its proponents have decided a framework that limits the range of folk to fit an agenda; top down, middle class values examining proletarian ones, set taxonomies and categorisation, the early/mid C20th enthusiasm for neo-romanticism and arcadia and a privileging of old world music dissemination at the expense of the new

I understand what you're saying, glueman, & agree with a lot of it - I've read Stefan Szczelkun, and one of my proudest moments when I was involved in Red Pepper was getting them to print an anti-Revival feature by Steve Higginson. (Did they not like that. We got letters.)

I just think most of it's beside the point. A society where most music that people listen to is sung and played by those people themselves is different from a society where most of it's recorded, and that affects the way the music behaves (spreads, changes, is handed on). I think it's a big enough difference for it to be worth giving the music that's come to us through the mostly-played route a different label from the mostly-recorded kind, and I think 'folk' is a good label.