An economy, like a Darwinian ecosystem, does not have 'progress' or a clear path up some splendid hill as its goal. Indifferent to that, it simply potters about a cold room trying to locate the point where supply and demand curves intersect. In epigenetic terms, a locus of bacteria is as evolved as a smirking human, and a basket of grapes can, ratio-permitting, be more valuable than a slick design for a website.
Thus there was nothing especially inevitable about the migration of people from farm to city in line with the industrial revolution, despite some prognostications, and as the economy becomes more and more controlled by automatons, there is nothing that prevents a move back to the land.
In Greece, the Wall Street Journal demonstrates that this is happening already. A graphic designer was forced back to the countryside in preparation for the olive harvest, and into the same bed where he was born, along with his family. The little folds where margins are made (Net Income/Revenue x 100) are being evermore squeezed by automatons and harsh competition, or monopolised by a few, causing this return to a pre-modern state.
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