The myth of the free market assumes some parity among the horsetraders. In olden times, there were proscriptions against usury that were in effect from the church, when usury was against the law. Not only usury, but there was a level short of usury which was considered, if not a legal matter, at least an ecclesiastical matter, and people would be warned against the un-Christian nature of “sharp practices.” Sharp practices included the kind of farming mentality that confused husbandry with being sure to plant the fruit trees on the side of the property close to the fence, so the shade would fall on your neighbor’s property and the fruit would fall on your own.

But the Bible taught that the first two rows along the edge of the road were dedicated to passing travelers who in those days of non-frozen or concentrated foods, could not possibly carry enough food for a very long journey, and probably didn’t have any actual money on their persons as they traveled.

These were cultural norms. Some may say that is naive and it was easier then, and there are more people now and times are harder. But two rows alongside the field of a giant complicated farm is virtually insignificant. There are huge quantities of food produced and harvested these days, but two rows could still be done without damage to the industry. It is merely that sharp practices have become “normal”, which is to say not right or acceptable, but done by so many people that the curve describing the frequency of that action is near the norm. — Excerpted from Rendered Infamous, by Stephen Gaskin.

Stephen standing by Caravan buses.

Three decades after first publication, we’ve published a revised and annotated edition of Caravan. The book follows me and the Caravan of 50 school buses flowing out of Monday Night Class, as we travel around the United States on a speaking tour arranged by preachers who wanted me to tell them what this hippy thing was all about.

This new edition adds background to the speaking engagements, by sharing the road stories, the scenes behind the scenes—cowboys and cops, birthings and poop, peyote tea and White House security guards. There are dozens of great photos.

Here’s an excerpt I hope you enjoy.

We’re pretty durable, and we need to bump up against the universe a little bit to find out where it’s at. Also we need to bump up against each other a little bit. We shouldn’t think that we’re so fragile that we can’t lean on each other a little bit and interact kind of heavy and still be friends.

Getting away from the small village idea has done a funny thing to the whole country, because in a small village, if a fellow turns up obnoxious one day he’s still going to be living there the next day, and he’s either going to have to straighten up or nobody’s going to talk to him anymore or something. He’s going to get cooled.

But here in the city you can get obnoxious and move to another neighborhood, and get obnoxious and move to another neighborhood … and people get the idea that if you’re going to have to come on heavy to somebody to make them straighten up that they might not like you anymore, and they might move, and you’d never see them again or something. But we should all think that we’re all good enough friends—we’re all kind of like cousins anyway, we’re all the same kind of monkey—that we can say, “Hey, man, how about it,” once in a while, and the other fellow isn’t necessarily going to say, “Well I’m going to go home.”

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