Stockman (7) Agriculture

David Stockman says that small state senators have a disproportionate weight in American governance. The farm programs are anachronistic and economically stupid and could not survive without this raw power politics. It has been ineffective in preventing the shrinking of the agriculture sector.

In 1935, there were 35 million people on 7 million farms, who accounted for about a quarter of national output. Today there are few than 2 million Americas on the farm, there are less than 250,000 remaining commercial-scale agricultural enterprises and farm outputs represent a mere 4 percent of GDP. The New Deal did not restore farm prosperity. Instead it conferred undeserved windfall rents on a privileged segment of rural crony capitalists for generations to come.