Overproduction

I have just finished teaching the Gilded Age in U.S. History and we've been talking about populism, the movement that defines the end of the era. The election of 1896 was the last time that populism was alive and though the movement does ultimately inspire many of the progressive reforms of the early 20th century, the populist farmers were left out of those reforms. In fact, though our nation still romanticizes farms and the agrarian dream, 1896 was the last time that farmers had any real influence over an election in the United States. Thank god.......but that's a post for another day.

Farmers were essential to the development of populism, because they were suffering economically while much of the rest of the nation was experiencing economic growth. Farmers blamed railroads and monopolist business interests for their problems. And, to be sure, that was part of the problem. But the real problem for farmers was overproduction: each of them tried to increase their profits by planting more crops, only to overproduce and find that market prices were lower than ever. It was a vicious cycle, heightened by the fact that farmers' independent streak made them oblivious to the obvious solution of collectively organizing to put the screws to the nation.

So when I hear on NPR and read in the NY Times that this spring farmers are planting more corn than ever before in our nation's history in order to cash in on the growing demand for corn (fueled by the incredibly ignorant idea that ethanol is a good idea), I hear echoes of populism and overproduction. It just seems like such an obvious historical lesson. I predict that farmers will overproduce corn this year. Wealthy corporations (Cargill, ADM) will benefit and family farmers will suffer. The culprit will be overproduction, just as it was 110 years ago.

Duh.