Very fascinating writeup. It takes me back to my childhood. The village would have small farmers many of whom would grow sugar cane. Post harvest, the cane had to be crushed, the juice had to be boiled to make jaggery. The equipment, the vat to boil was all shared. When the process would start - it was labor intensive, there would be warm molasses that would be shared by the folks who were helping out - and that was also very much a community get together. Somewhere down the road, we recognised that the manual extraction was not efficient....so sugarcane was sold to the sugar cane factory. For sure we got more sugar - but we did lose the community. The issue here is not so much whether this was good or bad - but more that we do not somehow think of the second order consequences of the decisions we make.