Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (12 page)

I initially wondered whether Montana's environmental problems and
polarizing disputes might involve selfish behavior on the part of individuals
w
ho advanced their own interests in full knowledge that they were simulta
neously damaging the rest of Montana society. This may be true in some
cases, such as the proposals of some mining executives to carry out cyanide
heap-leach gold extraction despite the abundant evidence of resulting toxicity problems; the transfers of deer and elk between game farms by some
farm owners despite the known resulting risk of spreading chronic wasting
disease; and the illegal introductions of pike into lakes and rivers by some fishermen for their own fishing pleasure, despite the history of such trans
fers having destroyed many other fisheries. Even in these cases, though, I
haven't interviewed individuals involved and don't know whether they
could honestly claim that they thought they had been acting safely. When
ever I have actually been able to talk with Montanans, I have found their ac
tions to be consistent with their values, even if those values clash with my
own or those of other Montanans. That is, for the most part Montana's dif
ficulties cannot be simplistically attributed to selfish evil people knowingly
and reprehensibly profiting at the expense of neighbors. Instead, they in
volve clashes between people whose own particular backgrounds and values cause them to favor policies differing from those favored by people with dif
ferent backgrounds and values. Here are some of the points of view cur
rently competing to shape Montana's future.

One clash is between "old-timers" and "newcomers": i.e., people born in Montana, of families resident in the state for many generations, respecting a
lifestyle and economy traditionally built on the three pillars of mining, log
ging, and agriculture, versus recent arrivals or seasonal visitors. All three of
those economic pillars are now in steep decline in Montana. All but a few
Montana mines are already closed, due to toxic waste problems plus compe
tition from overseas mines with lower costs. Timber sales are now more
than 80% below former peak levels, and most mills and timber businesses
other than specialty firms (notably, log cabin home builders) have closed
because of a combination of factors: increasing public preference for main
taining intact forests, huge costs of forest management and fire suppression,
and competition from logging operations in warmer and wetter climates
with inherent advantages over logging operations in cold dry Montana.
Agriculture, the third pillar, is also dwindling: for instance, of the 400
dairies operating in the Bitterroot Valley in 1964, only nine still exist. The reasons behind Montana agriculture's decline are more complex than those behind the decline in mining and logging, though in the background looms 
the fundamental competitive disadvantage of Montana's cold dry climate
for growing crops and cows as well as trees.

Montana farmers today who continue to farm into their old age do it in part because they love the lifestyle and take great pride in it. As Tim Huls
told me, "It's a wonderful lifestyle to get up before dawn and see the sunrise,
to watch hawks fly overhead, and to see deer jump through your hay field to avoid your haying equipment." Jack Hirschy, a rancher whom I met in 1950
when he was 29 years old, is still working on his ranch today at the age of 83,
while his father Fred rode a horse on his 91st birthday. But "ranching and
farming are hazardous hard work," in the words of Jack's rancher sister Jill. Jack suffered internal injuries and broken ribs from a tractor accident at age
77,
while Fred was almost killed by a falling tree at age 58. Tim Huls added
to his proud comment about the wonderful lifestyle, "Occasionally I get up
at 3
a.m.
and work until 10
p.m.
This isn't a 9 to 5 job. But none of our children will sign up for being a farmer if it is 3
a.m.
to 10
p.m.
every day."

That remark by Tim illustrates one reason for the rise and fall of Mon
tana farming: the lifestyle was highly valued by older generations, but many
farmers' children today have different values. They want jobs that involve
sitting indoors in front of computer screens rather than heaving hay bales,
and taking off evenings and weekends rather than having to milk cows and
harvest hay that don't take evenings and weekends off. They don't want a
life forcing them to do literally back-breaking physical work into their 80s, as all three surviving Hirschy brothers and sisters are still doing.

