[Rumil]

Hi Might,

the problem for me with the utopian vision of the Shire is that the Red Book etc were written by gentle-hobbits as you might say. Bilbo and Frodo were independently wealthy, Pippin and Merry were scions of the most poweful families of the Shire, only Sam really represents the ordinary hobbit.

Imagine a Victorian gentleman who lives in the countryside, he might describe his life in similar terms to those used in the Shire, all about family, community, good fellowship etc. Naturally he'd know there were worse places, the coal-mining towns, bleak mills and city rookeries, but he might overlook the poverty of the rural folk.

I think that any agricultural society requires the majority of people to work on the land, which was hard back-breaking work before machinery was available. Nowadays we see one guy with a combine harvester doing what would have taken hundreds of people to do in the old days. If the harvest failed people would starve, simple as that, (like the Fell Winter in the Shire), unless you had money or goods put by to see you through the hard times, only possible if you earned well! Hobbits seem good at helping each other out, but I doubt eveyone was as generous as the Bagginses (eg Sackville-Bagginses!)

The Gaffer comes to mind with his waistcoat, sack of spuds and a new spade. He's more of a typical hobbit, with 'local' ways and mistrust of outsiders, than Bilbo!

The 'outsider' hobbits always fascinated me. Were they adventurers or outcasts, perhaps a little of both!

So not utopia, just a sleepy rural land with, to be fair, more of the good things and fewer of the bad things, than a typical rural human community before the machine age.