By my count, my wife Ramona and I represent nine generations in American agriculture. With her competence and cheer, we ran 500 ewes and wintered horses on our home place in Montana's Gallatin Valley. After a time we sold the sheep, and for several years I taught in the University of Washington's business school where I helped create an environmental management M.B.A. program. I spent my weekends in the Yakima Valley of eastern Washington where I bought a farm from a man who had lived the life for 52 years, and began building an orchard. What I set out to make is a low-BTU, irrigation-efficient enterprise as nearly organic as practical.

Ramona and I offer plots to Washington State University graduate students for their research on organic horticulture. We irrigate by pumping from the Sunny Side ditch, a canal privately built in 1892. Our canal is one that makes both ecological and economic sense. Built without federal funds, it lacks the imprimatur of the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, an agency seemingly designed for pumping money to make water run uphill to the wealthy and well organized.

If time and budgets are tests of sincerity, we've demonstrated ours. And our patience. Our accountant recently told us that last year we lost $70,000 on our orchard, nearly two dollars per tree, but we're keeping the place for the long term. We hold to the agrarian creed: crops will improve and the coming seasons will be better. And, oh yes, this summer we'll again have sheep on the home place.

Colleagues tell me we'd do better if we put our modest funds into stocks and bonds rather than trees and livestock. I answer, not by our measures. We are willing to pay a price for our life on the land -- a kind of price extolled in the work of writers such as Wendell Berry, Wallace Stegner, and William Kittredge.

My attachment to them, and to other writers I admire, reaches beyond the romantic. Writers of place help us distill and clarify our deepest attachments to nature and community. By expressing their own values, they lead us to identify our own. In my case, they help me place in broader context the decisions Ramona and I make about our land. If this were only about money, then we would surely be making foolish decisions. But money is the smaller part of the values we attach to place. There are also the values described by Stegner, Kittredge and Berry: stewardship and husbandry, responsibility to land and community, fidelity to the promise of what Stegner called "noble habitat." The trick, of course, is somehow to unite modest profitability with intangible value, and so keep our places afloat.

Stegner's work I especially admire. Lately, I've been re-reading his books which moved me as a young man, and once again I find myself captivated by his ideal that our work in the West must be to build a society equal to the scenery. Because of my experience as an irrigator, I am especially taken with the story he tells in his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Angle of Repose -- a story of the frustrations that spawned the Bureau of Reclamation, Stegner's demon bureaucracy.

It is, of course, the story of a family's struggle to build a massive irrigation project along the Boise River in Idaho. The "Big Ditch," designed by the fictional engineer Oliver Ward, was to have irrigated 300,000 acres of western desert and spawned a new civilization amid the basaltic breaks of southwest Idaho. The fictional story somewhat parallels the true story of Arthur Foote, a mining engineer and western pioneer who took on the mighty task of damming the Boise river just before the turn of the century. Foote, like Ward, eventually failed -- a failure due in part to the nervousness and unrealistic expectations of distant investors. Fortunes, lives, and hearts lay broken as Western dreams to make an irrigated paradise shattered.

The central story in Angle of Repose ends just as the West teeters on the rim of the 20th century, and in 1902, the birth of what would soon be named the Bureau of Reclamation -- an agency determined to let the dreams of the boosters be realized, no matter what sensible economics told them. The Bureau would soon guarantee that the risks and failed expectations of irrigation pioneers would be smoothed over. Uncle Sam would rush in where even the most foolish investors dared not tread. This was the beginning of the unmaking of Stegner's "noble habitat."

And yet, knowing that, and doing his part to vilify the Bureau, Stegner, in much of his later writing, remains steadfastly in favor of federal solutions to most of the West's environmental problems:

The federal presence should be recognized as what it at least partly is: a reaction against our former profligacy and wastefulness, an effort at adaptation and stewardship in the interest of the environment and the future. In contrast to the principal water agency, the Bureau of Reclamation, which was a creation of the boosters and remains their creature, and whose prime purpose is the technological conversion of the arid lands, the land-managing bureaus all have as at least part of their purpose the preservation of the West in a relatively natural, healthy, and sustainable condition (Where the Bluebird Sings, pages 80-81).

Since I share most of Stegner's environmental values, I am highly sympathetic to his arguments. Yet, aside from his analysis of the Bureau of Reclamation, his critique of our region's political economy, while telling, is insufficient. In order to understand, we need much more than he offers; in order to create effective reform, we need more still.

