But you're still viewing farming in a vacuum. Whether you're punching the clock for Monsanto or scrabbling to run a private farm, you still need a grocer, a pos

But you're still viewing farming in a vacuum. Whether you're punching the clock for Monsanto or scrabbling to run a private farm, you still need a grocer, a post office, a restaurant, a barber, and so on. A farming community is a whole ecosystem, and rural America makes up about 18% of the country. One of the reasons America was organized the way it is, as a republic, and not a democracy, was to prevent a tyranny of the majority. And no racial, ideological, or religious minority is as necessary to protect as the minority that feeds all of us. You're right, farmers can quit any time they like, and many have, and are. It's one of the forces driving the automation of agriculture. But we're not at a point where we can take the farmhand out of the equation safely, so let's give them some incentive to stay. While I agree that planned economies are dumb, because of the simple fact of information density, the government is also a market force, and we need to prevent government from working against the people who feed all of us.