There is one political myth that costs us more than any other, not in terms of government spending, but in terms of out of pocket money, spent by every citizen, every day. It influences every presidential election, controls every budget, and drives much of our debate on economic policy. It has an ancient provenance, going back in our nation to at least the writings of Thomas Jefferson*. But the history of this particular myth go back much farther than that, back to Latin and Greek poetry, and even earlier. It is truly our oldest political myth, at least the oldest which stays with us today.

This myth is that there is something special about farmers.

Now, I am sure most of my readers share some of this belief, thinking that farmers are some sort of salt of the earth, decent folks, G-d fearing individuals who form the backbone of our nations, provide us with citizen-soldiers and generally are the bulwark of our nation. And much of that may be true. But it is also true of factory workers and truck drivers and orthodontists. Working the soil is honest work, but it is not special and does not make farmers any more important than any segment of the population.

Nor does the fact that they produce "essential food". My plumber gets me essential water, as do the people at the water treatment plant. I can last longer without food than water, yet I don't ascribe any special virtue to my plumber because of this. No one argues that DPW workers are the backbone of the nation as they bring us vital water. Yet people will seriously argue that the farmers who "work the soil to bring us vital food" are somehow made special by their job choice**.

All of which would not matter, were it not given voice in our political policies. Were it just a popular delusion, I might comment on it still, but it would matter much less. But, as with most popular mistakes, this one has been allowed to drive our political process, and with horrible results***.

Whenever I raise objections to farm price supports, guaranteed loans to farmers, disaster relief, and all the other special government programs to farmers the objection is usually that farming is a special business, essential for survival, and thanks to peculiar production circumstances, it needs special assistance.

However, there is nothing peculiar to farming. It has a long production cycle, it is very dependent on weather, and farmers tend to require loans at the beginning of the production cycle which are only paid off out of proceeds at the end of the cycle. However, all of those traits are shared by other businesses. Land development has a long development cycle, as do book publication, film production, software development or animal breeding. Almost all businesses depend on credit to some degree, and many have the same credit cycle as farming. And as far as being weather dependent, I think tourism and related industries are probably even more weather dependent than farming.

The only remaining argument is that farming is somehow "essential" and so should be subsidized. However, that cuts AGAINST many farming programs. If farming is essential and people need food, then I can see disaster relief and direct subsidies, but most farm assistance takes the form of price supports, making food MORE expensive, thus making less food available. If the goal is to make food available because it is essential, making it more scarce and more costly seem to be counter productive.

So, now the truth behind all of this. People believe that farming is "different" because most people aren't farmers. And because they don't see the cost increases due to farm subsidies, they don't realize how much these subsidies hurt them. However, almost every state has farmers, so farm subsidies are a good investment for politicians looking for a vote, not to mention that Iowa, dominated by farming, has a huge say in presidential nominations. All of that means that it is good business for politicians to support farm subsidies, as it gets them votes while not upsetting voters who don't see it as harming them.

However, I hope with food prices going through the roof, people may begin to ask why we are paying people to keep food off the market. Right now, the floods in the midwest make that unlikely, as we are a compassionate people and will probably not want to do anything to hurt flood ravaged farmlands. But once that is done, I do hope that the high price of food does begin to make some people question exactly why the government is taking our money and using it to make already expensive food even more costly.

For once, circumstances may actually favor those who oppose this, the oldest of all political fallacies.

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* To be fair, some of Jefferson's more loopy paeans to farmers may have been more an indication of his belief that property owners had a special attachment to the nation, rather than any belief in the virtues of farming. As, in that pre-industrial period, farmers were the only property holders of note, he may have been arguing more for property ownership and its virtues than the virtues of working the soil.

** Nor is the US unique in this delusion. Every country has had its silly infatuation with farmers. I could list them all, but it would take pages. From Hitler's obsession with blood and soil, to the ancient georgic poets, to various agrarian communo-anarchic theories, the idea of farmers being imbued with special virtue is a common delusion of mankind.

*** I am sure that the following will be disputed by farmers, and I welcome the chance to debate them on this. But before you argue, I have one preliminary question. What other product can you name, at any time in history, whose price has risen drastically, yet the government continues to spend a fortune on "price supports"? What other product has ever existed that politicians simultaneously argue is too expensive, yet they take actions to make sure its price stays high.(Excepting gasoline, of course. But i have written about that idiocy many times as well.)

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ADDENDUM

I had originally planned to go into greater detail about all the ways various farm programs hurt us, even seemingly innocuous ones like subsidized loans or disaster relief. However, all of those principles have been expounded on this site before. Subsidized loans encourage bad business risks and promote losses, insurance below market rates encourages risky behavior, and disaster relief discourages citizens from taking common sense steps themselves as well as encouraging them to work in dangerous areas such as flood plains, as their losses will not come out of their pocket, and so on. So, since time is running short, I decided to leave it to the readers to fill in those blanks. If I get enough negative comments relating to those details, I may come back to this topic later.

POSTSCRIPT

I do not mean to say anything bad about farmers, they are hardly unique in taking advantage of government programs. And farmers themselves are no better or worse than any other profession. However, thanks to public perception and the many myths about the virtue attached to farming, as well as economic ignorance which ascribes some special status to farming as a business, farmers do get much more money than many other industries, which is why I chose to criticize them in particular.

I do plan on writing soon against all business subsidies, so don't think I have anything against farming. However, thanks to all the absurd myths surrounding farming, I felt the need to single out that field for special treatment.

POSTSCRIPT II

One more thing. I do realize that some farmers depend on these programs and would go out of business but for government programs. But that fact does not mean we should keep those programs. Without subsidies or special treatment many businesses would fail. That does not mean we should keep the special treatment.

The economy does not guarantee success. And the fact that a specific business, or even entire industry (eg. US sugar) woudl fail without subsidies, is more of an argument against that industry than for the subsidies.

For example, without subsidies, sugar production in the US would likely go to zero and we would import all or almost all of our sugar. However, as a nation, we would be better off for it. Sugar would be cheaper, as would products relying on sugar. people would have more money for other goods, and commerce in general would grow. That would also free money for new enterprises which could employ those who lost their sugar growing jobs. Not to mention the savings in tariffs we would not have to pay any longer.

It would be a temporary hardship for some, but overall we would all benefit.

Best of all, the government would be one step closer to getting back to its constitutionally mandated duties, rather than creating new responsibilities. Unless someone can tell me where the constitution says we instituted our government to protect sugar growers.