There is no doubt that, if shipments of food stopped right now, the mountains of food in the grocery stores would not even last two days. No matter how badly the residents of the cities want to stay there, no matter how well they hunker down, no matter how many new and wonderful machines they make, no matter how rare the arts they display, no matter how far they pursue abstruse learning, they cannot do a thing on an empty belly, so they will all abandon the cities, crying, and go to the country in search of food. Thus the cities will become ghost towns. Cutting off the supply of food is, at the distribution stage, known as shipping refusal. If the farming cooperatives would find the bravery to do this, cutting off the food supply would not be impossible. But sad to say, the co-op is on the side of the city; it is the city itself. Even if the heavens and the earth reversed themselves, it is doubtful that the co-op would ever stand with the farmers. The co-op makes it look as though it is the ally of the farmers, but this is a mere gesture. Anyone will tell you that, if there were to be a rice shortage, the co-op, which is the wicked agent for the city's plundering, would never let the city starve, even if it had to scratch together every last grain of the farmers' rice stocks. So much for the co-op. There is no need to discuss the traders and the wholesalers. Shipping refusal would, ultimately, end in total failure. The Mammonistic Farmers Cannot Become Revolutionaries Would it be possible, then, for the farmers to refuse to sell? This would not be impossible if the farmers would not fear repression, if they would steadfastly refuse to supply the city with food even if the military came with their guns, and there was a little bloodshed. The city can live a bit longer by importing food (the president of Sony can take charge when the time comes), but that cannot be helped. How long the city can keep itself alive depends upon the skill of the president. The real problem, as I see it, is that among the farmers there are quite a few mammonists who have for some time been nursed along by the money economic system. There are without a doubt great numbers of traitors. If there are many farmers who, taking advantage of a food shortage, sell food for high prices in secret deals, any efforts to stop the sale of food to the city are bound to end in failure. The "farmer power" of those farmers who gird their loins and go into Tokyo to demonstrate is actually greed power. It is their greed which gives the city a place into which it can dig its claws. The city then rips off great amounts of food for a mere pittance (or for loans).