[HN Gopher] The Moral Economy of the Shire
___________________________________________________________________
The Moral Economy of the Shire
Author : thecosas
Score : 68 points
Date : 2024-06-03 18:57 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (nathangoldwag.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (nathangoldwag.wordpress.com)
| neaden wrote:
| I feel like this article misses something obvious, which is that
| Hobbits aren't humans and the world of LotR includes people doing
| things that we would describe as magical. Hobbits for instance
| have a semi-magical ability to hide by how it's described in the
| books. If their society seems unrealistic for humans with
| medieval technology, I think that just shows us that Hobbits are
| fundamentally different from humans. The apparent almost total
| lack of Hobbit on Hobbit violence in the book also shows that
| Hobbits are just psychologically different from humans.
| skybrian wrote:
| Sure, it's fantasy and you could stop there. But the story
| often treats them as little people in a medieval setting and I
| think it wouldn't be enjoyable without that point of reference.
| So it's worth making comparisons.
| bee_rider wrote:
| We also see, in the Amazon series, a group of apparently
| hunter-gatherer hobbits with iron and textiles.
|
| The conclusion I come to is that Hobbits magic up manufactured
| goods from the idealized English countryside of Tolkien's
| imagination. If you have some English ancestors who lost a pot,
| it time-slipped into Middle Earth. Presumably they are where
| the socks go. Ever notice an excess of old keys around the
| house? Hobbits need boxes!
| prerok wrote:
| In the Amazon series are proto-Hobbits, before they settled
| down. So, they had a different society from the ones we read
| about in the books.
|
| But, yeah, the time travelling pots and socks must be how it
| worked :) Kind of like Skynet in the future compiling our C++
| code :)
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| Tolkien is hardly responsible for the Amazon writers'
| unwillingness to think about the logic of the setting and
| abide by it.
| porknubbins wrote:
| Hobbits are pretty clearly intended to represent a kind of
| idealized English rural life. There would be little reason to
| for humans or hobbits to commit violence living in small
| villages or other kinship based settlements where everyone
| would know everyone. Smeagol killed for the ring just after
| discovering it so Hobbits are capable of violence but their way
| of life does not normally call for it. Also Hobbits are in no
| way innocent as they do pranks and commit petty theft from the
| farmer.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Most violence is committed between people that know each
| other rather than between strangers.
| adamrezich wrote:
| This aphorism does not take warfare into account.
| rexpop wrote:
| Aphorism? There is substantial evidence supporting the
| statement that most violence is committed by people who
| know each other rather than by strangers. Here are some
| key findings from various sources:
|
| - _Sexual Violence_ : According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse &
| Incest National Network), the majority of sexual abuse
| cases reported to law enforcement show that 93% of
| juvenile victims knew the perpetrator: 59% were
| acquaintances, 34% were family members, and only 7% were
| strangers1.
|
| - _General Violence_ : Data from the National Crime
| Victimization Survey (NCVS) indicates that less than half
| of all violent crimes were committed by total strangers.
| A significant portion of violent crimes were committed by
| acquaintances, friends, and relatives5.
|
| - _Homicide_ : In 2004, only 23% of murders were
| committed by strangers, highlighting that a larger
| percentage of homicides occur between individuals who
| know each other4.
|
| These statistics demonstrate that violence is more likely
| to occur within known social circles rather than between
| strangers. It's important to note that these findings are
| based on reported cases and surveys, which can have
| limitations, but they provide a general understanding of
| the patterns of violence.
|
| Source: Conversation with Copilot, 6/3/2024 (1)
| Perpetrators of Sexual Violence: Statistics | RAINN.
| https://www.rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-
| violenc.... (2) Violent Crime by Strangers and
| Nonstrangers - Bureau of Justice Statistics.
| https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/vcsn.pdf. (3)
| VIOLENCE BETWEEN LOVERS, STRANGERS, AND FRIENDS. https://
| journals.library.wustl.edu/lawreview/article/6708/ga....
| (4) Statistics In-Depth - National Sexual Violence
| Resource Center.
| https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics/statistics-depth. (5)
| STRANGER AND ACQUAINTANCE RAPE: Are There ... -
| University of Arizona.
| https://experts.arizona.edu/en/publications/stranger-and-
| acq....
