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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

You almost had it when you said “electoral politics”. But then you missed the mark. The entire federal system in the US is built to favor rural areas. From the 2 Senators/state where CA only has the same number of Senators as the least populous states in US, the Electoral College method of presidential voting where twice since 2000 the person with the most popular votes lost the election, and gerrymandering where the party in congress doesn’t represent the popular vote in nearly the same proportion.

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The system wasn’t built to favor rural areas, it was built to favor the sovereignty of the States, which are independent territories with their own systems of government, who specifically agreed to join the US in exchange for the representation they received in Congress and the Electoral process. Trying to walk back that compromise to let high population states dominate national politics is a violation of the social contract.

That’s why the States are referred to as experiments in democracy. It’s a decentralized form of government (With guardrails, written into the US Constitution). It doesn’t matter that there are millions of people in Los Angeles, their voice shouldn’t have a disproportionate say in how farmers in say, Iowa, run their government. The needs, economies, and demographics of different states are completely different and a using decentralized system of government is much more intuitive than trying to manage it from the top down.

So in that case, shouldn’t voters in CA be able to refuse to subsidize rural states? We should have lower federal taxes and let each state fend for itself.

Then you should stop voting for people who want more taxes.

The people who want less taxes don’t want to cut spending, they increase deficits and they are damn sure not going yo cut subsidies to rural America. The people in CA have less voting power in the Senate than all of the states they are subsidizing.

The people in CA vote for one party, which is the party of redistribution on the national level. Would that party not bulge if it were punished by CA voters?

Both parties are the parties of redistribution. Republicans “redistribute” via farm subsidies, oil and gas subsidies, unneeded military bases to create jobs (bases that the military wants to close), “disability insurance” for people in rural America that are not disabled but don’t have the right kind of training to work the in demand jobs. Heck and lately unemployment insurance for people who lost their jobs because they refuse to get vaccinated.

But, the point is that people in CA can only elect two Senators while five or six states whose population doesn’t equal CA can elect 10 or 12.

California decided itself it wants be in a union with other states and accepted the conditions which enabled that union. I think it should be their right to secede from such a union if it is not in their interest anymore. I think you are also forgetting CA is also huge in agriculture and will certainly subsidize its farms even if it gets independent.

Unless you’re gonna address how states were drafted and the politics behind that, this post is at best a credulous defense of federalism.

I think you've lost the thread. Rural vs. urban is just one facet of how our system pits the many against each other while the few benefit. Have you been to rural parts of the country? Most urbanites wouldn't consider the average boonie to be any better than their neighborhood in a city. You know which places are really doing better, certainly better than they actually need? Those with huge average salaries relative to CoL, like Potomac or the Hamptons.

It doesn’t matter about rural vs urban. It’s a matter of rule if the minority - population wise not “minority people”

It just seems like that since the rich currently use that to keep the status quo.

I'm reminded of the fact that whatever house of congress the republicans own all of a sudden become the most important legislative body. When the Dems had the house and the Reps had the senate, the house was an afterthought. When reversed, the house were the arbiters of final word on legislation (at least it was based on CNN's characterization for the last 20-odd years).

The state of gerrymandering also reflects this, to reduce the political power of democratic strength in populous cities.

If the rich had their power via cities, then districting would enforce this and the house would be the most powerful.

The federal government has inertia by design since the spoils system was removed. The rich have the means to influence this inertia over time.

Also, do you wonder why elections are so close? The rich pay only enough to form a coalition to maintain the status quo. They buy just enough to win some of the time, and even if they lose, they roadblock changes. They advance the agenda when they win, and resist when they don't.

Over time, that has resulted in the current state of wealth inequality.

I ask the following to hopefully promote discussion, I don't necessarily espouse the opinion.

With most of the US critically thinking about the electoral / senatorial systems, and how the scales do tip towards rural states..

What concessions, if any, should rural states / areas be entitled to, given that they are the food producers for our country? On paper, that could provide leverage / a "bargaining chip" in this discussion.

The flip-side to this coin is that the more urban states / areas are the economic drivers of the country, which is clearly a source of leverage as well.

I feel like most people don't think about it in these terms, and I'm curious how it would impact their opinions when adding the dimension of leverage / "social value" to population.

Perhaps these should have no weight on a discussion of representation?

