Rural America Doesn’t Have to Starve to Death(thenation.com)
thenation.com
Rural America Doesn’t Have to Starve to Death
https://www.thenation.com/article/economy/big-agribusiness-finance-farming/
11 comments
This seems like the same Grapes of Wrath style argument we've been seeing since the 50s. Except the author re-frames it as if the CAFOs, greedy banks, and tax havens are completely to blame for the collapse of small farmers. But to me this seems like an inevitability of the market; these small farmers are operating inefficiently, that's why they can't compete with the factory farm prices...
Nothing is inevitable. We're not slaves to the market. If the market means small farmers can never be as efficient as factory farms and finance, and may not have any place in the economy at all without contracting out all aspects of their farms and losing their standards of living - then F the market.
Sometimes we need to step back from these abstract principles and ask ourselves if we want to live in that kind of world. I'd rather have a country where normal people can farm, animals can live good lives, and we have values other than prostrating ourselves before the altar of GDP.
Sometimes we need to step back from these abstract principles and ask ourselves if we want to live in that kind of world. I'd rather have a country where normal people can farm, animals can live good lives, and we have values other than prostrating ourselves before the altar of GDP.
Why should the rest of the country subsidize people who want to live the farming lifestyle?
Btw, hobby farms are a thing. If you want people to be able to pursue hobbies in liu of work, you need a UBI. (Although, a smaller UBI would be suffient to allow for nearly viable hobbies like farming)
Btw, hobby farms are a thing. If you want people to be able to pursue hobbies in liu of work, you need a UBI. (Although, a smaller UBI would be suffient to allow for nearly viable hobbies like farming)
Why should the country subsidize suburban areas?
It shouldn't. Suburban sprawl was one of the major "blunders"[0] of domestic policy in the US. There is even less of an argument to be had here. At least rural subsidies can be thought of as the government paying for an overcapacity of food.
[0] scare quotes because it was fairly succesfull in its goal of segragation.
[0] scare quotes because it was fairly succesfull in its goal of segragation.
I'm not interested in arguing over how best to increase the GDP and labeling all regulations subsidies, or having the meta-debate over how everything is technically a subsidy. I'm talking about animal rights, human happiness, and how those things have very recently been assaulted by finance in an unprecedented way.
There are more important things in the world to think about than how to most efficiently stuff people full of mass quantities of cheap processed meat from suffering animals.
There are more important things in the world to think about than how to most efficiently stuff people full of mass quantities of cheap processed meat from suffering animals.
I'm not arguing about GDP. If I was, I would be pointing out how it is a poor metric to measure anything by.
The onlything stoping individuals from farming if they want to is the resources to afford to do so while maintaing the farmers desired lifestyle.
In the past, farmers could get those resources by selling their produce. That became less viable as other models (read, factory farming) started to offer produce cheaper. If you want to maintain the old model, someone needs to pay the difference.
If you want to argue that animal welfare is something that we should value and requires collective (eg government) action to achieve, that would be a valid arguement. You could even argue that such a change would be to the benifit of small farmers.
The onlything stoping individuals from farming if they want to is the resources to afford to do so while maintaing the farmers desired lifestyle.
In the past, farmers could get those resources by selling their produce. That became less viable as other models (read, factory farming) started to offer produce cheaper. If you want to maintain the old model, someone needs to pay the difference.
If you want to argue that animal welfare is something that we should value and requires collective (eg government) action to achieve, that would be a valid arguement. You could even argue that such a change would be to the benifit of small farmers.
I've lived in small towns most of my life, I know more farmers and ranchers than anyone, and in short there isn't much that can be done. They vote for politics that support large corporations and deregulation which allows them to be beat up by larger conglomorates. They fight innovation to the point that new technology isn't adopted till a son takes over. But most of all, the one thing that would likely make them more profitable would be to go towards a higher quality but lower quanity crop (like going organic) but they fight that too.
Right now rural america is basically subsidised by the cities and has 3x the voting power of those who live in them. This model isn't sustainable unless the three things listed above start to change. But they won't.
Right now rural america is basically subsidised by the cities and has 3x the voting power of those who live in them. This model isn't sustainable unless the three things listed above start to change. But they won't.
Politically, the solution is to offer them candidates who are are conservative on all issues except corporate regulations.
This is what FDR did: went left on economic issues, and right on everything else: law and order, pro-military, anti-civil rights, etc. His “brain trust” and bureaucratic supporters came from the upper class (something rural citizens support).
This is what FDR did: went left on economic issues, and right on everything else: law and order, pro-military, anti-civil rights, etc. His “brain trust” and bureaucratic supporters came from the upper class (something rural citizens support).
Despite the clickbait title (no, no one is starving), makes some good points.
This article suggests that the answer is to regulate/break up Big Finance and then the farming problems will just take care of themselves, and farmers will stop doing "unsavory" things like voting for Donald Trump. Right.