| jvanderbot wrote:
| "Aphorism" does not imply falsehood or that it is not
| supported by evidence. Actually, it implies a generally-
| known _truth_.
|
| Indeed those citations exclude war.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| Does this account for the fact that violence and murder
| committed by strangers is less likely to be solved?
| neaden wrote:
| I mean, Medieval English villages had violence, we have court
| records of it. People got drunk and got in fights, threatened
| to burn a neighbors house down, and all sorts of other
| reasons why people turn to violence that Hobbits seem to do
| only under extreme circumstances, like being under the
| influence of The One Ring as you point out.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| it is surprising to find times of no violence, not times of
| violence. The history of the British Isles is filled with
| raiders and tribal conflicts, armies and their Lords.
| Peasants lived on the lands of their masters, while traders
| and pirates roamed.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I do wonder, just a little, if rather than fantasy this touches
| on the idea that a homogeneous people in w well-ordered society
| with a functioning economy might not commit much violence among
| themselves. If such were the idea being espoused, then whether
| or not the idea was valid, it would be difficult to talk about
| openly in our current political climate. If it could be shown
| to be invalid for whatever reason, then the idea might be
| attacked that way, but it'd be better still if it could just be
| dismissed as childish drivel.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| It'a a priori obvious that this is valid, but politics,
| propaganda etc do not run for the benefit of the common man.
| jjk166 wrote:
| Also I imagine a Hobbit's calorie requirements are
| substantially lower than a man 3 times their size. They're no
| less intelligent (indeed they are shown to be particularly
| clever), they have access to draft animals and basic machines,
| so their agricultural productivity is likely still high. This
| should allow for substantially greater surpluses even before we
| invoke magic.
| froidpink wrote:
| Yeah but also what about second breakfast
| hprotagonist wrote:
| The other obvious answer is that the Shire is distributist in its
| economy.
| skybrian wrote:
| How do you mean?
| 7thaccount wrote:
| Look up distributivism. Catholics like Chesterton advocated
| for it as something of a middle ground between the abuses of
| capitalism and communism after the Pope write an encyclical
| on the tragedy of workers. They recognized both capitalism
| and communism as being abusive. Tolkien would have been aware
| of the theory I believe and it could have influenced him.
|
| Distributivist thinkers promote a more localized system of
| government with a strong community where the ultimate goal
| isn't milking out all value (capitalism).
|
| One of my issues with distributivism is I'm not sure if we'd
| have the technological advancements under such a system (your
| local community isn't going to design and manufacture an Xbox
| or advanced medical equipment). It does sound more equitable
| on paper though.
|
| https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/11/distributism-.
| ..
| orwin wrote:
| That sounds a lot like anarchist communism, what are the
| difference?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| metaphysics, for a start. _Rerum Novarum_ is fascinating
| reading.
|
| They're nonexclusive options, though: dorothy day, for
| example, was comfortable in both camps (as much as she
| was comfortable in a camp at all)
| 7thaccount wrote:
| There are still strong property rights and ownership of
| the economy should be more distributed, but they don't
| advocate for some elite government entity to come scoop
| up everything and decide who gets what or outlaw people
| from owning land and property.
|
| Unlike capitalism, instead of a factory making some kind
| of widget or product (example: ice cream) that makes one
| individual very rich and provides a low salary to a
| hundred workers, you'd have thousands of people across
| the country doing all kinds of jobs like that and
| hopefully making a living wage. Unlike communism, you
| don't have a fully centralized power dictating all
| aspects of life.
|
| I'm no expert on this theory though and it isn't perfect.
| Such a society probably doesn't build an iPhone...maybe
| that is the point haha. Or maybe it can, but I'm guessing
| technological advancements and discoveries would take
| longer with less efficiency and specialization.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Under capitalism, as soon as some business owner gets
| rich, everybody else goes into business to compete with
| him. This drives up the demand for labor and hence wages.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _one of my issues with distributivism is I 'm not sure if
| we'd have the technological advancements under such a
| system_
|
| What kills these systems is economies of scale.
|
| You're citing one example, those in R&D, but it crops up as
| a handicap across production. The net result is such a
| society could really only exist if protected by a great
| power. (As we see with the Hobbits and Rangers.) And at
| that point, we're splitting hairs between a new economic
| system and benevolent feudalism.
