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Page 182
farmer is thereby induced to spend additional sums on fertilizer, seed, machinery, etc. At most, only the excess adds to his income. And finally, even this residual of a residual overstates the gain since the effect of the program has been to keep more people on the farm than would otherwise have stayed there. Only the excess, if any, of what they can earn on the farm with the price-support program over what they can earn off the farm, is a net benefit to them. The main effect of the purchase program has simply been to make farm output larger, not to raise the income per farmer.
Some of the costs of the farm purchase program are so obvious and well-known as to need little more than mention: the consumer has paid twice, once in taxes for farm benefit payments, again by paying a higher price for food; the farmer has been saddled with onerous restrictions and detailed centralized control; the nation has been saddled with a spreading bureaucracy. There is, however, one set of costs which is less wellknown. The farm program has been a major hindrance in the pursuit of foreign policy. In order to maintain a higher domestic than world price, it has been necessary to impose quotas on imports for many items. Erratic changes in our policy have had serious adverse effects on other countries. A high price for cotton encouraged other countries to enlarge their cotton production. When our high price led to an unwieldy stock of cotton, we proceeded to sell overseas at low prices and imposed heavy losses on the producers whom we had by our earlier actions encouraged to expand output. The list of similar cases could be multiplied.
Old Age and Survivor's Insurance
The "social security" program is one of those things on which the tyranny of the status quo is beginning to work its magic. Despite the controversy that surrounded its inception, it has come to be so much taken for granted that its desirability is hardly questioned any longer. Yet it involves a large-scale invasion into the personal lives of a large fraction of the nation without, so far as I can see, any justification that is at all persuasive, not only on liberal principles, but on almost any other. I

 
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