Steve Powell explained to me, "People used to expect no more of a farm
than to produce enough to feed themselves; today, they want more out of
life than just getting fed; they want to earn enough to send their kids to col
lege." When John Cook was growing up on a farm with his parents, "At din
nertime, my mother was satisfied to go to the orchard and gather asparagus, and as a boy I was satisfied for fun to go hunting and fishing. Now, kids ex
pect fast food and HBO; if their parents don't provide that, they feel de
prived compared to their peers. In my day a young adult expected to be
poor for the next 20 years, and only thereafter, if you were lucky, might you hope to end up more comfortably. Now, young adults expect to be comfort
able early; a kid's first questions about a job are 'What are the pay, the hours,
and the vacations?'" Every Montana farmer whom I know, and who loves
being a farmer, is either very concerned whether any of his/her children will
want to carry on the family farm, or already knows that none of them will.

Economic considerations now make it difficult for farmers to earn a liv
ing at farming, because farm costs have been rising much faster than farm

income. The price that a farmer receives for milk and beef today is virtually
the same as 20 years ago, but costs of fuel, farm machinery, fertilizers, and other farm necessities are higher. Rick Laible gave me an example: "Fifty
years ago, a farmer who wanted to buy a new truck paid for it by selling two cows. Nowadays, a new truck costs around $15,000, but a cow still sells for
only $600, so the farmer would have to sell 25 cows to pay for the truck." That's the logic underlying the following joke that I was told by a Montana
farmer. Question: "What would you do if you were given a million dollars?"
Answer: "I love farming, and I would stay here on my money-losing farm
until I had used up the million dollars!"

Those shrinking profit margins, and increasing competition, have made
the Bitterroot Valley's hundreds of formerly self-supporting small farms
uneconomic. First, the farmers found that they needed additional income
from outside jobs to survive, and then they had to give up the farm because it required too much work on evenings and weekends after the outside job.
For instance, 60 years ago Kathy Vaughn's grandparents supported them
selves on a 40-acre farm, and so Kathy and Pat Vaughn bought their own
40-acre farm in 1977. With six cows, six sheep, a few pigs, hay, Kathy work
ing as a schoolteacher, and Pat as an irrigation system builder, they fed and
raised three children on the farm, but it provided no security or retirement income. After eight years, they sold the farm, moved into town, and all of
their children have now left Montana.

Throughout the U.S., small farms are being squeezed out by large farms,
the only ones able to survive on shrinking profit margins by economies of scale. But in southwestern Montana it is now impossible for small farmers to become large farmers by buying more land, for reasons succinctly ex
plained by Allen Bjergo: "Agriculture in the U.S. is shifting to areas like Iowa
and Nebraska, where no one would live for the fun of it because it isn't
beautiful as in Montana! Here in Montana, people do want to live for the
fun of it, and so they are willing to pay much more for land than agriculture
on the land would support. The Bitterroot is becoming a horse valley.
Horses are economic because, whereas prices for agricultural products de
pend on the value of the food itself and are not unlimited, many people are willing to spend anything for horses that yield no economic benefit."

Land prices in the Bitterroot are now 10 or 20 times higher than a few decades ago. At those prices, carrying costs for a mortgage are far higher
than could be paid by use of the land as a farm. That's the immediate reason why small farmers in the Bitterroot can't survive by expanding, and why the
farms eventually become sold for non-farm use. If old farmers are still liv
ing on their farm when they die, their heirs are forced to sell the land to a
developer for much more than it would fetch by sale to another farmer, in order to pay the estate taxes on the great increase in land value during the
deceased farmer's lifetime. More often, the farm is sold by the old farmers
themselves. Much as they cringe at seeing the land that they have farmed
and loved for 60 years subdivided into 5-acre lots of suburban sprawl, the
rise in land prices lets them sell even a small formerly self-supporting farm
to a developer for a million dollars. They have no other choice to obtain the
money necessary to support themselves after retirement, because they have
not been able to save money as farmers, and because their children don't
want to continue farming anyway. In Rick Laible's words, "For a farmer, his
land is his only pension fund."