Where can we look if we want to know more? Literary writers sensitize us to values, and ecological scientists to natural forces. Both, however, often defer to the power of federal agencies. I understand why: often only such power -- we refer to it as "federal supremacy" in our political culture -- can save us from mischief and worse. A century ago the Progressives preserved much of what we value in the West today. In the 1960s and '70s their followers did much to clean our air and water. But granting that success, it's time to look elsewhere. Even the best writers sometimes offer poor prescriptions. They inadvertently encourage us to confuse hopes for the future with reasonable expectations. It was the mistake of Arthur Foote and the fictional Oliver Ward to trust private capital; it is the mistake of many contemporary environmental writers to trust the national government.

Writers seldom give directions that make sense to the average person weighing the consequences of actual choices. To do so -- to get down and dirty in the business of governing -- smacks of polemics. Most writers say that's not their job. But those who don't give practical directions have weak complaints when people fail to arrive at the prescribed destination.

Such is the case in Yellowstone Park, just south of our ranch. The world's first national park is a place where the ecological consequences of bureaucratic malfeasance are compelling. Bison and elk severely overpopulate the park, due to the ideologically pristine but practicably disastrous policy known as "natural regulation," the same policy that led to the forest fires of 1988 running out of control across the park. While the large ungulates are too many, the beavers are too few -- indeed, they are gone -- and the ecosystem crumbles with the removal of this keystone species.

There is a clear message here: the default to big government should be reset. Why? Because agencies manage chiefly for the maximization of their own budgets, regardless of how noble their written missions; because government means politics, and politics ultimately means serving the interests that have amassed the most power. In the case of Yellowstone, politics and "natural regulation" go hand in hand (until some new force shouts them down). It is popular now to manage by "leaving things alone," even if that means unsupportably huge numbers of charismatic species (while "lesser" species die away unnoticed).

When the tragedies of Yellowstone are examined by most writers, they are usually portrayed as anomalies, or as the unfortunate consequences of "bringing the system back into balance," not as the predictable consequences of sorry arrangements. If we just care enough and if our guys and gals get into power, next time will be different. Bureaucracies will be, if not perfected, at least competent and caring. Pinchot's Progressive despots will finally arrive but tinted a new shade of green, one closer to Muir's.

But that's not the way the world works. Next time, like the last time, people will follow perceived self-interest and act on the information and incentives available to them. When advocating reform, it is ethically and intellectually irresponsible to neglect this principle. Economists seldom do. Nor should writers who seek a better society.

Here's a modest suggestion, offered with hope but no great expectation of widespread acceptance. Supplement the work of writers and natural scientists with, not the values, but the analytical perspective economists bring to problems. Economics can explain the causes of maladies we condemn: money-losing clearcuts on the national forests, federal dams that don't even begin to cover operation costs (let alone the amortized costs of construction), the 1872 Mining Law (still an outrageous giveaway of national wealth to private investors), federal predator control and a gaggle of other environment-wrecking, money-losing practices. Economists see patterns and provide their explanations. Yet many environmental writers discount and deride their value, and not without reason.

Thomas Sowell, one of the great economists from the University of Chicago, tells us the things that economists best measure are not those that matter most. Why even consider the perspective of those who consider "love" an "interdependent utility function?"

Good economists never argue that the market is a magic elixir of near perfection. It is not and will never be. Markets coordinate wonderfully as they drive toward narrow efficiency, but they ignore much that is intangible and often destroy that which has no price and no owner. Business, by its nature, is rapacious when not held accountable. That's why we need environmental regulations. Unfortunately, the regulators are not those directly affected, but rather distant agencies with recurrent, systemic problems inherent to their funding. In the end, they are run for the benefit of the bureaucrats in them and the clientele upon whom they depend. It ever will be so.

Why, then, do we continue to repeat Stegner's mistake? One answer may simply be "habit."

The vision of most environmental writers seems to have two dominant themes. First, people (usually other people, to be sure) want the wrong things. If they don't change their values to bring them into harmony with the "better way," we're all doomed spiritually and ecologically.

Second, until people improve their outlook, we must rely upon powerful governmental institutions to make them behave. The implicit prescription is simple: "What this country needs is a good Platonic despot." Given that the way we "manage nature" in the West is largely through agencies of government, the greener despots are bound to arrive in the form of bigger and better bureaucracies. But bureaucratic force is usually counter-productive. It erodes liberty, thwarts innovation, and fosters conflict. I find the default position of increased bureaucratic control ineffective and morally repugnant.

But woe be unto him who says so, repeatedly and with force.

For many years I ran university environmental programs of the kind that organize academic offerings around the literature, philosophy, science and economics of environmental management. Occasionally, I'd be invited as the token economist to speak at Earth Day events at other schools. I was once introduced to an audience with the following joke: "I have bad news. Last night a busload of economists ran off a cliff. Our next speaker wasn't on it."

