Not inadvertently!!!!!!!!

Anti-monopolist Stoller sometimes misses the point, but this time he hits it properly and comprehensively.

Except for one important word.

He’s discussing the post-1970 destruction of the New Deal by both D and R politicians. In agriculture the worst destruction was by Carter and Clinton. Trump is continuing the process, even more brazenly destroying life to enrich Larry Fink.

Stoller quotes a letter he got from an Iowa farmer:

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The New Deal inadvertently supported good farming practices, which go hand-in-hand with preserving farmland / soil quality and preservation. Many practices that conserve the natural resource that is the soil are not immediately profitable. When farmers are forced to chase cash flow, short-term profit becomes paramount, and practices that promote the long term preservation of top soil are simply put in second place. As is water quality, as Iowans are finding out, and almost anyone who knows much about the Mississippi River would agree. Soil needs to be considered an important natural resource (it does, in fact, actually feed all of us…). Instead, the free-market system treats it as a disposable medium and a tool for short term profits.

Small farmers used to grow multiple crops (corn, soy, wheat. oats, barley, alfalfa, clovers, etc.) AND very often had a value-added operation such as a small swine or dairy operation that fed much of what the land produced. Now, those animal operations are large specialized and concentrated operations: they pack large numbers of animals together (raising the risk of a catastrophic disease outbreak) and concentrate the animal wastes which presents massive water quality issues for all. Also, now, with the smaller value-added options gone, farmers have turned to simple, but extremely large cash-grain businesses. Farming has turned to a more corporate model that is solely focused on short-term profits. That is not a good thing for an industry that the entire country (and world) depends on and cannot do without. And once the land is destroyed, human life as we know it, will end.

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Says it all! But preserving the soil was NOT INADVERTENT. Preserving the soil was the MAIN PURPOSE. Henry Wallace, a farmer by birth who became an ag scientist and writer, was Sec of Ag in the New Deal. His father had been Sec of Ag under Harding, so Henry understood exactly how and why the Dust Bowl happened. He put in place a comprehensive project to ensure it wouldn’t happen again. He subsidized farmers to keep them in business, and he trained them to conserve soil more effectively.

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When FDR took office, he had to fix two parallel legacies of the booming speculative 20s, both of which caused busts in the 30s. There were cross-ties between the two legacies, so he couldn’t fix either one by itself. He had to fix them in a cross-linked way.

One boom was initiated by huge government purchases of food in WW1. Bankers encouraged inexperienced farmers to buy poor land to take advantage of the demand. When the demand quickly disappeared, the farmers were left with a mortgage and no way to pay it. They abandoned the farms after plowing off the (already poor) topsoil. When a fairly serious drought hit in 1930, the land took flight, covering up everything in its path.

Even competent farmers on good land had been using ineffective methods, allowing wind and water to carry off the soil. Millions of tons of topsoil were ending up in the Gulf of Mexico.

The other boom was the stock boom, which needs no introduction.

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FDR’s administration used similar methods to solve both problems.

In the context of soil:

When the wind comes whistlin cross the plain, a line of trees can redistribute its energy. The air has to twist and turn between small leaves and branches. Part of the force is thus turned aside and spent in mechanically thrashing the leaves and branches, and part is spent in the whistlin.

And when water comes rushing across a sloped field, a dense planting of grass can redistribute its energy. The water has to twist and turn between the stems and flat blades. Water that stops for a moment in front of a grass blade has a chance to penetrate the soil. Without grass, the water moves freely and begins to pick up soil particles. As it gets more gritty, its scraping ability grows exponentially until it’s a muddy flood.

Here’s a straight wind encountering leaves. The air currents get tangled and twisted in an infinite number of small vortices (blue). The energy is still there; it hasn’t been converted to heat or anything else; but now it’s confused and incapable of breaking walls or lifting topsoil. Real windbreaks were much denser than my simplified pair of trees. The CCC planted windbreaks all over the Plains, often using the tough and flexible Osage Orange or bois d’arc tree.

But you can’t leave everything planted to grass all the time if you’re trying to grow profitable crops. So you have to use two other methods. Crop rotation allows part of the farm to be in grass in any one season; and contour plowing insures that the plowed rows serve as mini-dams to force the water down instead of across.

What’s the common factor here? Angular momentum. Stopping a flow by using reactance instead of resistance. Breaking up massive linear motion into small circular and angular moves, so the air can feed the trees and the water can feed the plants.

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In the context of economics:

Speculators are like the linear force of wind and water. They advertise a seemingly unstoppable linear expansion. Buy now! Prices are going straight up, and prices have to keep going up up up UP UP UP UP UP UP!!!! Join the flood while you still have a chance! Become part of a mudball that will help to gather other soil particles! Become a nail that can bounce against the side of a house and loosen up other nails to join the blast! Isn’t that attractive? FUN FUN FUN!

FDR redistributed the linear momentum of money into more useful angular momentum.

Glass-Steagall and bank reform provided a windbreak and a contour. Speculators were halted, forcing money to pause and thrash around in the same place. When money had to stay in the same place, it had a better chance of penetrating local soil and feeding local business. Bank reform allowed money to stay securely in the same place, decreasing the temptation to join big floods.

WPA was like a field of dense grass. Money stored in government clouds was rained onto real workers, who then produced real value and spent their money in local businesses. Real labor created real irrigation systems and real windbreaks and real dams, nicely closing the circle of my analogy.

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