| skybrian wrote:
| Economies of scale become important when there are a lot
| of non-farmers to feed and farm labor becomes scarce.
| When labor is cheap and land is expensive, getting more
| food per acre is more important.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Economies of scale become important when there are a
| lot of non-farmers to feed and farm labor becomes scarce_
|
| Economies of scale are fundamental. If 100% of your
| labour pool is farming, you're going to get invaded.
| 7thaccount wrote:
| I thought of the economies of scale issue, but didn't add
| it. I definitely agree it's an issue unless Hobbits are
| just really keen on not accepting cheap imports from
| abroad. I'd say it's also a problem globally if your
| country adopted such a system, but an enemy didn't and
| overcame your country's ability to defend itself. It's
| not that soldiers don't exist in such an economy, but
| that I don't think you'd be able to be competitive from a
| logistics standpoint and thus an easy target. For
| example, they're producing tanks and planes in a factory,
| while your country has a lot of rural blacksmiths.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| > The net result is such a society could really only
| exist if protected by a great power.
|
| reminds me a bit of Jim Corbett's "Goatwalking".
| skybrian wrote:
| I read a book review [1] that discussed how land reform,
| specifically distributing land to small farmers, seems to
| be a reason why some Asian countries did well. This is
| about improving agricultural productivity. That's an
| earlier stage before industrialization, but does help make
| it possible.
|
| The US could be seen as another example of the benefits of
| cheap or free land being widely available to small farmers,
| even though it didn't happen through land reform.
|
| Tolkien wasn't writing about how to encourage economic
| growth, though. Rather the opposite.
|
| [1] https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/book-review-how-asia-
| works
| WalterBright wrote:
| Colonial America set up a system whereby colonists could
| lay claim to a piece of unused land, and if they farmed
| it for a while then they received ownership of it.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _One of my issues with distributivism is I 'm not sure if
| we'd have the technological advancements under such a
| system _
|
| I'd take the simpler life, social harmony, leisure,
| equality and the rest, over the rat race with its
| technological advancements.
| WalterBright wrote:
| You're free to start such a commune. They're not illegal.
| People start them up all the time in the US.
|
| The trouble is, they don't work. The Woodstock commune
| lasted 3 days, and the people left after turning the
| fields into a sewage farm. The Summer of Love in San
| Francisco lasted 3 months or so. There are lots of
| others.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| The Bruderhof communities, the Amish, and many of the
| other peace churches are largely sustainable examples of
| communities which seem quite self sustaining in this
| vein.
|
| Monastic communities have operated this way, to varying
| degrees, for millennia.
|
| To a certain extent, even the tenured academic system
| reflects this sort of dynamic -- and came from the same
| roots.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The Amish communities are not communes. The Bruderhof has
| many communes, with a total of 2900 members worldwide.
| Doesn't sound very successful. Monastic communities and
| academic communities seem to survive on external
| donations.
|
| "The Bruderhof run a variety of businesses that provide
| income to run their communities and provide common work
| for the members who almost all work onsite."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruderhof_Communities
|
| Is it really a commune if they're running a capitalist
| business? Or is it more of a cooperative?
| hprotagonist wrote:
| tolkien saw it as the person-centric economy, and advocated
| for it. it's easy enough to see the idea reflected into the
| Shire, itself kind of an idyll of what a good society was
| like.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
| vundercind wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributism
|
| I assume it's a reference to how _most_ hobbits seem to hold
| and manage productive land, or at least to be attached to a
| family that does.
|
| (I'd not made the connection to distributism, but also get a
| similar sense of how their society is structured, just from
| reading The Hobbit and LOTR--but, this may be a biased
| perspective because we're hanging around with some of the
| richest Hobbits that there are)
| markus_zhang wrote:
| I guess the Shire is probably small enough to maintain such
| a political structure. J.R.R.Tolkein does model it with an
| ideal English countryside in mind, in which people like
| Bilbo Barkins, who are wise, participate in the politics of
| the community.
| svieira wrote:
| This is the right answer. The author calls it out subtly too:
|
| > the gap between the lower gentry and upper yeomanry isn't
| very large, and most families are able to support themselves
| with only minimal assistance.
