The so-called "Real American": the Farmer

[IronBrig4]

Our yokel president often says that he goes to his ranch so he can hang with "real Americans." Why do you think farmers and ranchers are often considered the ideal Americans? Both businesses have been in steady decline since the end of World War One. With improved mechanization and genetic engineering, fewer people can grow more crops. Only a tiny percentage of Americans farm for a living, and most of them have been co-opted by the big corporations. Farming isn't even a primary means of income for most farmers, since they earn most of their money through other means. And isn't it ironic that the majority of farm workers aren't Americans at all?

And about ranching, the "Cowboy Age" only lasted twelve years. They were industrial workers if you think about it. They drove the cattle to the rail yards, and the livestock was transported from there to Chicago, where the animals would then be systematically slaughtered and butchered. The cowboys weren't paid by the Ma & Pa Ranch or a grizzly old trail boss, but by the rich robber barons of the Gilded Age, who often never left their headquarters in Chicago or New York. Most cowboys didn't even stay on the trail very long. They usually stayed for just a couple years, saving up their money so they could settle down.

The self-reliant American farmer or rancher is just a myth. It's not a harmful myth, but still a myth. There are even more World of Warcraft players than farmers. So why do our folksy leaders keep trying to support that myth?

[Thanatos]

Our yokel president often says that he goes to his ranch so he can hang with "real Americans." Why do you think farmers and ranchers are often considered the ideal Americans? Both businesses have been in steady decline since the end of World War One. With improved mechanization and genetic engineering, fewer people can grow more crops. Only a tiny percentage of Americans farm for a living, and most of them have been co-opted by the big corporations. Farming isn't even a primary means of income for most farmers, since they earn most of their money through other means. And isn't it ironic that the majority of farm workers aren't Americans at all?

And about ranching, the "Cowboy Age" only lasted twelve years. They were industrial workers if you think about it. They drove the cattle to the rail yards, and the livestock was transported from there to Chicago, where the animals would then be systematically slaughtered and butchered. The cowboys weren't paid by the Ma & Pa Ranch or a grizzly old trail boss, but by the rich robber barons of the Gilded Age, who often never left their headquarters in Chicago or New York. Most cowboys didn't even stay on the trail very long. They usually stayed for just a couple years, saving up their money so they could settle down.

The self-reliant American farmer or rancher is just a myth. It's not a harmful myth, but still a myth. There are even more World of Warcraft players than farmers. So why do our folksy leaders keep trying to support that myth?

Because our country started as an agrarian one, that's why.

[L'Afrique]

Because our country started as an agrarian one, that's why.

Basically every country ever save perhaps some recently independent European states started as agrarian ones.

[Last Roman]

you can link it to the ancient Roman republic ideal. The farmer was the backbone of society, the stoic, hardworking man who never complained, defending his country and went back to work right after.

Basically, because he is the ideal man.

[Kiljan Arslan]

Most likley as Thantos said that we started as an Agrarian nation also they do happen to feed us.

BTW anyone notice the eatkind.net advertisment that has appeared?

[Cluny the Scourge]

Designating one minuscule minority group as 'the real Americans', thus indicating that everyone else isn't a real American...yes, certain people really are geniuses in the search for new ways to alienate people. "Genius" as in "****ing retard".

[El Brujo]

There is a chance that farmers vote in greater numbers or are otherwise more politically active than other groups, which might inflate their political importance. I don't know if that's true, just a guess.

[Big War Bird]

Read Guns, Germs and Steel Farmers > Everyone Else

At the time of the American Revolution, many of the Founding Fathers were farmers and they wrote rather profusely on the virtues of own and working ones own land.

[Cluny the Scourge]

Read Guns, Germs and Steel Farmers > Everyone Else

At the time of the American Revolution, many of the Founding Fathers were farmers and they wrote rather profusely on the virtues of own and working ones own land.

So their descendants could buy more land, and out-compete other farmers and buy up theirs, and take on the dispossessed farmers as helpless employees on a wage and at their beck and call, and take on more wage-slaves, and so expand until they possess more land than ten thousand people could need while they themselves no longer need to work a day on 'their own land', and so these 'virtues' are utterly lost - not only for everyone who no longer has the slightest chance of owning land, but for themselves as well. Capitalism is a wonderful thing.

[Thanatos]

Read Guns, Germs and Steel Farmers > Everyone Else

At the time of the American Revolution, many of the Founding Fathers were farmers and they wrote rather profusely on the virtues of own and working ones own land.

Well, there IS something wholesome about tilling your own land, and seeing the things you planted by your hand grow and provide you with sustenance.

[SigniferOne]

Cluny you're so lost in that barrage of vitriole. Do you have even a single shred of fact or proof to back anything up?

[SorelusImperion]

That proof is called "Latifundia". Take a look at it and think why some of our world's most credible scientists refer to them as proto-Industrial capitalistic entietys.

[Bokks]

@ Big War Bird,
I bought Guns, Germs and Steel twice and I still haven't read it yet!
Oh well, I blame college... destroying my chance to read!

Anyway, there is currently ~1/2 of 1% of the American population actively involved in true argriculture, and the US produces at a rate of 100:1 output:seed ratio. In other words, whenever we put one of something in the ground we gain 100 of that same thing back. Rome, by the way, was 5:1, which is still really good, especially given their technology and knowledge of top-soil conservation.
At any rate, I can attest that the people who do work in such a way or not yokels or simpletons, as I used to be one. I can also say that most people who have such a walk of life generally vote in community elections, but not very commonly in national. There are also many people who own a great deal of land for that purpose, some people we knew owned acreage of land into the 6 digits, one man I met I was told had a million, but I was young at the time, and so now tend to doubt such assertions. Mind you the farther west you go the more possible such a thing is, but it's still staggeringly uncommon.