What accounts for the enormous jump in land prices? Basically, it's be
cause the Bitterroot's gorgeous environment attracts wealthy newcomers.
The people who buy out old farmers are either those new arrivals them
selves, or else land speculators who will subdivide the farm into lots to sell
to newcomers or to wealthy people already living in the valley. Almost all of
the valley's recent 4%-per-year population growth represents newcomers
moving in from outside the valley, not an excess of births over deaths within
the valley. Seasonal recreational tourism is also on the increase, thanks to
out-of-staters (like Stan Falkow, Lucy Tompkins, and my sons) visiting to
fly-fish, golf, or hunt. As a recent economic analysis commissioned by
Ravalli County explains it, "There should be no mystery as to why so many
residents are coming to the Bitterroot Valley. Simply put, it is a very attrac
tive place to live with its mountains, forests, streams, wildlife, views and
vistas, and relatively mild climate."

The largest group of immigrants consists of "half-retirees" or early re
tirees in the age bracket 45-59, supporting themselves by real estate equity
from their out-of-state homes that they sold, and often also by income that
they continue to earn from their out-of-state businesses or Internet busi
nesses. That is, their sources of support are immune to the economic problems associated with Montana's environment. For example, a Californian who sells a tiny house in California for $500,000 can use that money in
Montana to buy five acres of land with a large house and horses, go fishing,
and support herself in her early retirement with savings and with what remains of her cashed-out California house equity. Hence nearly half of the
recent immigrants to the Bitterroot have been Californians. Because they
are buying Bitterroot land for its beauty and not for the value of the cows or
apples that it could produce, the price that they are willing to offer for 
Bitterroot land bears no relation to what the land would be worth if used for agriculture.

But that huge jump in house prices has created a housing problem for Bitterroot Valley residents who have to support themselves by working. Many end up unable to afford houses, having to live in mobile homes or
recreational vehicles or with their parents, and having to hold two or three jobs simultaneously to support even that spartan lifestyle.

Naturally, these cruel economic facts create antagonism between the old-time residents and the new arrivals from out-of-state, especially rich
out-of-staters who maintain a second, third, or even fourth home in Mon
tana (in addition to their homes in San Francisco, Palm Springs, and Florida), and who visit for just short periods each year in order to fish, hunt, golf, or ski. The old-timers complain about the noisy private jet
planes flying rich visitors in and out of Hamilton Airport within a single
day from their home in San Francisco, just to spend a few hours playing golf
at their fourth home on the Stock Farm. Old-timers resent outsiders buying up large former farms that local residents would also like to buy but can no
longer afford, and on which the locals could formerly get permission to
hunt or fish, but now the new landowners want to hunt or fish there exclu
sively with their rich friends and keep out the locals. Misunderstandings
arise from the clash of values and expectations: for instance, newcomers
want elk to come down from the mountains to ranch areas, because they
look pretty or in order to hunt them, but old-timers don't want elk to come
down and eat their hay.

Rich out-of-state homeowners are careful to stay in Montana for less
than 180 days per year, in order to avoid having to pay Montana income tax
and thereby to contribute to the cost of local government and schools. One
local told me, "Those outsiders have different priorities from us here: what
they want is privacy and expensive isolation, and they don't want to be involved locally except when they take their out-of-state friends to the local
bar to show their friends the rural lifestyle and the quaint local people. They like wildlife, fishing, hunting, and the scenery, but they're not part of the local community." Or, as Emil Erhardt said, "Their attitude is, T came here to
ride my horse, enjoy the mountains, and go fishing: don't bother me with
issues I moved here to get away from.'"

But there's another side to the rich out-of-staters. Emil Erhardt added,

The Stock Farm provides employment with high-paying jobs, it pays a high

fraction of the property taxes for the whole Bitterroot Valley, it pays for its

own security staff, and it doesn't make many demands on the community