Muddled in the Middle I find it fascinating when people invoke the "family farm" as one of the staples of Americana. Krugman points out that no one has yet found an example of a family farm being sold off to pay estate taxes. What I think is more interesting is how few family farms there atually are. We like to think of our crops coming from family farms out in the mid-west, the ground tilled by sweat and an old tractor. It's a nice myth. Huge corporations own almost all the farms from southern Alabama to northern South Dakota. All the family farms were decimated in the depression and were never recovered. Banks foreclosed on loans and sold the farms to corporations. Now enourmous threshers track up America's landscape following the seeding and harvesting seasons with very little human involvement. There's a lot out there now for a populist politician to seize on right now. Plenty of deception coming from both sides that could be exploited. We'll see if anyone is bold enough to step forward.
- posted by levinson @ 4/11/2001 07:16:00 AM