|
| For those who want to fall down the rabbit hole see:
|
| 1. The Servile State by Hilaire Belloc:
| https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/64882 2.
| https://distributistreview.com/archive/an-introduction-to-di...
| hatthew wrote:
| This article is interesting, but feels like a bit of a stretch to
| me, particularly when making assertions as bold as "I suspect the
| only reason it's not spelled out is because Tolkien assumed any
| reader would understand that intuitively." I am not a master of
| the LotR lore, but my assumption when reading the books years ago
| was that Tolkien wanted an idyllic utopian society of rural
| leisure, and didn't necessarily work out a _fully_ realistic plan
| for how such a society could be sustainable long-term in the real
| world with real humans. LotR is a fantasy world, and such worlds
| are filled with fantasies: imaginary things that are unrealistic
| and don 't need to be physically feasible.
| jerf wrote:
| Even in-universe the Hobbits aren't fully "realistic"; they are
| supported by the Rangers keeping the many and sundry threats of
| Middle Earth off of their borders. Without that protection the
| whole system actually fell apart even in-universe. There's not
| a lot places in the real history of the real world where a
| society had no defense burden, and they don't tend to be long-
| term stable either.
| dylan604 wrote:
| At some point, suspension of disbelief is the expected behavior
| of the reader. Nobody would want to read a fantasy about
| dwarfs, hobbits, elves, and dragons if they first had to get
| through a complete history of the financial systems within the
| fantasy world. Most people can't make it through all of the
| language system within the tomes that Tolkien did include.
|
| Expecting all of the details to work in a _FANTASY_ story is
| just ludicrous. This is why a lot of people that are not fans
| shy away from fans having these types of conversations.
| hosh wrote:
| On the other hand, Tolkien spent his time creating realistic
| languages and lore to go with that, above and beyond many
| fantasy writers.
|
| On the gripping hand, having read through various histories,
| it's nuts how often historians get things mixed up or wrong,
| or obsolete with emerging evidence. Our histories, even
| evidence-based, tells a story of our past, and no narrative
| can fully describe what happened.
| ben_w wrote:
| > On the gripping hand, having read through various
| histories, it's nuts how often historians get things mixed
| up or wrong, or obsolete with emerging evidence. Our
| histories, even evidence-based, tells a story of our past,
| and no narrative can fully describe what happened.
|
| Indeed; the similarity of "history" and "story" is no mere
| coincidence, they share a root. And in German, both are the
| same word: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Geschicht
| jltsiren wrote:
| Tolkien himself had a different point of view. In his
| opinion, if suspension of disbelief becomes necessary, it's a
| sign that the writer has failed. He preferred "secondary
| belief" instead. The idea was that the reader should remain
| immersed in the fictional world, confident that the world
| works consistently according to its internal logic. That the
| logic is there, even if the reader doesn't know it, and that
| the writer doesn't break it for their own convenience.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I lost all interest in Harry Potter when he was hanging
| outside a window, helpless. Then, his buddy appears with a
| flying car to rescue him.
|
| I'm not interested in such lazy writing.
| dylan604 wrote:
| That's like complaining that Harry was stuck but _magic_
| happened to get him out of a situation. That 's kind of
| like the entire point of the series
| WalterBright wrote:
| Making up random arbitrary things whenever needed to get
| out of a fix is just bad storytelling.
|
| One of the great things about LOTR is the ring is
| ascribed various powers, and then the consequences of
| that play out. The rules within its world are consistent.
|
| HP has no consistency.
|
| Probably why I also prefer hard scifi - it must follow
| the known rules of physics, or at least have plausible
| extensions.
|
| I liked GoT a lot as it was driven by human decisions and
| foibles. But it slowly devolved into convenient magic
| absurdities, like resurrecting dead people, and I lost
| interest.
| WalterBright wrote:
| In the Hobbit movie, Smaug's gold hoard was so vast that if
| it actually went into circulation, gold would be cheaper than
| iron. The citizens would be making roof tiles and plumbing
| out of it.
|
| (Although iron ore is plentiful, it is expensive to refine
| and smelt.)
|
| Even the relatively few Spanish gold ships hauling gold to
| the Old World resulted in massive inflation, not wealth.
