New Pioneers - CL.

From Jefferson to Thoreau to Wendell Berry, from '60s communes to facets of the current ""voluntary simplicity,"" agrarianism has been a recurring movement in this country. In this elaborate survey of 1200 families, Canadian scholar Jacob finds that self-reliance and frugality are ways of life, not necessities, among back-to-the-landers. Exact demographic figures are hard enough to come by for members of the mainstream, let alone for those who live out of it, and the best figure Jacob has is that at the end of the '70s some one million people went back to the country. Jacob describes a broad spectrum of secondary motivations and small-farm skills, dividing the new pioneers into country romantics, urban professionals, casuals and affluent professionals, among others, though the inclusion of weekenders and pensioners who dawdle toward their rural-life dreams tends to muddy an otherwise clarifying study. Jacob's profile of typical new pioneers portrays ""well-educated city people who have made a definite break with their urban past."" They are mostly middle-aged people who have spent half their lives in rural areas. They are not all Luddites, as many have portable occupations that depend on computer technology. They value autonomy, freedom, independence, responsibility, cooperation, the gentle, simple life and the tranquillity found in rejecting the ""goods life"" in favor of ""the good life."" Jacob concludes that the new pioneers, in shunning mainstream consumer society, live with an inverse relationship between personal happiness and income. This study will help elucidate the continuing movement away from the frenetic pace and products of capitalistic industrialism. (May)