We had true rural communities in ancient Ireland, though the organization was rather military than economic. But the members of a clan had common interests. They owned the land in common.”
Ancient Ireland had genuine rural communities where clan members shared land and had mutual interests, even if the structure was more military than economic.
The author uses this historical example to contrast with modern unorganized rural populations.
“The chief problem of Ireland—the problem which every nation in greater or lesser measure will have to solve—is how to enable the countryman, without journeying, to satisfy to the full his economic, social, intellectual, and spiritual needs.”
Ireland's central challenge, and one that all nations will face, is to provide rural dwellers with complete fulfillment of their economic, social, intellectual, and spiritual needs without forcing them to emigrate.
This encapsulates the chapter's core argument for rural development and cooperative organization.
“I assert that there never can be any progress in rural districts or any real prosperity without such farmers’ organizations or guilds.”
The author firmly states that rural progress and true prosperity are impossible without farmers' cooperatives or guilds.
This is the chapter's concluding thesis, emphasizing the necessity of organization for rural vitality.
