Had this effort been successful, wheat, cotton, tobacco and other farm producers would have been represented in their markets by one or a few powerful sellers. Their power in such markets would not have been different in kind from that already enjoyed by the steel companies, the automobile companies or the Aluminum Company of America in theirs. It would have been the obvious counterpart of the market power implicit in the position of those to whom the farmer sells. Even the most intellectually reluctant might then have agreed that the one position of power was in response to the other. It is appropriate that this legislation was enacted by a Republican Administration in which American business attitudes were dominant. Faced with the need for doing something for the farmer, the obvious course to Mr. Hoover and his colleagues was to remake the farmer as nearly as possible in the image of the typical industrial corporation.
The co-operatives hastily synthesized by the Federal Farm Board were subject to the same weaknesses—they placed the same premium on non-conformance and had the same inability to control the output of either member or non-member—as the voluntary co-operatives. Both they and the Stabilization Corporations were also engulfed by the price collapse of 1930 and 1931. In 1933 the victorious Democrats put the power resources of the government fully at the disposal of agriculture. In one sense this was but a small additional step. The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933, and the subsequent agricultural legislation, merely eliminated the technical weakness which had led to the failure of the earlier voluntary or government-aided efforts. The now half-forgotten processing tax of the original legislation was levied against the production of all growers of basic crops. The proceeds were distributed to those who submitted to control of production. By penalizing the non-co-operator and so controlling production of all, the weaknesses of voluntary bargaining through the co-operative were eliminated. After the abandonment of the processing tax in 1936 (when it was declared unconstitutional), direct subsidies from the Treasury, paid only to co-operators, were used as a passive penalty on the non-participant. In more recent
times government purchases or loans have provided price guarantees which, if supplies are large, are contingent on the willingness of producers to accept marketing quotas on what they sell. This again is a change of form, not of content; by offering itself as an alternative customer, the government is still engaged in the essential task of reinforcing the bargaining position of the farmer.
Such, in brief, is the extraordinarily consistent record of the farmer's efforts to develop countervailing power. Curiously enough, the whole effort is still viewed, even to some extent by farmers themselves, as vaguely artificial. While the word "emergency" has now disappeared from agricultural legislation, there is still a subjective feeling that some day it will pass away. The fact that the modern legislation is now of many years standing, that behind it is a long history of equivalent aspiration, that there is not a developed country in the world where its counterpart does not exist, that no political party would think of formally attacking it are all worth pondering by those who regard such legislation as abnormal.
So far from being abnormal, given the market power of the industries among which the American farmer is cited and the probability of fluctuating demand, it is organic. There would be many advantages in recognizing this. If we fail to regard government support to the bargaining power of the farmer and other groups as normal, we shall almost certainly neglect to search for the principles that should govern the subsidy of private groups by public power. We shall also be less likely to correct the considerable number of abuses and faults which have been associated with government aid to countervailing power—abuses and faults which have been especially numerous and serious in agricultural legislation. Many who might have concerned themselves with these faults have continued to suppose that the remedy is to abolish the entire activity. Like the executioners during the French Revolution, they have offered the guillotine as a cure for headache. This is not the best frame of mind in which to seek improvement in what is certain to continue.