Science and technology could force the inefficient farmer off the market. The romanticizing of farmers is a little like the image (and myth) of the noble savage before they were corrupted and killed by the white man.
Mencken:
Back in the 1920’s they agreed
among themselves to cut down the cotton acreage
in order to inflate the price–and instantly
every party to the agreement began planting more
cotton in order to profit by the abstinence of
his neighbors. That abstinence being wholly
imaginary, the price of cotton fell instead of
going up –and then the entire pack of
scoundrels began demanding assistance from the
national treasury–in brief, began demanding
that the rest of us indemnify them for the
failure of their plot to blackmail us.
The
same demand is made sempiternally by the wheat
farmers of the Middle West. It is the theory of
the zanies who perform at Washington that a
grower of wheat devotes himself to that banal
art in a philanthropic and patriotic
spirit–that he plants and harvests his crop in
order that the folks of the cities may not go
without bread. It is the plain fact that he
raises wheat because it takes less labor than
any other crop–because it enables him, after
working no more than sixty days a year, to loaf
the rest of the twelve months. If wheat-raising
could be taken out of the hands of such lazy fellahin
and organized as the production of iron or
cement is organized, the price might be reduced
by two-thirds, and still leave a large profit
for entrepreneurs.
A little harsh if you ask me, since you know, farming is a neat thing to have so wishing them to fuck off may seem a tad shortsighted. However, I do understand the point and the spirit in which it was made. When they gamble or make a mistake or whatever, they should not come running to society to bail them out.
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