Page 4 RAIN Winter/Spring 1991 If international commerce suddenly collapsed, people in Laos would barely notice. The population is scattered about the countryside in small villages that provide their own food. Except for very occasional cheap goods that float into their economy from abroad, they provide for all of their needs. They are dependent on the forests, mountains and lowlands around them. The majority lives in this natural economy, and they live reasonably well. They farm without chemical fertilizers or pesticides, mainly because they cannot afford them. Their per capita cash income is the lowest in Asia, but this hardly reflects their quality of life. Families own all the land they farm on, enough to feed themselves. Land is evenly distributed through ancient social arrangements, with little interference from the government A healthy barter exists among neighboring villages that are independent, basically self-reliant, and run by their inhabitants in a fair, participatory manner. Thailand and France, the colonial rulers of Laos, were never able to force a majority of the Lao to produce exports. This is extraordinary - today, most of the world's peoples live in countries that operate much like colonies. Typically, families are forced to give over farmland to the production of export commodities and luxury crops for wealthier nations. Ecological and cultural destruction, urban migration, malnutrition and starvation are the consequences. Indigenous ethnic groups and their traditional cultures sometimes hang on in the margins of these countries, but in Laos they make up the entire nation. Why is Laos different? Indochinese countries have long fought for their independence. Major powers covet their strategic location on the ocean trade routes between India and China. Laos, however, is landlocked, making its neighbors Thailand, Vietnam and Kampuchea much more attractive to predators. The mountains surrounding Laos are nearly impassMilling corn. able, and the Mekong river, where it flows out of Laos, is filled with rapids. The high expense of shipping from the region left ancient patterns of subsistence farming, along with a rather poor, weak nobility, undisturbed by the world market. Well, nearly undisturbed.
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