I think it's completely legitimate to ask, who benefits from denigrating peasants?
There is historical precedent for social biases being developed in order to justify economic and political institutions. It's often said for example that this is where modern racism comes from, a moral workaround for the obvious immorality of the Atlantic slave trade.
Thus, the presence of some kind of social or cultural bias might be a useful indicator of the presence of a developing or existing socioeconomic/political power dynamic.
I think self-sufficiency is a red herring here. Maybe the author was taken in by some kind of Marxist pre-industrial pastoral fantasy, but that doesn't mean they didn't make some good points along the way.
There is historical precedent for social biases being developed in order to justify economic and political institutions. It's often said for example that this is where modern racism comes from, a moral workaround for the obvious immorality of the Atlantic slave trade.
Thus, the presence of some kind of social or cultural bias might be a useful indicator of the presence of a developing or existing socioeconomic/political power dynamic.
I think self-sufficiency is a red herring here. Maybe the author was taken in by some kind of Marxist pre-industrial pastoral fantasy, but that doesn't mean they didn't make some good points along the way.