A Modest Farm Proposal:

...Even some labor leaders have defended the farm program, though nothing more contrary to labor's interests could be conceived...

...Are the political obstacles really unsurmountable...

...Yet poor farmers would be no less protected against low prices than they are now...

...Let's face it: Every business has its special risks...

...Ernest van den Haag, who here presents a plan for solving the farm problem which differs radically from the proposals of the Kennedy Administration, is Professor of Sociology at New York University and the New School...

...Production controls, whether or not left on the books, would probably become unnecessary...

...No alternative such as that offered here seemed available...

...Market demand and supply would return to play a large role in determining farm prices and in guiding farmers into the production of crops which are actually needed...

...to subsidize them is to take money from the poor and give it to the comparatively rich...

...Since only a few rich farmers would be short of unequitable benefits and everybody else would gain I believe that, if properly presented, this program could win the approval of the American people, including most farmers...

...And the politician with national ambitions cannot afford to be against "help to farmers...

...Much of the present Government subsidy goes to farmers (or corporations) who would become ineligible...

...The basic reason for our present farm policy has nothing to do with "reason...

...Of course, those who built their business on the farm subsidy in its present form will suffer, at least temporarily...

...For example, if payment for the purchase of wheat has raised a farmer's income above $7,000 in one year, though his estimated income was below that figure, the following year the farmer would owe the Government the overpayment, and the Government would owe the farmer the wheat purchased in excess of the amount needed to raise his total net income to $7,000...

...It is true that farmers run risks with regard to the weather and stockbrokers do not...

...It is sometimes argued that farmers should be subsidized because they produce something particularly important: food...

...Without the limitations suggested, no program can hope to drag us out of the present quagmire of senseless subsidies, overproduction and more subsidies...

...So did Karl Marx, who recast proletarians as producers and nearly everybody else as exploiters...

...Furthermore, the farm program was never meant to help corporations...

...the farmer would subtract the excess wheat from what he must deliver to the Government for current purchases...

...In time, we might confine subsidies to farmers over a certain age limit set, at first, quite low—e.g., 23 years—and gradually increased up to, say, 35 years...

...Lower food prices and lower taxes would cause consumers to spend more on farm and non-farm goods, and increased employment elsewhere would offset any reduced employment on farms...

...But to the extent to which they are, people are eager to buy them, and farmers would actually need less protection against low prices than the producers of less essential goods...

...Farmers are just middlemen between the hens and the consumers of egg sandwiches...

...Though farmers do not constitute an overwhelming proportion of voters—somewhere between 10 and 15 per cent—their political power by far exceeds their numbers...

...Gradual further restriction of subsidies without undue deprivation would become possible if the proposed limitation is accepted...

...Indeed, its abandonment would lower food prices and save taxpayers more than $5 billion a year...

...families who receive lower incomes...

...No major unemployment problem would result either from the reduced purchasing power of rich farmers or from the fact that some may have to discharge their workers...

...I think not— if we go about it in the right way...

...Most experts are resigned to it...

...There would be little incentive to produce surpluses once the Government no longer offers prices that make it profitable to farmers making more than $7,000—who produce most of the surpluses...

...The persistence of these measures is due to political pressure very largely based on ignorance...

...As the city politician does not find the issue politically profitable, he is willing to vote with the farm block for small favors that are profitable at home...

...They are middlemen, too, between the hens and the corn and between the seeds and the corn...

...Most farmers would benefit as much as before, even though the total subsidy would be far less, since much of it now goes to the few farmers whose income exceeds the proposed $7,000 limit...

...There is no reason, therefore, for the mass of farmers to oppose the limitation...

...Hens do...

...Yet in the literal sense, we are all middlemen...

...Apparently people in cities do not know enough about the farm program, while the farmers know just enough to vote for its supporters...

...Farmers do not produce eggs...

...The limitation proposed here raises some technical problems, such as estimating incomes, reimbursing for overpayments, determining eligibility, etc...

...Though all farmers in need would still be helped, much less would be purchased and the problems of storage and acreage controls would become manageable...