| astrange wrote:
| > Nobody would want to read a fantasy about dwarfs, hobbits,
| elves, and dragons if they first had to get through a
| complete history of the financial systems within the fantasy
| world.
|
| Japanese fantasy works on a system where you look at whatever
| novel is currently popular, copy every surface/world detail
| from it, then add exactly one thing you wanted it to be all
| along and just talk about all the time. It's basically done
| for SEO reasons, but it means you can save all the setup time
| if every story is in the same medieval isekai that vaguely
| feels like Dragon Quest.
|
| So yes, there are stories that are just about forex
| speculation with elves or whatever. Spice and Wolf is one.
| entuno wrote:
| This is something that varied a lot in Tolkien's writing
| throughout his life.
|
| When he wrote The Hobbit, he was very much writing a fairy
| tale. So there was very little consideration for things
| economics and agriculture because it wasn't that type of story,
| and those types of things aren't important in fairy tales. And
| when he started to write the early drafts of The Lord of the
| Rings, he was still very much in that mode - it was intended to
| be a direct sequel to The Hobbit and the opening chapters have
| that much more light hearted feel to them.
|
| But the story grew in the telling, and by the time he reached
| the end of of The Lord of the Rings he was far more invested in
| realism and consistency within the world - so was paying a lot
| more attention to this type of thing (including going back and
| editing and rewriting sections multiple times).
|
| This is also very evident in his other writings. The first
| drafts of what would become The Silmarillion were very much
| more fantastical and mythic - we got stories of a flat world
| and very brief and vague descriptions of the Elves awaking
| under the stars before the Sun and Moon were made, and marching
| across the land. The versions of that same story he wrote
| towards the end of his life had a round world, and carefully
| planning out of the Elvish aging and reproductive cycles
| throughout the march, to work out how many generations would be
| needed for there to be a suitably large host.
| causality0 wrote:
| Didn't the world start as flat and then Eru made it round to
| keep Aman away from mortal eyes, being reachable only by
| those who could see the "straight path" like the elves?
| entuno wrote:
| In The Lord of the Rings and the published Silmarillion
| that's correct. But in some of the later drafts Tolkien
| wrote he moved away from that towards a story where the
| world had always been a sphere (often called the
| "roundworld" versions), seemingly in an attempt to add more
| realism to the story.
|
| The "flat world made round" was recast as a somewhat
| primitive Mannish myth (as a way to recon the earlier
| writings).
| causality0 wrote:
| I'm pretty glad that didn't make it into the official
| canon. The evolution of the world is one of the most
| fascinating things about the legendarium. Imagine living
| during the age of the lamps.
| popalchemist wrote:
| Yes, the author has made a category error.
| bazoom42 wrote:
| The Shire is idylic but not exactly utopian or paradisic.
| Clearly most people have to work - they are farmers, gardeners,
| millers etc. There is a clear social hierachy but nobody is
| exploited.
| hatthew wrote:
| Perhaps the hobbits enjoy a bit of work. Perhaps a society
| need not be perfect to count as a utopia. Perhaps I used the
| wrong word. Hopefully my meaning was clear enough regardless.
| astrange wrote:
| I don't think it's a stretch. I think the idea that LoTR is
| highly idealized/idyllic is an interpretation made up by people
| who didn't notice how carefully it's written and thought he
| left it out!
|
| Similarly, a lot of later grimdarker fantasy stories try to be
| "Tolkein but with realistic tax systems and warfare", so
| something like ASoIaF tries to talk about those things more,
| but then messes up the actual details and keeps them
| inconsistent. But if you follow the analyses on
| https://acoup.blog/author/aimedtact/, the battles in LoTR are
| very carefully thought out and realistic (based on Tolkein's
| personal experience) and Gondor's feudalist system is also
| pretty realistic (based on his academic expertise). He just
| talked about the details less.
|
| (I further claim that the reason LoTR doesn't have many women
| isn't because he forgot about them, it's because they're doing
| household labor and Frodo doesn't encounter them due to being
| something between a celibate priest and gay.)
| bulbosaur123 wrote:
| Real life equivalent to Shire is essentially Island of Sark:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sark
| thecosas wrote:
| This wikipedia page is a treasure trove of rabbit holes. Thank
| you!
