Aren't farm subsidies SOCIALISM? What would YOU call them if not that?

I don't know how America defines "socialist", and I have been told elsewhere that some less-educated commentators in the US have even called the European Union, "Communist"!

Socialism does not benefit the wealthy at all.

Whatever its US meaning, anywhere else a socialist government taxes the wealthy, and usually heavily. In fact it taxes anyone on even a modest income, at lower rates; but not the very poor. It does not grant tax cuts to the rich, who also pay a lot of extra tax consequent on expensive property and life-styles. It might though, subsidise farming, for the simple reason that everyone needs food.

The theory is that by taxing anyone except the poorest, and proportionally so, the Government can afford to give free or low-cost education, health, state-pension and unemployment or disability benefits to those otherwise unable to buy these.

In a fully-socialist country these services are provided only by the State. In more liberal countries like the UK, private education and health-care are available to the well-off, and private or company pension schemes are encouraged (though taxed as income above a certain threshold). Although these tend to upset the more dyed-in-the-wool Left-Wingers, often from envy, it does lessen the burden on the State as a community of tax-paying individuals.

Its guiding principle seems to be, if a country looks after its citizens they are more likely to look after it; and from the nation's point of view, it makes considerable economic as well as humane sense to have as large a proportion of the population as possible, reasonably healthy and educated, and at least able to survive in old age, disabled or unemployed.  To that end, looking after the citizenry also means ensuring as far as possible they cannot be exploited at work, financially or otherwise.

How well it works is another matter. It does work, in the UK and most other Western-style democracies, largely, though by no means perfectly for three reasons.

1 No human-made system can ever be 100% successful or efficient in all circumstances.

2 Governments and parliaments (there is a difference) are forever tinkering around the edges with public services, as political and economic circumstances, theoretical whims or plain dogma, ebb and flow.

3 All these systems were devised when most people lived only a few years beyond retirement; but now we are faced with expanding populations living longer (but not necessarily fully healthily) into old-age; with inexorably rising costs of schools, hospitals, etc., and powerful external influences on national economies.

When the Labour Member of Parliament Aneurin Bevan designed the UK's National Health Service, based on health co-operatives that had formed in the Welsh colliery towns he represented, he wanted its services literally free for all; but within only a few years the Government realised that was unsustainable. To Bevan's great dismay it had no choice but to introduce some charges for some NHS services; principally for prescription medicines and dental care - but they are only partial fees far lower than the full costs, with the balance still borne by the tax-payer. And are free if you meet certain age or Social Security benefits criteria.     

Sweden is among the most "socialist" nations in Europe, but I think any Swede would be deeply offended if you were to call his or her country "communist"!

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So to answer directly, a socialist country might subsidise farming, but certainly not give a huge tax cut to the very wealthy!

Only you though, by living there, can explain why so many Americans see it as so wrong for the State to help its poorer residents, as so many other developed democracies do. 

Why do you feel the need to label things you don't approve of?

That tax break and recent farm aid to compensate farmers from Trumps tariffs wasn't even close to being socialist. Almost 100% of the farm aid giving to famers went to white farmers with big farms - the  small farms of non white guys got next to nothing. Cheers!

I'd not known of the problem Nanoose describes.

No, I would not call that socialism! Giving the money to the farmers barely able to scrape a living, might be, but at least they'd deserve it.

Socialism proper, does not reward the rich. In does not like personal wealth very much. It takes money from the wealthy and reasonably well off and gives it to the poor, by a mixture of direct benefits and services they cannot otherwise afford.


So I do not know what you would call giving those hand-outs to rich owners of huge farms but nothing to the subsistence farmers - but it most certainly is NOT "Socialist" by any recognised definition!

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The EU has been called "socialist" and even "communist" by some US commentators.

Now, it does have a strange and (like anything EU) over-complicated agricultural subsidies system under its Common Agricultural Policy. I am not a farmer and do not know how it is meant to work, but I think the aim is that the EU as a whole produces as much of its own food as possible, leaving extra to export. It demands not only a high degree of sufficiency but also that the foods are produced to very high, cohesive, international legal standards of livestock welfare, food safety and environmental responsibility, too: factors the old Communist countries did not worry about too much. 'International' there means largely within the EU; though a good many EU regulations are its own editions of ones made genuinely internationally. Obviously, its countries do trade with the rest of the world, but imports into the EU must comply with appropriate EU-wide standards. Just as EU exports have to meet the standards set by the buyers' countries. 

Now, I suppose the CAP is a  "socialist" principle, including the very socialist habit of having an industry planned by people who may not understand it; but it has come under a lot of criticism for its effects.

These include allegedly, subsidising land-owners who can afford lower aid, in wealthy economies like Britain and Germany; whilst also subsidising very small, very inefficient farms in France so well it encourages them to stay small and inefficient!  This is tax-payers' money, too.

It also led to past, gross over-production of certain foods, leading to massive stocks nicknamed the "butter mountain" and the "wine and milk lakes"; but I think that problem has largely been solved. Partly by the curious process of subsidies compensating for not farming, i.e. leaving land fallow! 

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I have the impression as a foreigner reading many comments on AnswerMug and elsewhere, and from news reports of US politics, that officially at least the USA likes a curious mixture of free-for-all trade in its own favour, sink-or-swim social ideals, isolationism yet hegemony, and recognition only of US and ISO technical standards.  And that anything else, such as subsidising any farmers, providing a national health-care system or enforcing decent employment conditions, is somehow "Socialist" and therefore "Wrong". MacArthy still about?  Now I hope I am wrong, but that's the impression the nation gives beyond those two comfortingly-wide oceans.

Unfortunately the world is very big place, in which the USA and the EU are two wealthy, similarly-sized, but relatively small blocs. And it's a world which exists only by international trade according to principles agreed internationally by the US along with those dreadful "socialists" from everywhere else. The exporter not complying with appropriate product specifications loses buyers (in the EU, it is illegal to sell commercially, newly-made goods not meeting their appropriate, formal safety standards). Increasingly, importers' national or international specifications are going beyond product safety alone, to such matters as environmental and even employee care minima. 

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Whilst I agree with your point, explained by Nanoose, that what happened looks like naked corruption, it is NOT "Socialism".

Further, most of the free world does work very happily to what some American politicians and journalists deride as "socialist" ideals; so the USA may find itself under increasing internal pressure and even international influence, to act similarly.