ABSTRACT
The squeezing out of space for soil and flowers by expanding piles of rocks is a metaphor for the displacement of the vernacular that can be seen in all arenas of modern life. Each year more and more of the world passes out of the sphere of the vernacular and into the sphere of systems. Mom-and-pop stores fall to chain convenience stores, the neighborhood doctor and midwife become employees of health maintenance organizations, and small-scale, personal efforts to help people become human service corporations. In all of these, the same process of a war against the simple subsistence focus of the vernacular can be observed. The idea that free-market economics should be the standard for assessing all problems resulted in a new creed that, in Karl Polanyi’s words, 'was utterly materialistic and believed that all human problems could be resolved given an unlimited amount of material commodities'.