Thanatos and Big War Bird are completely correct, it is simply the visage that people have when they think of America. The US is the breadbasket of much of the world; we produce enough to support ourselves and many others. Because of that candidates see backing a population that supports this as supporting America, and for the most part people actually follow suit.
Actually, Kennedy was really the first to prove this wrong. I can't remember the guy he was running against at the time (I'm tired, I don't want to look it up, so sue me) but his oponent killed in the suburbs and farms, but Kennedy won in a landslide because he got the cities.

Another stat for you stat minded people: there are about 300 million US citizens (although the projection six years ago said we'd have 270 million right now I believe the 300 millionth child was born 2 years ago). There are roughly 46-56 million living in cities. That means that about 200-250 million Americans are living in a) suburbs and b) farms and farm communities, of all places.


Oh, IronBrig, I've heard about the 12 year cowboy age thing before, but have seen no reason to conclude that it didn't persist from an earlier age to the end of Teddy Roosevelt's term. Where'd you hear it?

[IronBrig4]

Oh, IronBrig, I've heard about the 12 year cowboy age thing before, but have seen no reason to conclude that it didn't persist from an earlier age to the end of Teddy Roosevelt's term. Where'd you hear it?

The Cowboy Age was from 1865 until about 1877-78. A lot of the cowboys were displaced, former rebel cavalrymen who were trying to sustain themselves. The cattle industry survived the depression of 1872 (brought on by the railroad industry's collapse) and then lasted until the late 1870s. A series of devastating blizzards, combined with other economic trends, destroyed the cattle industry. This is not to say that cowboys completely disappeared. They still persisted into the 1920s, but not nearly at the scale as during the Reconstruction Era.

I read about this in a couple history books, and in the modern US history class that I was a teaching assistant for.

[RusskiSoldat]

Iowa always has its primary first, so ever since the time primaries became the way that candidates are selected, farmers became oneof teh most pampered groups.

Another stat for you stat minded people: there are about 300 million US citizens (although the projection six years ago said we'd have 270 million right now I believe the 300 millionth child was born 2 years ago). There are roughly 46-56 million living in cities. That means that about 200-250 million Americans are living in a) suburbs and b) farms and farm communities, of all places.

I call ********.
According to the EPA, there are 2 million or so farms.
Even if they have ten people per household (very unlikely), it's still a minuscule proportion of the US population. I don't doubt that most people live in suburbs, though.

[Bokks]

Iowa always has its primary first, so ever since the time primaries became the way that candidates are selected, farmers became oneof teh most pampered groups.

when did Iowa become the one before New Hampshire?

I call ********.
According to the EPA, there are 2 million or so farms.
Even if they have ten people per household (very unlikely), it's still a minuscule proportion of the US population. I don't doubt that most people live in suburbs, though.

hehe
That's why I added "and farm communities" at the last minute, but yeah, you caught my bluff.
The numbers are right, it's just that, well, yours are too.
Seriously, though, I wouldn't call farm communities suburbian, but they're definately not farming people. I imagine that the definition that the EPA uses is directed to big farms, the kind you see from 300 miles away that supplies nothing but corn or wheat. When presidential candidates refer to the "typical" or "real" American they mean a nuclear household that grows some kind of crops, not necessarily big ones, or the people that live around those families. Therefore I added "farm communities" for the little towns that have a dozen farmers and everyone else, though they consider themselves somehow connected, are not.

Even Jerry Redneck needs a postal worker!
Speaking of which, we were driving through Rhode Island a little bit ago, and a mail Jeep passed us! A mail Jeep! And I don't mean a private person who goes around in their pickup depositing news papers or something, this Jeep's stearing wheel was on the right side, and it had the Postal Eagle and everything!
Off topic, but isn't that crazy?

[edit] oh, and thank you, IronBrig, that's cool!
Don't forget Jesse James wasn't until after that, though!
(obviously you hadn't, it's right there)

[SigniferOne]

People, Latifundia is a latin term, it has nothing to do with America. Cluny still has to explain his badmouthing of the founding fathers.

[Syron]

Like many American ideals it comes from an appeal to Early Roman ideals, which America was quite clearly attempting to self-image itself as. In particular this aspect comes from the story of Cincinnatus

[Last Roman]

Like many American ideals it comes from an appeal to Early Roman ideals, which America was quite clearly attempting to self-image itself as. In particular this aspect comes from the story of Cincinnatus

exactly

[Roy Batty]

People, Latifundia is a latin term, it has nothing to do with America. Cluny still has to explain his badmouthing of the founding fathers.

How so? It was an expressed opinion, nothing more. There were no facts presented in his post to dispute or even interpret. If you disagree then by all means, disagree and start a debate with some information backing up your claim as to why his opinion is "wrong". What you're doing now is little better than trolling, however.

This discussion got me reading about the Founding Fathers though. According to Wikipedia, only 14 of the 55 delegates at the Constitutional Convention were even remotely associated with farming as a profession. Twelve were slave-plantation owners or operators of large scale farms and only two were "small farmers". The rest were a essentially variety of what you can categorize as "rich men" Source.

Of course, in typical Wikipedia fashion this information isn't quite correct, as according to this site, these two (Broom and Few) were in fact a merchant and lawyer respectively, but at least having been born and raised on farms.

They must have decided to apply the virtues of farming to more profitable pursuits.