ABSTRACT
The insecurity of the livelihoods made from Welsh hill farming seared through the poetry of R.S.Thomas even in the apparently prosperous mid-1950s. More than a century earlier, Marx and Engels had warned in The Communist Manifesto that ‘Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation’ mean that ‘all that is solid melts into air’ (Marx and Engels, 1848:53-4). Do capitalist societies generate insecurity by their very nature? Probably most social scientists and economists would agree that they do, but there are profound disagreements about its significance. The bulk of economists argue that capitalism thrives on a degree of uncertainty, seeing insecurity in terms of opportunity, for it is uncertainty that opens up possibilities for profitable investment by business entrepreneurs. Capitalist accumulation and economic growth are the outcome. True, the operation of markets can result in considerable insecurity for sectors of the population-even whole countries-for periods of time; but market forces will ensure a spontaneous movement to a new social order within reasonable time, as economic equilibrium is re-established. Insecurity of livelihoods is an unwanted but necessary byproduct of a market system. Others (including many of those
… I am alone, exposed In my own fields with no place to run From your sharp eyes. I, who a moment back Paddled in the bright grass, the old farm Warm as a sack about me, feel the cold Winds of the world blowing. The patched gate You left open will never be shut again.
