ABSTRACT
The complete subjection of the country to peasant agriculture brings with it the danger that the rural districts cannot afford an intellectual elite with the necessary leisure. It is all the more important that the pessimistic and defeatist doctrine, which fundamentally amounts at the same time to a disparagement of peasant agriculture, seems to be unfounded. The popular argument that industrial mass production is bound to destroy the artisans obscures the truth. The popular argument that industrial mass production is bound to destroy the artisans obscures the truth. What is true of artisans is paralleled by the conditions existing among small traders whose occupation is in many cases interrelated with that of the craftsmen. The traditional rural trades are the original form of decentralized industry, to which modern industries should, as far as possible, return in order to enable their workers and employees to become well integrated in their surrounding.
