Farm Subsidies: The Dirty Truth

If that's the best survey you've seen on the topic, you haven't seen any good ones. The interventionist pitches are emotionalized in an effort to sell themselves, and the market pitches aren't - in fact, they seem deliberately over-intellectual and confused. Give me a survey where each answer tries hard to sell itself, and I'll be more persuaded. As it stands, what this really demonstrates (once again) is that responses to surveys asking detailed, policy-specific questions are quite malleable.

The only glimmer of hope in there is that people oppose subsidies for big agrifood companies, but that doesn't seem terribly robust: they still seem to support subsidies to those companies when framed as being in bad years or to protect against foreign companies.

Jason: I don't see any bias in the question wording. The statements look like fair portraits of the common positions on either side. The problem is that the wrong side is inherently more rhetorically appealing on this one.

Over at Volokh.com they are talking about farm subsidies too.

I hope the next farm bill will have more safety net features and less direct cash outlays. Not holding my breath on it though.

I think you may be setting up a straw man by investigating the public understanding of technical issues such as economic policy.

Luckily, modernizing society does not depend on such technical understanding, indeed the essence of modernization is the separation and autonomy of social systems - so that economic policy (for example) is over the long term becoming progressively separated from politics.

But the public doesn't decide political policy either. They vote a new government every few years. And wannabee governments offer a package or *program* of linked policies.

Lack of public understanding of detailed policies only becomes a seriosu problem when they get to vote on specific policies - like in California - where referenda can lead to contradictory policies eg. for lower taxes AND higher public spending.

Generally speaking the fact that elections are for programs not policies is a safeguard against this kind of voter irrationality.

"Lack of public understanding of detailed policies only becomes a seriosu problem when they get to vote on specific policies - like in California - where referenda can lead to contradictory policies eg. for lower taxes AND higher public spending."

And that's different from the voting behavior of Congress....how, exactly?

Because farmers in other countries work at low wages, the only way that small American farmers can compete is to give them regular annual subsidies.

Am I missing something, or is the question asking "American farmers are much more productive than foreign farmers. Therefore our government should give them money to ensure their survival." in a way designed to appeal to rationally irrational voters?

Eric, the bias is in the overt reference to consequences in both interventionist pitches and in the lack of reference to consequences in the market pitches. Specifically:

Interventionist pitch #1 raises twin specters of food shortages and price swings; market pitch #1 makes a ridiculous (as if the food industry is entirely manipulated! as if no other industries are subsidized!) philosophical claim about "consistency".

Interventionist pitch #2 predicts that Americans will become unemployed; market pitch #2 doesn't even say that foreigners might become unemployed, let alone the idea that they might not be able to feed themselves.

The market pitches don't even try to argue that subsidies are unnecessary. Where is an attack on corporate farmers getting rich off subsidies? Where is the mention of government food stocks that get thrown away? Whoever wrote the question didn't even TRY to get people to choose the market pitch, and it STILL got over 30%. The results if anything are cause for optimism.

"Flooding the world market with cheap subsidized farm products" is probably better for poor people than official aid. Poor consumers enjoy lower food prices while official aid often just helps dictators.

Libertarians have succeeded in convincing people that social liberalism is ideal, which is the easy part. Convincing people that free markets work is more difficult, because there is always anecdotal evidence the other way. Small minds....