alberta as corperate and collective, as opposed to americans, et al

1. Prince Rupert's Land, some of BC, some of Manitoba, all of Yukon, NWT, Alberta, Sask.

2. Worked together, employees for one larger corporation, not individual

3. for most of it's history, until the 1860s, no farming at all allowed by the HBC, with the possible exception of some subsistence farming.

4. Ranchers not farrmers

5. and the idea of family on ranches and the like

6. With the rise of the Railroad, the need to populate this land raised a need to export farmers, et al

7. the canadian government imported these groups in large clumps (i.e ukranians, southern germans, poles, incelandics etc)

8. all of these factors would suggest that the history of western canada would feel more comfortable with a wide variety of practices.

• prince rupert land, agrian conflict, multi culti

  1. Western Canada was then born mulit-cultural

  2. b/w Prince Rupert, the Railways, and the RCMP it lacked the violent manifest destiny that marked the American history of the west

  3. Would explain why people who viewed the dangers of perssucation on their homeland for a variety of unusal theological practices would be given a safe harbour in alberta (i.e. The Mennoites in 18(6?) for the pacifism, the Hutterites in 1878, and again in 1918 for t heir pacifism and collectivism, the LDS in 1878 for their idea of united order and polygymy, the dukhabors in the late 19^th century for siimilar reasons.

• variety of collective expriments in farming, et al, that combined political and religious instinctls

  1. the collective exxpriments in agricultural practice by these groups were grounded in a theological practice that was explicitly theology--, ie:the lds:
     An organization through which the Saints in the early days of the restored Church sought to live the law of consecration. Individuals shared property, goods, and profits, receiving these things according to their wants and needs (D&C 51: 3; 78: 1-15; 104).
     In your temporal things you shall be equal, D&C 70: 14. The Saints were to be organized to be equal in all things, D&C 78: 3-11 (D&C 82: 17-20). The Lord gave unto the united order a revelation and a commandment, D&C 92: 1. John Johnson should become a member of the united order, D&C 96: 6-9. The Lord gave general instructions for operating the united order, D&C 104. My people are not united according to the union required by the celestial kingdom, D&C 105: 1-13.

  2. The hutterites use of acts
     Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
     
     And laid them down at the apostles' feet; and the distribution was made every man according to as he had need.

  3. The dukabhors treated their collectiveiation in Saskatchewan communities as the direct message of Peter A Vergtin

  4. also use of language that would suggest that thsese places were the literal gifts of God—Zion in the LDS, Heaven on Earth in the words of Vergtin, the Hutterite seperation of English and Hutterisch worlds, etc

• canada as a better fit for these groups then other places

  1. The Laws against polygymy occured 10 years later, and were less enforced in Western Canada

  2. The violent supression of LDS culture was mostly, if not an exclusively american phenom

  3. the 1895 protest in russia, where the dukabhors burned all of their guns Nicholas II putsch

  4. 1918 Hutterites forced off their land, and into southern alberta/manitoba from the Dakotas due to Anti German sentiment.

• canada as a refuge for alt theologies, including lds, duhkabors, mennoties, hutterites, et al

  1. few places that existed for places of collective action did not last more then a few years in other places (i.e burnt over distrct lasted about 15 years in upstate new y ork, pentacostal revivals in LA and Kansas lasted about 5)

  2. Though the LDS does not have collectivism any more, the united order is viewed as part of how the church exists, the Desert Ranch near Lethbridge, and Orchards/Canneries near Penctin still provide food for an internal system of food banks/welfare offices called bishops store houses

  3. Bountiful

  4. Hutterites, unique legal challenges, including legislature in 1972 that tried to break apart collective farms—Desert Ranch used as a example to allow for the continued legal presence of their farms: The Hutterites have fought the Federal government in several tax cases, but since the 1970s, relationships between the Hutterites and the local population have improved considerably, and the Alberta government has strongly supported their rights as a religious community. But there has been some residual resentment and resistance against them. In 2000, the MLA from Little Bow in southern Alberta introduced—unsuccessfully—a private bill which would make it illegal for anyone to own in excess of 15 per cent of the total amount of arable farmland in any municipal district or county. At that time, a spokesman for the Hutterites defended their colonies saying that they were family farms just like everyone else's; the colonies just happened to have more families living on them. Each colony is, after all, a separate legal identity. It was pointed out that in Warner County—the county with the largest Hutterite holdings—59,792 hectares or 13.5% was owned by the Hutterites in 2000, but the Mormon Church owned the 41,600 hectare Desert Ranch, by far the largest Alberta farm corporation, and no complaints have been made about this fact. (Mennoite Central Committee)

• tie this to ethnic and social positions from the east

  1. lack of a collective history in ontatrio, etc

  2. with the possible exception of the Mennonites in southern Ontario, but those are break off sects from Manitoba, so an example of the east from west—and the Amish, who have impt seperations from the Hutterites, and technology. et. Al

• the falling apart of this collectivism

  1. Problems with lost boys and bountiful

  2. Hutterites and the 9^th Grade eduaction, role of women, dowries, and the like

  3. if its a good idea that the church owns that much land, regardless of its use,

  4. aryan nations

• soultions for maintaining balance

1. curb the obvious excesses

2. the western, or the alberrtan attitude is to allow for a large amount before it is consdiered excess

3. a theological/political reworking of hippocratic oath—first do no harm, if it is not doing harm, leave it the hell alone

• political lessons for today

  1. awareness of the multplicity of xian voices

  2. awareness that canada has always been a much looser federation then we imagine it to be

  3. theological allowance for an understanding of our practices as ones that are inter-realted, away from chairty models and towards a organic web of inter connected justice

  4. thin line b/w politics and religion

  5. goats.