None. One person. One vote. Rural America wouldn’t survive without farm subsidies and protectionist trade policies. If they had to sell at cost without subsidies, it would be cheaper to import food. How much are farm subsidies just for corn?

If you have to import food to feed your people, you are not an independent nation. You are a vassal state of whoever is feeding you. That's why countries protect their agricultural sector. It's why when you cross over into Canada from the US, the landscape quickly changes to agricultural as what's often considered marginal to poor farmland in the US is considered prime ag land in Canada since they want to grow as much of their own food as possible. Agriculture is what makes civilization possible, not the other way around. Farmers can exist just fine if cities disappeared. Cities cannot say the inverse.

How well will farmers survive without the infrastructure that is provided by modern cities? Hospitals? The years when they have poor yields?

How is the quality of life of more agrarian societies compared to more industrial nations?

When a worldwide pandemic happens, how is rural America going to do? How are poorer more agrarian countries now doing in the midst of Covid compared to the industries countries?

Of course farmers would be worse off without cities. But cities would have simply ceased to exist all together without farmers.

Coastal cities can import food…

That implies that you still need farmers and you just outsourced them.

But we don’t subsidize them.

If I can’t find a job in my state based on my skillset, I can move to anywhere in the US. Heck, my company is on the opposite coast and I WFH. Knowledge workers have a lot more mobility and much less capital tied up in their labor.

In other words, if my state went to shit because CA is not subsidizing it, it wouldn’t affect me.

The country from where you'll be buying food from will and you can be sure you'll be paying for it.

>It's why when you cross over into Canada from the US, the landscape quickly changes to agricultural as what's often considered marginal to poor farmland in the US is considered prime ag land in Canada since they want to grow as much of their own food as possible.

Source? I inspected various parts of the canada-us border using google maps and can't find an example of this.

So how to fix this?

Remove states and all levels of local government? Just single voting area for entirely country where from pool of candidates those with most votes are elected? Just single federal level?

This is impossible in the USA without another civil war. The notion of states is a central part of our democratic republic, which was a compromise from the beginning. No matter how much anyone dislikes that opinion it is basically inarguable that states aren't going anywhere unless you plan on revolting and starting a new country.

Decrease federal taxes and spending to only the military and international affairs, cut out subsidies to states and let each state fend for themselves. Get rid of social security on the federal level and each state has their own pension that is transferable between states.

We will then find out how much red states truly miss “socialism” then.

> The entire federal system in the US is built to favor rural areas

That’s because those who choose not to live in filthy crime ridden cities shouldn’t have to suffer from the lowest common denominator laws and high taxes said cities “require” to not fall apart since people aren’t meant to live that close together.

Perhaps state/federal assistance, benefits, and investment should also be proportional to tax revenue as well.

Don't want to pay taxes? Fine, you're on your own. Rural areas receive all kinds of investment and subsidies that far exceed their contribution in taxes. Fortunately for everybody, things don't work that way.

Consider California, who's GDP would rank it among most countries. Most of the economic activity in the state is concentrated in the large, coastal cities. This generates massive amounts of state and federal taxes that rural areas ultimately benefit from.

Cities pay for your rural lifestyle. You're welcome. No need to thank us, we're all in this together.

If you really want to see it in a zero sum way, which I disagree with, you need to realize that those living in suburbia or in rural areas are the lowest common denominators. Paying for their lifestyle is why taxes in cities are so high and why laws in cities are so harsh.

It is logistically impossible for the people that live outside cities to have anywhere near the quality of life they currently enjoy without the existence of people living in cities.

Indeed, without subsidies paid for by city folk, agricultural prices would plummet and become unstable, which would greatly hamper the prosperity of anyone related to the agricultural sector.

Without cities, it would also be impossible to pay for the infrastructure enjoyed by suburbia and rural areas. The amount and quality of roads would have to decrease drastically, and suburbs would have to pay multiple times more for running water, electricity infrastructure, wastewater management (you would have to move to a septic tank with all of the costs those entail). This would have knock-on effects increasing the prices of all goods and it would make transportation either very expensive or impossible.

This would lead to a complete collapse of rural and suburban life in North America.

If you want to know what that would look like, you can envision life in rural China, or somewhat worse even.

Urbanisation is absolutely necessary for the quality of life you enjoy. In the relationship, despite it being mutually beneficial, those who live in rural areas are the ones who are moreso compensated. As for suburbia, it's not clear that it is beneficial at all to those who live in cities.