I built my professional career on two activities -- first, exposing the evil and injustice of subsidized exploitation; and second, offering alternatives based on willing agreement and exchange among consenting people who care about environmental quality and sustainable ecology. Yet I am often savaged as a spokesman for the wise-use movement by those who cannot or do not distinguish between favoring voluntary cooperation and favoring business interests over the public interest. These are often opposite and rarely equivalent positions. For example, people in the oil industry hated those who, on principle and in the interest of good national policy, opposed oil import fees when prices crashed. I once lost a job over such opposition.

I've learned that neither love nor money will follow an economist's focus on cultural and environmental problems. We economists' deficiency in the felicity of communication hinders our abilities to connect with literary artists, or with audiences who for some reason prefer belles lettres to calculus. It's too bad. Economists feel unappreciated while writers who could translate for us ignore the truly powerful analytical tools that help explain the way the world works.

And yet a teasing irony persists. Some of the best literature illustrates the divergence of self-interest and the public interest -- a favorite theme of political economists. But while the economist might therefore suggest that the public interest would be better served by understanding the practical mechanics of self-interest, many writers of beautiful letters arrive at exactly opposite conclusions: Common desires are crass, shallow, and unsustainable. We are encouraged to seek higher callings and somehow, magically, become more ethical and cultured. "The basic cause of the energy crisis is not scarcity," wrote Wendell Berry in The Unsettling of America, "it is moral ignorance and weakness of character. We don't know how to use energy, or what to use it for."

Well, I too would like to change people. I want us to value nature and community more, but I'm not terribly good at perpetrating conversions of this sort. I'm more like a political pathologist than a counselor helping us find our true selves. Sound policy does not come from expecting that "next time will be different" and that with enough "education," people will become enlightened.

* * * *

Few writers are self-conscious statists with a well-articulated public philosophy. Good writers take values and the arts of writing seriously, indeed, but they are far more casual when turning to political economy. That's not their vocation but rather an accouterment to parade occasionally on safe grounds.

Like other people, environmental writers consort with those who share and reinforce their views. When they read of economic policy and reform, it's usually from friendly sources, say the New Yorker or the New York Times; rarely the Wall Street Journal or Reason. Few seek thoughtful and sincere confrontation with alternative views. To do so may expose weakness in predispositions. And besides, any philosophy erosive of statist solutions to environmental problems rocks the very foundations of environmentalism, for as Aldo Leopold told us nearly fifty years ago, conservation had altogether fallen into the realm of government affairs. When not on one's home turf, seeking safety is not a bad rule.

Will artists and literary writers sully their minds by consorting with moral strangers? Will they be irreparably harmed if they pet a porcupine? I think not. People who see the world with lenses ground differently can help make writing more true. But many smart and creative people seem to believe themselves incapable of analytical thinking. I increasingly work with essayists, novelists and poets, and when I ask them about their education in economics, there's a common answer: "I had one course in economics. I hated it. It was my worst subject. I don't remember anything about it except some lines crossed on a chart, and they didn't mean anything then and they still don't. How could you stand to teach it?" Good answer.

Economists neglect many things of great value, it is true, but they recognize important forces and how those forces work in shaping the world. Economists are the last sane optimists. They are among the very few not worried about running out of energy, or timber, or food. They know when things become more scarce, people conserve and innovate and substitute. That's why free societies are materially well off.

But at our level of affluence, commodities are not the things that matter most. Let's shift to higher values -- values such as those writerly ones that Ramona and I try to apply to our orchard and ranch.

* * * *

Our son went to a two-room school in the Gallatin Valley. He's now a graduate student at the University of Chicago. Will he return and set irrigation pipe, run swathers, and feed livestock at thirty below? It's most unlikely. Even for lesser skills such as heavy lifting, labor is bid away from the farm. Perhaps it's too bad, but it's reality.

Today, there is ever less depravation to living on a small farm -- and perhaps ever more satisfaction. With the Internet, satellite TV, home shopping and related advances, the costs of distance are reduced. Voluntary simplicity, long a mirage, becomes attractive as personal costs of urban decay become obvious and ever harder to avoid.

We can expect ever more people to farm for the pleasures and satisfactions Wendell Berry applauds. Whatever the source of their income, many can live where and more or less how they want. This isn't the world Berry prefers, but it's what we're likely to find.

It remains for writers such as Wendell Berry and the host of talented, younger writers now emerging, to draw from and cultivate that cultural resource we might describe as "landed values." These are the values of stewardship, and they are as relevant to urban- and suburbanites as they are the those enjoying a good life on the land.

Literary writers, among the most powerful arbiters of taste and preference, are uniquely positioned to move people. By wielding the cultural force and feeling of, for example, family farms, writers can help us understand the role of farmers as keystones of rural culture. If they borrow some insights from economists, they may even foster a new western cultural coherence that will prove sustainable in ways that the bureaucratic culture of Progressivism was not.

My hopes lie with them.