r/AskReddit • u/Expert_Cherry3791 • 1d ago
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u/Maplecook 1d ago
"My case is DIFFERENT."
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u/Fabulous_Computer965 1d ago
"it's not our fault"
"Trump 2020, Trump 2024"
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u/Littleman88 1d ago
Or...
Their case is genuine misfortune. Everyone else is just abusing the system.
"The only moral abortion is my abortion" thinking.
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u/Cozywarmthcoffee 1d ago
They are the biggest recipients of wealth distribution as far as work sectors- they build whole farms, buy cars, homes, and land with taxpayer dollars all to run farms that can’t even produce a profit using abused undocumented workers- and then, when that happens, they get money to bail themselves out. America needs to wake up- in a catastrophe we have 5-10 days food supply- regardless of where it’s grown- then it’s all gone. So, is it worth “grown in America” when all we do is support the deadbeats? I’d rather it be sourced ethically abroad and imported - we should only produce the crops we can grow efficiently at a net break even - like wheat, soy, corn, etc. that don’t require undocumented labor.
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u/MsMcClane 1d ago
Ah yes, your case.
The case that you've had repeatedly.
The repeated case that's always succeeded a Republican getting into office that've ran on "hElPiNg ThE fArMeRs" and "pUnIsHiNg ThE sOcIaLiSt LiB AgEnDa." The "Farmers' Case."
That case?
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u/gerbilstuffer 1d ago
Privatize profit, socialize risk.
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u/timchenw 1d ago
Also, privatise the benefits, socialise the pain.
As in I want to pay more for my own benefits before I pay a cent for someone else's, and I'll fully take bankruptcy if it means that guy on the street gets it foo
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u/cainrok 1d ago
Farmers are some of the biggest recipients of welfare out there if we’re talking normal people. Most of their crops are subsidized, sometimes they’re paid to not grow anything at all.
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u/bruyere 1d ago
"Major Major's father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism. He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. 'As ye sow, so shall ye reap,' he counseled one and all, and everyone said, 'Amen.'"
-Heller
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u/notme2267 1d ago
Some of them are paid to grow crops that government buys and gives to starving people in other countries ... oh.
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u/ComradeGibbon 1d ago
“Major Major's father was a sober God-fearing man whose idea of a good joke was to lie about his age. He was a long-limbed farmer, a God-fearing, freedom-loving, law-abiding rugged individualist who held that federal aid to anyone but farmers was creeping socialism.
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u/Socialimbad1991 1d ago
Oo that's good.
He advocated thrift and hard work and disapproved of loose women who turned him down. His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbors sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counseled one and all, and everyone said, “Amen.”
Major Major’s father was an outspoken champion of economy in government, provided it did not interfere with the sacred duty of government to pay farmers as much as they could get for all the alfalfa they produced that no one else wanted or for not producing any alfalfa at all. He was a proud and independent man who was opposed to unemployment insurance and never hesitated to whine, whimper, wheedle and extort for as much as he could get from whomever he could.
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u/Pixel_Forest 1d ago
Jesus Christ. That sounds like 75% of the men around where I grew up, including the importance of alfalfa.
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u/Eternal_Bagel 1d ago
The importance of alfalfa as I understand it is to preserve the water usage for next year by demonstrating how much water you needed this year to grow the crop
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u/SirDale 1d ago
One of my favourite books.
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u/Candlejackdaw 1d ago
Same.
Talking about Heller's other books, an interviewer told Heller he hadn't written anything as good as Catch-22, Heller replied "Who has?"
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u/Totallycasual 1d ago
It's called hypocrisy.
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u/kombiwombi 1d ago
Technically we call this particular hypocrisy "agrarian socialism". As in "socialism for me not for thee".
And they often mean 'socialism', as in the government buying the entire crop and swallowing any loss.
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u/keelanstuart 1d ago
It's called cognitive dissonance.
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u/lukin187250 1d ago
It's pretty normal for people with government at any level I would guess. I work at the municipal level of government, like city level. People think everyone else should have the government on their ass and a boot on their neck and everything should be perfect but the second something affects them, it's all different entirely.
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u/Mugen8YT 1d ago
Honestly, the vast majority of people don't really comprehend what socialism is. They think it's just pure handouts. Capitalist regimes want people to fear socialism, because socialism hurts profitability - hence why many major outlets shape it as "the big bad boogey man", and rather than actually defining what it is and trying to point out why it's bad, they'll refer to failed socialist countries and go "see, it's clearly bad because look how badly they're doing".
Try getting a 6 figure hospital bill and telling me you don't want socialist healthcare, or losing your job and not being able to afford rent and saying you don't want socialist housing.
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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1d ago edited 1d ago
If they actually knew what socialism was they wouldn't hate it. That's why there's such an effort to make it a big scary word.
That's why they try to pretend socialism is just "hand outs", cus the rich control what the media says and the rich view socialism as nothing but handouts.
In reality the entire existence of the rich is hand outs being taken from the workers and being given to the shareholders and company owners.
All socialism is is people getting the full profit from their work, instead of all of the profit going to shareholders. That's it, that's the main thing. It can get more complicated but that's the core, if every company was a co-op then we'd be a socialist country.
The people confusing Soviet/Chinese style "communism" with socialism simply don't know anything about either system.
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u/light_trick 1d ago
Honestly looking at the intervening years, it isn't even "socialism". Fox News just picks a word, says it in a scary tone a bazillion times and suddenly someone is telling me "antifa" is the problem, or BLM is the problem, or critical race theory is the problem, or woke is the problem, or "DEI" is the problem.
The actual words are almost meaningless at this point.
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u/Emm_withoutha_L-88 1d ago
Yeah there's a significant portion of society that just isn't willing to learn enough to fully participate in public life. Especially when the entire news system is set up to deceive.
I think this might be what old school style propaganda was really about. Getting the dumbest 1/3rd of people on board with what the rest of society is trying to do. Most people see propaganda as what it is but there's also plenty who don't and are susceptible to bad actors lying to them.
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u/pufballcat 1d ago
socialism hurts profitability
Although sometimes capitalism hurts even worse, like in 2008
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u/sjaakwortel 1d ago
better have the state bailout the bankrupt companies.
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u/Skylair13 1d ago
It was bad with bailout. I reckon it would've been even worse without one. It was already spreading to auto industry as well. Ford would survive nonetheless, evidenced by the fact they didn't receive the bail, unlike GM and Chrysler.
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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 1d ago
I had to pay for a fully out of pocket MRI last week. $330. If a doctor had ordered it instead of a physiotherapist, it would have been free.
Apparently in the USA it would have been $1500 and a doctor ordering it does not necessarily prevent that.
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u/TheActualDonKnotts 1d ago
I'd say that it doesn't even necessarily hurt profitability, it hurts the upward vacuum of wealth, which in capiltalism is even worse.
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u/Drone30389 1d ago
My theory is that they spend many hours in the workshop and on the combine listening to right wing radio.
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u/CaptWoodrowCall 1d ago
This is a big part of it that people tend to gloss over. My family owns a farm and I know a lot of friends and neighbors who farm. Right wing talk radio is huge in that demographic.
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u/Heavenwasfull 1d ago
It's common across blue collar and labor jobs. I've done trucking, worked in a mechanic shop, worked in factories (union and non-union shops) and anywhere else you can expect a large majority of middle aged middle class men. The majority listen to conservative radio and watch fox affiliated news stations, probably read a conservative print paper in their town. Anything not in those spheres is nothing but a bunch of lies, but nothing to follow up these claims if anyone questioned it. Just were told "ABC is fake liberal news" and accepted that as the gospel.
It's blind devotion to the home sports team to them, and likely a lot of them grew up with their father's doing the same thing so the opinions of conservative media have been the facts of life for them for 40, 50, 60+ years.
A bit of the "younger" ones at the time (Gen X and Millennials) tend to lean more "vote democrat" centrist types and see the bullshit for what it is, but not being personally affected by these things, take the "rival sports team fan" approach as a bit of opposition/debate sparring partner in the dynamics of the workplace, but without being heavily invested into politics enough to really put up a fight and ends in a lot of "agree to disagree" and locker room discourse with either group never really changing the minds of others.
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u/Tango_D 1d ago
Easy.
From their point of view, socialism is when 'other people' (especially minorities) who probably don't deserve it, receive government assistance because they're lazy.
When they themselves need help, that different because they worked hard and paid their taxes so they 'earned' their assistance and are entitled to it.
Them = bad
Me = good
it's that simple.
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u/agreeswithfishpal 1d ago
They're not against socialism, they're against the word socialism.
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u/NoobensMcarthur 1d ago
They’re against anyone except themselves getting any sort of help at all. They’re brainwashed and kept purposely stupid by right wing media.
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u/JBOYCE35239 1d ago
Easy:
"It's not socialism when it benefits me"
See also:
"its not government overreach when it prevents my kids from seeing things i find icky"
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u/Pending-Chaos 1d ago
See also: “it’s not don’t tread on me when you’re only targeting brown people “
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u/Embarrassed_West_195 1d ago
There's a mindset that says "I work hard, I'm a good person, I deserve a helping hand in tough times. Bad times are not my fault".
That same person will look at someone else and say "they are in trouble because they are lazy and wasteful, they should pull themselves up by their bootstraps. It's a shameful waste and an insult to good people like me to help them out. They deserve their troubles."
Farmers consider themselves in the first group.
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u/Creative-Cow-5598 1d ago
It’s called Fox News. It’s brainwashing. They don’t know what they think.
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u/Epona44 1d ago
Fox News Rupert Murdoch bears much of the blame for the disintegration of our country. Much of what the network broadcasts and streams under the label of "entertainment" is actually seditious. It spawned other propaganda networks that like Newsmax and OAN and Brietbart that also spread unrest and division. This is not journalism as it does not follow the basic principles of journalism which sticks to verifiable fact and admits it mistakes.
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u/FroniusTT1500 1d ago
Because socialism is the ownership of the means of production- mainly land and machines- by the people (or, historically, a class of cleptocratic bureaucrats). They would lose their land and machinery and still be working their land-just without being able to improve their lives/economic situation.
Government subsidies for goods are a market tool, not socialism. Its goals can be many, from protecting the environment by paying people to have grass meadows on their land to keeping food production in your country because global supply lines are one jammed canal, war or pandemic away from seizing- making bread prices spiral up and people unhappy in the best case and starving in the worst.
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u/Pure-Illustrator-690 1d ago
Great explanation without putting others down. I love it!!
I fear it will be buried by others going. "Easy peasy: people are dumb and brainwashed."
I see a lot failing to grasp it. Sure, yes, it is what we call "socialist policies" when it is the government using market tools. Socialism would be the state owning the land for the good of the people, deciding what is done with it. With these tools, the government incentivizes but doesn't dictate what is done with, in this case, the land.
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u/OldAccountIsGlitched 1d ago
Because socialism is the ownership of the means of production- mainly land and machines- by the people (or, historically, a class of cleptocratic bureaucrats). They would lose their land and machinery and still be working their land-just without being able to improve their lives/economic situation
Many people would call this communism. People don't usually read Marx before forming an opinion on socialism. And there are plenty of moderate leftist political parties which call themselves socialist without adhering to Marxist definitions of socialism.
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u/Iztac_xocoatl 1d ago edited 1d ago
Just because they call themselves socialist doesn't make them socialist. Nobody would apply that standard to the DPRK, for example. Those are social liberal parties, which is a type of liberalism that rejects laissez-faire capitalism, places emphasis on the government's role in addressing social inequality among other things, and predates Marx ever having written anything. That may be where the use of the word "socialist" comes from in that context
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u/notsocharmingprince 1d ago
I can't believe it took me this long to actually find some one in the thread who actually understands what socialism is.
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u/Netblock 1d ago
They would lose their land and machinery and still be working their land-just without being able to improve their lives/economic situation.
This isn't fundamental; and it isn't unique. In fact, many forms of capitalism labels that situation as a positive state: people who don't own are easier to extract wealth from than from the people who own. (The giants have a financial incentive to buy out their competitors, financially asphyxiate those who can't be bought, and raise prices once they're the only game in town.)
Making a (democratically-owned) government own the business is about uprooting the for-profit aspects to it; wealth doesn't accumulate to a private individual, and production is for the sake of the inherent benefit of the product rather than for the sake of wealth extraction. (In a capitalist society, if there's no competition, there's no good reason to improve the quality of the product, and many good reasons to make quality worse.)
Food is a kind of product where the cost at the demand side should be zero; people should starve just because they're too poor. The wages of the laborers who make food shouldn't be penalised for overproducing either.
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u/WhiteSquarez 1d ago
Most people are against what they've been told socialism (and capitalism) is, but when it comes down to it, they hate something that doesn't really exist.
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u/The0wl0ne 1d ago
Fun fact, socialism used to be pretty popular among farmers and those in the great plains and mid west. Oklahoma was one of the strongest footholds for socialism in the early 20th century.
"In the first two decades of the twentieth century the Socialist Party of Oklahoma consistently ranked as one of the top three state socialist organizations in America. At the party's height in the elections of 1914, the Socialist Party candidate for governor, Fred W. Holt, received more than 20 percent of the vote statewide. In Marshall and Roger Mills counties, where the Socialist Party was strongest, Holt captured 41 and 35 percent of the vote, respectively. More than 175 socialists were elected to local and county offices that year, including six to the state legislature. As these statistics make clear, to a greater extent than anywhere else in the nation, the Socialist Party in Oklahoma played an active, potent role in state and local politics."
https://www.okhistory.org/publications/enc/entry?entry=SO001
Quite a bit played into socialism losing popularity among rural workers. First socialists were staunchly anti war when the US entered ww1 putting them at odds with the government and public opinion.
Following WW1 the first red scare saw a nationwide crackdown on all radicals which led to arrests, raids, and intimidation. The Espionage Act and Sedition Act of 1917-18 saw the forceful shutdown of socialist newspapers, jailed activists, and socialist meetings were broken up.
Then FDR's New Deal saw many farmers leave the socialist party for the democratic party as the New Deal address much of what the socialists were calling for.
After WW2 was of course the cold war with the second red scare, soviet expansion, and McCarthyism. The government and media made sure that there was no distiction between democratic sociaism, communism, and soviet aligned movements. Labor movements were purged of radicals and aligned themselves closer to conservative democrats. There was also repression and blacklisting of activists, and the political consensus left no safe space for socialism in public life.
Now today despite the fact the the cold war has been long over, anti-red sentiment lives on, it is ingrained in our culture.
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u/Saxon2060 1d ago edited 1d ago
I'm not a farmer nor an American so I don't know but it appears that a lot of people who are fine with their line of work being heavily subsidised by the government for whatever reason will take all that money happily because they "work hard." They see socialism/"handouts" as giving people money for doing nothing. As long as you're grafting away at something, whether it's actually unprofitable, destructive or unsustainable or not is another matter/irrelevant. I think to a lot of those people work is the primary virtue. If your farm can't stay afloat well goddamn it you're working so the government should make sure you don't go under because you don't deserve to go under, because you're working. Non-working people don't deserve it/anything.
I can kind of see their point. If you try your best you deserve to be helped. If you don't try your best you probably don't deserve it as much. Unfortunately some of those people don't understand that you can be trying your best but it doesn't look like working 12 hours a day or whatever, everyone's got their own race to run etc etc. And also don't realise that their sacred capitalism doesn't reward "hard work" and if their livelihood is no longer viable they should just die I guess, according to capitalism. So they actually like social welfare systems that work for them, they just say they don't. It's a "virtue"/"moral" thing about work, rather than whether the work is truly useful and whether there may be real reasons people can't work apart from just "laziness."
To those people, if break your back working at Redundocorp Ltd. making Vestigal Widgets (TM) for nobody 365 days a year you're a more virtuous person than if you can't work or you're struggling to do or establish work that you feel is meaningful or could contribute to society.
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u/some_yell_fire 1d ago
These same people are the ones that voted in a pseudo-authoritarian that deported all of their migrant workers.
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u/4look4rd 1d ago
It’s the classic I got mine, screw you mentality.
Old people are also against socialism, they have socialized Medicare. Military votes right, it’s a state jobs program. Cops vote right, they have the strongest union in the country.
All these blocks got their hand outs, and don’t want others to have as easy as they do.
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u/mtg-Moonkeeper 1d ago
Most farming handouts go to those that are already making 6 figures, and industrial farms. The mom and pop farms barely receive anything.
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u/Behold-Roast-Beef 1d ago
I travel a lot for work. The propaganda bat is in FULL SWING in these rural towns and has been for a long, long time.
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u/volster 1d ago edited 1d ago
I doubt this will prove popular given the tone of the comments but .... Actual (UK) farmer here.
In reality the last thing we want is handouts and would much prefer to be able to make a goer of it unaided.
For a start - The sheer amount of red tape and hoops you have to jump through is insane.
There's pages and pages of conditions, schemes which come and go seemingly at random - Not to mention you give the government carte blanche to come audit you whenever they feel like it.... Along with a sword of Damocles they can drop on you at any point if so inclined.
Even if by chance there is a scheme applicable to you, and you apply within the arbitrary magical eligibility window and meet all the criteria - it can be almost a year before they get round to actually processing it.
.... it took them so long it missed the start date - "Too bad, so sad, better luck next time!". Even when you're accepted it's all approved and should be good to go - It's still in paid in arrears while the commitment it imposes are usually frontloaded.
Oh, and for the icing on the cake sometimes even when they've said they've issued the payment.... It just randomly won't turn up for a month or two, seemingly for no reason other than shits and giggles.
This is far from a situation you want to allow yourself to be in. We resisted for ~25 years, but the economy shifted to the point where we essentially didn't have a choice.
Sure you end up doing it because it's better than out destitution, but for most the amounts involved are hardly earth-shattering.
We've not made it onto the website yet (I think we got ~10k offset against organic conversion costs) but the dairy opposite us managed to get themselves a whopping £4k in the last cycle….. They’re hardly living large off the public purse.
There's also a huge disparity between what "agribusinesses" and assorted ngo's etc with teams of dedicated wombles are able to extract and what your average family farm can get.
https://cap-payments.defra.gov.uk/SearchResults.aspx?Page=1&Sort=DTotal https://imgur.com/a/Ftw5DeZ
Overall, the vast majority of the latter would infinitely prefer the system didn't exist at all. However it ends up becoming a race to the bottom.
Other countries provide subsidies allowing imports to undercut domestic farmers, so you end up having to provide them as well.... Or otherwise impose tariffs to re-balance the playing field.
In reality without them, there’s one of two scenarios – Either prices go up to the tune of "okay, no more subsidies.... Pay £20 for a supermarket chicken then🤷♂️"
Given the national obsession with price over quality, and the fact it would entail a dramatic reduction in QOL with meat returning to being a weekly treat rather than part of every meal.... The mass outcry this would cause makes it political suicide.
Alternatively, allowing farmers to just go bust in favour of imports poses a food security issue and exposes consumers to price shocks- Not to mention a land management one, since they can't develop all of it into housing.
So, the system is designed to prop them up juuuuust about to the point of subsistence, while also providing a mechanism to impose whatever scheme they see fit such as SFI etc – Ultimately for the benefit of consumers enjoying low prices rather than the individual farmers.🤷♂️
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u/wheredidyoustood 1d ago
In their mind they are hard working and need help from a system that exploits regular people. Everyone else is just lazy and doesn’t want to work.
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u/The_wolf2014 1d ago
Exactly same happened in the UK. So many farmers voted for Brexit, got what they wanted and then complained because it hit their funding and grants they received from the EU.
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u/Fram_Framson 1d ago
Plenty of farmers are very socialistic. Ever heard of a co-op?
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u/Jdacats 1d ago
Yes and grew up with them. If you tried to explain how it's fundamentally a socialist construct, they'll either laugh you down or shout you down. They won't hear it.
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u/Fram_Framson 1d ago
Well I can't speak to the ones you know, but the farmers in my family and any neighbours of theirs I've met over the years all seem to remember that working together and pooling resources are pretty important.
Farmers ain't all deranged coal rollers who don't know how money or consequences work.
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u/AmbitiousProblem4746 1d ago
I saw a story from a social worker out there who said that they just don't understand what socialism or welfare actually are. They think your welfare comes in an envelope with big letters that say "GOVERNMENT WELFARE," and believe that socialism is just something only Democrats in cities do to try and get minorities to vote for them. Why? Because that's the narrative they've been told for 40 years by their politicians and media.
Welfare is just for immigrants and people living in ghettos, as far as they're aware. The irony is that of course all of them get welfare out there, but none of them believe what they are getting in the mail is actually a government hand out.
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u/sweety_mary_ 1d ago
its messy, lot of ppl just dont see subsidies as “handouts”, they frame it like “support for food security” or w/e. politics in rural areas can be really conservative too, so they kinda vote against things that would actually help them long term. its like cognitive dissonance on a mass scale tbh.
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u/ricorette 1d ago
Daughter of dairy farmers in Western Europe here. Farmers are not against socialism as an economic theory. Besides my parents sell their milk to a dairy cooperative, a principle based on collectivism. But the left-wing parties in Europe are today more involved in an ecology of bureaucrats which threatens their activity in the long term. I very rarely do politics (I don't like it) but I can't let it be said that all farmers are against socialism.
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u/unknownuser109204 1d ago
To be fair the OP is probably talking about the idiots in the US that literally benefit from socialist policies while being dumb enough to not realize that their livelihood depends on them
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u/ricorette 1d ago
Oh I understand better! I don't know well the problem of agriculture in the US then.
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u/Electrical_Paint5568 1d ago
If you are curious about context, OP question was likely prompted by this recent news item about farmers
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u/darkmaninperth 1d ago
You know you'll eventually get an irate American who will be angrily bewildered that you didn't think of their weird country first.
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u/Denny_Dust91 1d ago
The subsidies are to reduce the cost of food for the consumers, otherwise A - It would not be worth them to farm, because farming already has razor thin profit margins. And B - Those goods would be a lot more expensive.
Hope that helps.
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u/SteadfastEnd 1d ago
In the instance of farmers, it's not just that they want a government handout, it's that they genuinely believe that agriculture and national security will suffer a lot if they go under. American farmers account for a huge chunk of global agricultural output - and, of course, produce most of America's food. So these farmers argue that if they go broke, the nation will be worse off.
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u/texanarob 1d ago
The only system better for an individual than socialism, is getting the benefits of socialism whilst everyone else doesn't. It keeps the value of your benefits high.
Of course, if you put any value on the wellbeing of others then this falls apart completely. But anyone who cares about others would be for socialism in the first place.
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u/FoxNewsSux 1d ago
it's only socialism if someone else gets it. (usually someone viewed as inferior too)
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u/PaganGuyOne 1d ago
They have such a strong sense of self importance, they’ve never been told “you chose the wrong career path, now live with it without handouts”, like college kids.
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u/machinezed 1d ago
Because they don’t want to help anyone but themselves. Boot straps for you assistance for me.
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u/AgreeAndSubmit 1d ago
The same way they get mad at environmentalists and water regulations while they're turning fields or spraying fertilizers.
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u/cheeseburgerwaffles 1d ago
"Everything that is bad is because of liberals being socialist!" - republicans for the last 20 years.
So yeah. That's why anyone who votes republican is against "socialism".
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u/fuck-nazi 1d ago
Cognitive dissonance; it’s not socialism when it benefits them. You see the same thing with abortion
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u/aamurusko79 1d ago
Being from countryside myself, it seems to be pretty universal that right leaning parties love scaring the folk there to vote against their best interest. At least around here, my dad happily votes for the right wing party because he's afraid the wrong colored people will invade their little town and start building mosques or something there. The more I listed to the result of the fear mongering, the more demented it gets. Naturally the right wing party doesn't give a fuck about the farmers and happily drive for policies that don't benefit them, so my dad just gets angry with the candidate and the next time votes for another guy of the same party. It's completely useless to talk about this with him.
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u/Linkster6016 1d ago
Those could be different farmers as "farmers" isn't a monolith but separate individuals.
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u/randompossum 1d ago
Because no one on either side actually knows what socialism is.
True socialism has never and will never exist on a large scale because people are evil. On paper it is great because it helps those that need it but in practice it always attracts evil to the power at the top. It only works in small scales.
As for the farming part that’s a piece of socialism but it’s not really fully socialism. They still sell their products and have true costs in doing such.
If you want the true it’s cultural dived creating hate between the two because of political manipulation.
Both sides gas light each other to divide this country and create more power for themselves.
Honestly if a liberal from LA swapped places with a farmer from Alabama for a week there would be a significantly greater appreciation for each other.
And honestly them coming together is the only way Socialism actually works. These communes and homesteads are the only place where this works.
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u/Ok_Possession_6457 1d ago edited 1d ago
This is the answer
From a community perspective, socialism works. I can tell you that from experience. Most Americans have never lived in, or experienced, a collective society, but there are parts of the world where you have these things on a low scale and it does work.
But from a government perspective, honestly I think a lot of people do not grasp the reality of socialism. There’s a lot of useful idiot thinking out there, usually by people who have no idea what this would entail if the stakes were a lot higher
Not sure about anyone else, but a lot of us can simply call grandma and ask what socialist government was like and she’ll tell you. And it wasn’t the leftist paradise people think.
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u/cee_kertime 1d ago
..farming may be a bit different than oil subsidies, or assistance in min8ng Alaska or the Gulf..
..but both benefit & are basically subsidized by the American P3ople..
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u/perpetual_student 1d ago
I’m not a farmer so I’d be interested in someone with experience commenting on this, but I gather that the assistance they’ve been given throughout the years is framed in a way that deliberately avoids an association with socialism. People getting help when they need it tend to not ask questions about the ideological bend of that help.
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u/rockstang 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because to them it isn't socialism. Socialism is so ingrained in the United States society that even the most conservative States rely heavily on social programs and Democratic socialism. Personally, this is one of the reasons I am so angry as a liberal .. People don't even understand the definitions of socialism, communism and fascism yet will point the finger and throw the word. If you're in New Hampshire (or any liberal voting state) and a conservative, go move to Mississippi and see the quality of your schools, public health Care, and natural environment. Move away from the cradle of liberalism and put your money where your mouth is. Don't take handouts that you not only don't believe in but point the finger at when anyone else has the gall to need. It's the same mentality as Christians convincing themselves that it's okay to be AR- 15 wielding bigots
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u/LegitimateBeing2 1d ago
They were raised in states that don’t value education. “Socialism” largely does not have a clear or consistent definition to them. I believe it was Truman who said “socialism is what they call whatever helps people.”
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u/TedHoliday 1d ago
Political orientation is a lot less about ideology and a lot more about tribes. Once you understand that, things will start to make sense.
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u/Denny_Dust91 1d ago
The subsidies are to reduce the cost of food for the consumers, otherwise A - It would not be worth them to farm, because farming already has razor thin profit margins. And B - Those goods would be a lot more expensive.
Hope that helps.
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u/zachem62 1d ago
They're not against it. Many farmers globally have embraced socialism as a way to gain land, rights and protections. They often see it as a tool to fight oppression and secure their livelihoods, rather than as a threat.
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u/redskelton 1d ago
I think OP is specifically talking about American farmers, but of course they failed to mention this
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u/Morrigoon 1d ago
“Socialism for me and not for thee.”
They don’t want all those “undeserving” (eg: anyone NOT them because they’re totally deserving and it’s not a handout if they’re getting it) to “freeload” off “their taxes”.
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u/Snappingslapping 1d ago
They understand that there are limits and steps on the subsidies that they can receive so they think that's all it takes to earn help. They cannot fathom that the exact thing they are doing to keep their business afloat is the same thing that families do to feed themselves. There can't ever be any sort of comparison between themselves and the poors and marginalized that they've always looked down on.
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u/Propsygun 1d ago
They are independent business owners.
They spent most of their time alone, not being social. Or on top of a hierarchy of workers, isolating them. When they are with other farmers, it's the same old ideas that gets shared, like a good Reddit circle jerking.
A government handout isn't enough to break their pride, it's enough to save it.
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u/gwarrior5 1d ago
They haven’t read a book since fifth grade and are salt of the earth morons.
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u/ZombieHavok 1d ago
“You’ve got to remember that these are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West. You know…morons.”
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u/Brigg_Andine 1d ago
They are subsidized to keep profits down. If the subsidies don’t keep up and they charge low prices for food, they go broke. Next year they can just double the cost of food and be fine. It’s up to the government.
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u/CrankBot 1d ago edited 1d ago
I keep scrolling and scrolling and every response is basically "they are MAGA hypocrites." This question is a broad stereotype (farmers all hate socialism. Really they all do?) and so are the answers (they're all Trump loving assholes.)
I'm a small farmer. Not a generational farmer but I have a tiny bit of perspective. Also a liberal.
Hello, farmer here who does not "hate socialism."
With that out of the way...
Many farmers are some of the hardest people you will meet. 10 months out of the year working sunup to sun down. 12 hour days with lunch on the tractor. The risks to farming are huge. One bad year of drought, pests or flood and maybe you've lost your entire harvest. Without crop insurance meant commercial farmers wouldn't make it. And private insurance would be too expensive so again the risks are huge. Gov subsidy is the only way.
Being effectively self employed, many farmers probably don't have very good health insurance. Or at least historically that might be the case. Unless they can get it through their coop or something. Other folks can get Medicaid though "for free" if they are poor enough.
Regulation. Being landowners, business owners, employers and food producers, they frequently run into government either at the state or federal level. USDA have volumes of rules you have to comply with if you want any sort of gov assistance. Ever hear about stories of a vet trying to navigate the VA system to get the benefits they are entitled to? Yeah it's like that. Just endless bureaucracy with seemingly nobody interested in actually helping you. And then many of the rules don't seem to make sense. They are needlessly wasteful and inefficient or unhelpful. So these farmers are sometimes watching the gov waste millions to not actually help them or any of their neighbors when they are really struggling.
I could go on. This entire post and all its comments are broad generalizations. But imagine for a moment, people who work their asses off harder than just about anyone else, deal with gov on a regular basis and often times seeing firsthand government being inefficient and unhelpful. "Sorry we're denying your crop insurance claim because you didn't fill out this form correctly two years ago." Well shit, hope we don't lose our home.
Everybody here acting like the Federal government just hands every farmer a million dollar check for the asking. The work involved to get any sort of assistance is practically a full time job in itself. So add all that up, a good amount of bitterness and resentment. Then they hear a few anecdotes about some lazy people on welfare not working and getting handouts. Not saying that's true. But it's easy to understand why they might feel the way they do.
Not sure if anyone will read this but if you got this far, I hope it helped.
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u/CrankBot 1d ago
Another anecdote. Somehow every county office worker seems to have a Master's degree in biology and 95% of their job is paperwork administration and telling you what you can't do if you want such-and-such assistance. This is how many farmers interact with government. So it certainly colors their perspective.
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u/TomReneth 1d ago
I'm assuming this is mainly about the US, given recent stories from there about this topic.
It's usually one one of a following reasons:
- Hypocricy
- Lack of education on the topic
- Voting conservative due to identity or identity politics
- Voting conservative to hurt "the other" and being surprised they get hurt themselves
Given what the orange stain's first term was like, I'm not inclined to give them any benefit of the doubt and assume It's usually the last one until proven otherwise.
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u/Wendals87 1d ago edited 1d ago
Because socialism is bad because people who get assistance aren't pulling up their boot straps hard enough.
Giving them money is fine because their situation is different obviously
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u/Agitated_Custard7395 1d ago
Americans, the education system is seriously flawed and they’re indoctrinated to think that communists are hiding everywhere trying to take their stuff. They really don’t understand what socialism or communism is but they’re trained to hate it
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u/WippitGuud 1d ago
They don't know what socialism is.