I read some books.
One book was about history of rich grain farmers in a part of the region I'm from. It's mainly about the agricultural difference between the have's and have not's. The have not's became the communists and were real close to the Russian communists. The blue coloured filthy rich grain farmers on the rich soil the Oldambt-part of the province of Groningen were doing very well compared to other Dutch farmers.
One of their own sons, Sicco Mansholt studied at different universities and dreamt about an own farm.Not a small one but a farm where size matters. So in the years before the Second Worldwar he was able to get a farm on the bottom of a former sea. At the end of the war the Germans indunated that former sea.Afgtewr the war mr.Monsholt was asked to be minister of argriculture. He accepted that for a term of 2 years. But it lasted almost 25 years. Via his ministry of Agriculture he wanted to make Holland independent on foodimports, not to say an agrigultural export country.
After reaching his goals on national level mr. Mansholt was promoted to the European Community. And there his tariffwalls were not really accepted.
He was the creator of the buttermountains, the milklakes, etcetera, which were created with taxpayers money.
The farmers were happy with stable prices, but the taxpayers felt uncomfortable with the high mountains (of butter) and deep lakes (of milk).
But when he became chairman of the EEC he met Petra Kelly and became a different person.Petra Kelly was a 24 year old American/German girl, one of the founding members of the German green party (Die Grünen). Mansholt thought her ideas were fantastic and neccessary. At the end of his political career the switched his way of thinking and at the end of his life he said that the policies in his career (1948-1973) were in fact wrong policies.
If one dares to state that instead of keeping the dogma's alive, than this politician must have a good heart.
This book is about the rich landlords with the huge grain warehouses were a product of polici of tariffwalls, hard work and having an advantage on either scale, fertility of the soil, know how, research and development and contacts in a pre united Europe.
