tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post108646120367820287..comments2024-01-03T05:23:36.046-08:00Comments on The Citizens: What Is To Be Done?Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-1086655894562622582004-06-07T17:51:00.000-07:002004-06-07T17:51:00.000-07:00Yes, taking away subsidies for agriculture probabl...Yes, taking away subsidies for agriculture probably hurt the rural poor...but how much of those subsidies were really going to them in the first place? In 19th Century England wealthy, Tory landlords reaped the lion's share of benefit from the Corn Laws. Today, foppish Tory aristrocrats have been replaced by ADM and other agri-business giants who own most of the farm land in the US today. <br /><br />Besides, I would argue that the misery of the rural poor could have been aleviated by a responsible welfare state and retraining programs. 19th Century England had neither and the US should take steps to institute both before (or at least while) making great changes in its trade policies. <br /><br />Furthermore, consider this. We could start to implement a wide range of unemployment benefits and retraining programs with some increases in taxes. But remember we would save hundreds of dollars per person in artificially high food prices by removing the tarrifs and subsidies - not to mention the billions of dollars that would be freed up in the budget by removing the subsidies. What's more, improving the economic conditions in developing countries that would take over ag production would mean increased exports for US goods so our economy would get an overall boost. It would also reduce the need to patrol the US-Mexico border. What I'm trying to get at is that we could eliminate the subsidies, institute a substantially increased welfare state and still save money from what we are doing now. The Economist story I mentioned in the original posting reported that the net social benefit to removing these subsidies would outweigh the costs immeasurably. <br /><br />So why doesn't it happen? Two main reasons: the U.S. Senate and the Electoral College. Both of those institutions are designed to overrepresent rural interests at the expense of the urban majority.Raised By Republicanshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03461006522141969925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-1086651120377581532004-06-07T16:32:00.000-07:002004-06-07T16:32:00.000-07:00Bell Curve gets very close to a conundrum in moder...Bell Curve gets very close to a conundrum in modern democracy: why ISN'T the efficient solution a crowd- pleaser? The investigation of the way political systems respond to input is, of course, what political science is all about. <br /><br />p.s. repealing the corn laws increased the misery of the rural poor. Of course, they could not vote in England until universal suffrage quite a bit later.The Law Talking Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17886791396468512490noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6762928.post-1086503278455825972004-06-05T23:27:00.000-07:002004-06-05T23:27:00.000-07:00Yes, it's always been my complaint that government...Yes, it's always been my complaint that governments typically do not operate on what is most cost-efficient, rather what is most crowd-pleasing. This is why terrorism takes all the headlines and world poverty takes none. I'd be interested in reading that article.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11022494336441129718noreply@blogger.com