| rhelz wrote:
| As an American, I had to read LOTR about 5 times before I started
| to perceive the class-based nature of the world of Middle Earth.
| Class here is not as in-your-face as it is in Great Briton.
|
| What's fascinating to me is that this sort of world/economy/way-
| of-life is the backdrop of virtually _every_ fairy tail, fantasy
| novel, or even video game (e.g. World of Warcraft). For some
| reason, this kind of world--which in actuality is on of the most
| rigid and with the least opportunities--is nevertheless the world
| which, in our imaginations, is the one most brimming with
| possibilities and the most potential for adventure.
|
| Why this kind of world? When I asked my father that question, he
| pointed out that fairy tails often start with brothers "setting
| out to seek their fortune" and invariably have the youngest
| brother coming out on top. The reason was the laws of
| primogeniture--the oldest son inherits everything, so in every
| generation, all of the younger sons had to do just that--go out
| and see if they could make something happen, because despite
| their privileged upbringing, they were going to get dumped out
| into the wide world to fend for themselves.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| I enjoyed the author's counterfactual description of the
| "Sauronic Empire" [1] that was established following Sauron's
| victory at the end of the third age.
|
| https://nathangoldwag.wordpress.com/2024/02/10/the-sauronic-...
| cess11 wrote:
| Tolkien, the catholic anarchist, made his utopian village into
| something feudal with a 'landed gentry'?
|
| I suspect this person is reading things into these simulations of
| folklore that are unlikely to have a foundation in the author.
|
| https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/j-r-r-tolkien-from-a...
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The implication in both books and movies is that most Hobbits
| spent their time either farming or enjoying leisure time, but
| this makes little sense, when one considers what we know about
| premodern agriculture and what little of life and culture in the
| Shire._
|
| That's not even wrong. Medieval peasants in certain places like
| Italy had like half the year off as public holidays. And those of
| us old and rural enough to have seen pre-modern life in rural
| villages, known there was still a lot of leisure time going
| around. As for domestic chores, those were a couple of hours at
| max, intermingled with other work and leisure - and having the
| grandparents living close by meant more hands for helping with
| cooking, kids, and so on.
|
| In those villages there was (and still is, a little less so, but
| compared to modern city life orders of magnitude more) leisure
| time, people hang in the public square and cafes for hours on
| end, and it's not that different today. People from the city are
| often surprised like "wtf, is anybody working here?".
| WalterBright wrote:
| I have serious doubts about such leisure time. For example,
| cooking with a fireplace is an all-day affair as it requires
| constant monitoring and a constant supply of wood. Next, making
| cloth and sewing it was a major time sink. The evidence for
| that was how valuable cloth was, such that it was recycled
| endlessly until it was more or less dust. Third, children were
| put to work in the fields as soon as they could walk. This does
| not suggest a surfeit of labor. Fourth, there was the daily
| feeding and maintenance of the animals. Fifth, have you ever
| tried sawing a plank with a handsaw? Building a house and a
| barn had to be a massive amount of hand work.
|
| Bone evidence from American colonist farmers is that they
| worked physically very hard, and did not live to be old.
| Getting enough food was a constant problem. They didn't grow
| very tall.
| samth wrote:
| This is just entirely false. As a counterpoint, I recommend
| this passage about the washing in the Texas Hill County.
| https://x.com/trainallday247/status/1796732464838160650
| efitz wrote:
| The reason that there is no discussion of the economics of the
| Shire in LOTR is because it's not relevant to the story and the
| land and the people are all fictional. It doesn't _have_ to work.
|
| Tolkien was setting up a dichotomy between the idyllic, paradise-
| like shire where everyone lives in harmony with nature and has
| lots of leisure time and no one wants of necessities and everyone
| gets along , etc, is to set up a counterpoint vs
| industrialization and ugliness and capitalism etc. it's just a
| big old trope. Just like sets in a play, it's two-dimensional.
| It's also a backdrop setting up an "innocence lost" storyline for
| the protagonists.
|
| The bottom line is that it's a utopia and utopias only exist in
| stories; real people are fallible and have many motivations, some
| of which are not noble, and so such a place can't exist.
| WalterBright wrote:
| It's not that much different from the Star Trek Utopian world
| run by a benevolent dictator and his selfless incorruptible
| staff.
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