...However generous the impulse, the existing legislative measures are unwise and their effects are unbelievably perverse...

...No payments should be made to them, except perhaps to closely held small corporations which can be regarded as partnerships...

...The physiocrats in the 18th century based their whole theory on this naive fallacy...

...But if this is to be avoided, no federal subsidy can ever be stopped...

...We must continue to help farmers in need, but not through a blunderbuss subsidy which seldom reaches the intended beneficiaries...

...It is hard to fathom why this is so...

...The proposed limitation would end this inequitable practice...

...Nobody seems willing to try to do away with the program or even to limit it seriously, though everybody knows that it solves no problems and creates many...

...Even the farmer who by dint of subsidies is in the $7,000 bracket is subsidized by the twothirds of U.S...

...The Government would subtract the excess payment from what it owes the farmer for the current year's purchases...

...The poor farmers do not produce enough of the crops bought by the Government to benefit much, while the wealthy farmers get wealthier, since the more he produces the more the Government buys or pays him for not producing...

...Though substantially benefiting but a few large plantations and farms, the program has been supported by most farmers...

...Farmers with annual incomes greater than $7,000 are unquestionably in the upper half of the income distribution...

...And hens, not farmers, hatch chicks...

...In this way we will discourage people from entering farming solely for the sake of the subsidy, while continuing to help those who would find it hard to change now...

...Yet it continues...

...Yet, despite the immense cost, our present farm program has helped them little, if at all...

...Nonetheless, the proposed change in farm legislation is not politically hopeless...

...Though it would take years to streamline our immensely complicated apparatus of farm legislation, we can rid ourselves of its worst feature almost immediately by imposing a simple limitation: Each year the Government should purchase crops from (or make payments for not planting to) a farmer only as long as his total taxable income from all sources, including the Government, is less than $7,000...

...The proposed modified farm policy would protect farmers far more than any other segment of the population is now protected, while getting rid of some of the costliest and most inequitable features of our present policy...

...We should not protect farmers against special risks but against poverty...

...At times it is argued in a somewhat mystical fashion that farmers "produce" while other people are more or less parasitic middlemen...

...The representatives of consumers, particularly of workers and of non-farm low income groups, have never opposed the farm program even though it is far more harmful to the interests of their constituents—and of the American people—than anything they are likely to get excited about...

...Although there would be a firm floor under farmers' earnings, they would not be placed in the humiliating position of relief recipients who get money without working for it...

...It gave them some help—however little...

...But owners of resort hotels and bottlers of soft drinks run similar risks and we do not subsidize them...

...Purchases (or payments) which inadvertently are made beyond this limit must be returned or debited against next year's payments...

...Fifty per cent of our farms produce less than 10 per cent of the farm output...

...I doubt that tobacco and peanuts are really more important than penicillin and steel...

...But a net income above $7,000 is hardly low enough to warrant a subsidy—in fact, it is markedly above the income of more than half the United States population...

...This would further reduce overproduction and strengthen the family farm—which was the original and hitherto unrealized intention...

...This limitation, therefore, would deprive no one who could be called poor...

...Farmers would continue to sell their crops and receive payments in proportion to what the Government buys from them...

...In short, we all merely shuffle around the bounty of nature...

...Electoral districts in most states are so drawn that each rural vote has far greater weight than each urban vate...

...Is it really impossible to stop this waste...

...And it might be pointed out that the limited subsidy would actually make it possible to help most of them more than they were helped before: We could raise some Government purchase prices and soil bank payments, while still having less of a storage problem and less expense to the Government than now...

...Clearly there is no economic sense in the farm subsidy except to increase the income of farmers when it is held to be too low...

...The $7,000 figure may be adjusted to cost of living changes...

...The more efficient big farms would continue, but those which are in business only because of the artificially raised prices would go out of business...

...They feel that the program is politically unavoidable, and that, at best, only minor improvements can go through Congress...

...But none of these is insolvable...

...We create only in the sense of bringing together or separating various products of nature so as to make them more valuable to us—whether we are farmers, or steel workers or stockbrokers...

...Certainly among the 12 per cent of our population who live on farms, many are poor and deserve help...