Cranberries and Government: the Way Our Free-Enterprise System Really Works

Grants to Promote the Cranberry Business

An article that illuminates the relationship between government and business in our society appeared in the Post-Crescent on October 28, 2013. The article is entitled ”Feds to Back Cranberries in Wisconsin”, and it says,

As part of $52 million in U.S. Department of Agriculture grants to support specialty crop producers, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection will partner with the University of Wisconsin researchers to help cranberry growers reduce pesticide use and environmental threats as well as expand the international market by determining the overwintering patterns of the cranberry flea beetle, testing soil-drench efficiency and sharing the information with local producers, according to a USDA news release.

“These investments will strengthen rural American communities by supporting local and regional markets and improving access to fresh, high-quality fruits and vegetables for millions of Americans,” USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a news release. “These grants also help growers make food safety enhancements, solve research needs and make better informed decisions to increase profitability and sustainability.”

Government/Business Partnership Contradicts the Radical Rightist View

Here we see a fine example of the partnership between public and private investment that has always supported the growth of our economy and the well-being of our people.  Radical rightists like to say that government is always the problem, never the solution, and they believe that the size of government should be minimized in order to reduce the drag on the economy that is produced by taxation. The taxes that we pay are seen a nothing more than money that is drained from the private economy and that is used unproductively.

This “cranberry grant” shows how limited and distorted the radical rightist view is. In fact, government expenditures have always been important to the growth of the American economy. American agriculture is one of our most successful and profitable industries, and it is an area that has developed with government support for more than 100 years.  President Abraham Lincoln signed the law that created the land-grant university system. The University of Wisconsin is a part of that system, and researchers there have for generations carried on research that has promoted the development of Wisconsin’s agriculture.  The Smith-Lever Act of 1914 established the partnership between the land-grant universities and the US Department of Agriculture to support agricultural extension work, which brought the results of research to farmers in all parts of the country. Thus, American agriculture has developed as a partnership among the federal government, the state governments, the farmers and the businesses that support farming, and the “cranberry grant” is only the latest fruit of this century-long partnership.

Many Industries Depend on Public Investment

Agriculture is not alone in its dependence on public investment.  The automobile business – that icon of 20^th century American industry – has always depended on public investment in roads and highways.  Without the hundreds billions of dollars of public money spent on roads and highways by state and local governments as well as the federal government, the automobile business could not have developed as it has. The oil business has also benefited from the growth of the automobile business that has been fostered by public investment in roads.  In Wisconsin, the tourist business that supports much of the northern part of our state could not exist without the roads. How many Chicagoans would go to Door County for the weekend if they had to take an overnight boat from Chicago to get there?

There are plenty of other examples. The aircraft business, another very successful American business, has been helped for decades by the procurement activities of the United States Air Force and by the efforts of our State Department to promote sales of American military equipment to other countries.  The internet was created with the support of the Defense Department, and without that public investment, none of the businesses that have grown up around the internet would exist at all.

The Role of Government in Banking

Our economy has also benefited from the government’s banking policies. When our country was founded, Alexander Hamilton insisted that the new federal government assume the debts contracted by the states during the Revolutionary War, and since that time, the full faith and credit of our government has stood behind the its debts and through them it has stood behind the value of the US dollar. Our businesses are able to borrow at reasonable rates all over the world because no one doubts the stability of the dollar.  The Glass-Steagall Act and other regulations introduced during the nineteen-thirties protected us from banking panics for more than sixty years, and we all know what happened when those regulations were eliminated.

We Should Not Kill the Goose that Lays the Golden Eggs

I could go on, but the point is clear. The American economy and through it the American people have benefited greatly from the partnership between public and private investment that is the most outstanding characteristic of the American free-enterprise system. Minimizing the size of government would impoverish all of us by cutting off the funds that have supported research, built our infrastructure and promoted our products around the world. Such a policy would also expose us to banking panics and the economic insecurity that they bring.  As we work to solve our government’s current fiscal problems and reduce its debt, we should remember these things. If we do so, we will not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs.