The Reality Of ‘Public Assistance’

From Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

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.’ 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. He was a devout man whose pulpit was everywhere.

‘The Lord gave us good farmers two strong hands so that we could take as much as we could grab with both of them,’ he preached with ardor on the courthouse steps or in front of the A&P as he waited for the bad-tempered gum-chewing young cashier he was after to step outside and give him a nasty look. ‘If the Lord didn’t want us to take as much as we could get,’ he preached, ‘He wouldn’t have given us two good hands to take it with.’ And the others murmured, ‘Amen.’

Major Major’s father had a Calvinist’s faith in predestination and could perceive distinctly how everyone’s misfortunes but his own were expressions of God’s will.

To be fair, the argument for agricultural price support is that unless you take land out of production, the supply of certain commodities will exceed any posssible demand. The result of this is a widely variable and unpredictable market where efficient resource allocation (say, the actual correct amount of land to devote to alfalfa farming) is difficult to determine and marginal producers who may be needed in the event of unexpected demand are exposed to considerable financial risk. Economists who are militant about the wisdom of this policy may even argue that driving market prices below production costs will in short order cause all suppliers, even the most efficient, into different allocation of their capital which will lead to chronic shortages of necessary goods (Oil anyone?).

Oh, and this is not some wacky, pie-in-the-sky theory, this is textbook Economics 101.

Anyway, I find it a useful point when Neoliberal “Magic of the Markets” idiots get all up in my grill. The government controls thousands of markets for the benefit of perceived public welfare and the only difference between buying off some Arms Manufacturer and building roads, parks, and bridges or (heaven forfend) providing food, shelter, clothing, and health care to our populace is Qui Bono.

Oh, and the fact that they’re Black.