Yet snd still it’s rural America that’s subsidized by those “filthy cities” where all of the economic activity is taking place.

I’m not going to even mention the opioid epidemic in rural America is killing far more people than in the inner city.

But why should the minority get to dictate policies if the majority? Is rural America willing to get rid of all of the farm subsidies? The unneeded military bases that the military is trying to close but politicians don’t let them?

> Yet snd still it’s rural America that’s subsidized by those “filthy cities” where all of the economic activity is taking place.

If you don't think rural America would trade those subsidies in the blink of an eye for the dissolution of those cities into their own separate union or something, you really don't know rural America.

> But why should the minority get to dictate policies if the majority?

Because a few pinprick-sized geographical locations overflowing with millions of people who think that's how everyone should live / does live (it's not) shouldn't get to dictate the policies of the entire rest of the country that is living in relative peace and comfort away from such overpopulated, crime-ridden areas with extremely high costs of living and an overall terrible QoL. Look at any US-wide election map, by county; see how few areas are truly blue. The homogeneous state of southern California should not get to decide how the rest of us live/suffer.

The founders knew what they were doing.

There has never been a "rural" empire. You're basically advocating a return to serfdom. Breaking the links between cities and rural areas will just strand people in rural areas. Cities will get fed, they have the people and the might. The current system is way more beneficial to rural people then any alternative.

By whom will they get fed?

Take a look at the Irish potato famine for a good example.

I'm sorry I don't follow. Could you be more specific?

Rural America gets far more from the federal government than their taxes pay for. Heck the only reason rural America has internet or before that phone lines is because of government mandates and taxes added on to phone bills Z

Whatever they would do is irrelevant. If those things did happen, farmers would go into bankruptcy en masse and be utterly financially ruined. Whether they know this or not isn't relevant.

Most rural Americans would be willing to get rid of subsidies if the government was also willing to control inflation, pass right to repair so that equipment costs for farmers weren’t so high, and if government didn’t put quotas on the production of other crops. This before getting into monopolies that exist in the agricultural sector who lobby to keep the government from changing things and in many cases those companies have engaged in regulatory capture.

People love to be pro-whatever but unless you’ve lived among the farmers and heard the crap they put up with you shouldn’t really be mouthing off on the topic. It’s complex with good and bad from corporate interest and government. This isn’t a matter of more or less government involvement, or of more or less market freedom… it’s fundamentally about a need for all of these interests to actually take the time to see the struggles farmers face before taking more action. The right to repair is a great example of this working well, where people did listen and John Deere may get a good come-uppance.

One last thing, the way you worded that first part of your comment makes you sound like someone prejudiced against the rural poor. Nice and classist style. That is precisely why the majority of rural Americans hate urban Americans so much.

No, they wouldn't be. I don't think you understand the full extent of subsidies that rural areas receive. Even with right to repair, and perpetual 2% inflation, the entire agricultural lifestyle in the US would crumble.

There are no production quotas in the US, except on sugar. There are limits to subsidies, however.

I know how the life of farmers goes, and not just in the US. You just have no idea what it looks like when what you're asking for happens. There is a reason that no major economy doesn't have agricultural subsidies.

If those went away, US exports of agricultural products would essentially go to zero.

But agricultural subsidies are far from the only, and perhaps not even the largest, type of subsidy that farmers receive.

Indeed, farms in the US are greatly under-taxed. Despite the median farm household income being much higher than the overall median household income, farming households on average pay around 14% in income taxes, around 4900$ in property taxes.

This is is much lower than the tax load of the average US household, and much lower still than the tax load of the average US household of the same income.

Thus, if you wanted to actually end the support that farms are getting, you would also need to raise taxes on farms significantly, and cut subsidies. Then you'd also have the fact that the average farmer requires much costlier infrastructure than the average city dweller in per-capita equivalents.

Would it really be possible for US farms to make a living if their taxes were almost doubled, if all subsidies were ended, and if prices were allowed to fluctuate? The answer is, definitely, absolutely, not at all.

The problem is that people for some reason are living in cities for thousands of years and this helped in progres of science/technology/art. It's a symbiotic, not parasitic relationship.

It's both as there are good things and bad things about living in cities and it certainly isn't for everyone.

How close are people meant to live to each other? Source?

> Source?

Every single violent and property crime statistic ever.

What do you think is the causality?

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