Unemployment sends more people back-to-the-land

The current back-to-land movement might succeed where the communal movements of the 1960s and 1970s sometimes failed. One of the more widely covered social experiments by the media was a group of hippies lead by ex-marine Stephen Gaskin who formed "The Farm" in Tennessee. (I understand it still exists but with few original members).

Today, unlike the hippies who were of similar age, culture, and sought to remake society by using principals of love and peace, increasing unemployment is sending people with much more varied backgrounds back-to-the-land.

Some who have families with farms, or live on a property with a little extra land, or like me, who deferred dreams of independence on the in the 1970s to join the rat race, now find living a simpler life more attractive – especially if they have a predisposition to the sustainable food movements, or have a green mentality.

Because people are moving back-to-the-land for such varied reasons, more may opt to continue the lifestyle even after the economy improves. People like author Gene Logsdon have been writing about independence from the land for decades, so really this isn't a new movement as much as now there's a new urgency for some to reexamine their lives.

Logsdon wrote that if you are not getting enough time in the hammock, then you are not doing it right. For many, returning to a 9-5 job in their 50s or 60s just isn't going to give them the time they want in the hammock.