Via Ezra, Michael Pollan has a good example of the problems that Matt discusses here. Evidently, it would be good if subsidies to wealthy agricultural conglomerates could just be eliminated (or severely curtailed.) But the structure of American institutions and policy path dependencies make eliminating these subsidies entirely politically impossible. The better course is to think about how this money could be used more effectively -- such as, say, subsidizing nutritious vegetables rather than corn -- and who can be bought off to make American food policy more sensible rather. That's more practical than daydream believing about eliminating agricultural pork altogether.
--Scott Lemieux
