Summary Of Chica Calidad By Monica Doad

Monica Prasad opens with the hypothetical situation of an American farmer going on a tour of Western Europe to look at their progresses in social welfare. Prasad states that the situation could have been to display the backward laissez-faire of the United States. However, that was not the case for farmers. Instead of being impressed on this tour, farmers were left in shock on how backwards Western Europe actually was in compare to the United States, in dealing with the worries of farmers. The author displays how the United States was more involved in regulating the market to protect consumers and foster consumption than what others might have thought, which was the shocking point to the farmers.

The first example in the role of the government
was a place that had an overwhelming increased in farming productivity, it was experiencing crises of abundance and deflation during the nineteenth century. Food production was abundant, but people, especially farmers, were starving. This overproduction of food led prices to dropped dramatically. Prasad says that threaten the lives of farmers, in which that kept them in a constant debt cycle. The flow of inexpensive American products initially influenced the markets of Europe to protect themselves with tariffs in which Prasad argues it began the process of the welfare state. This allowed for farmers to have influence on the national level, in which they went up against those who held the moneyed trusts. The farmers also rallied against the lack of purchasing power and sought out for a more friendly debtor. The author here then says that these events of needing to overcome the effects of overproduction led to two characteristics in the American political economy that are still visible. Prasad points these two as the progressive taxation and the expansion of credit. Southern and midwestern farmers relied and favored the progressive taxation because the heavy tax was more laid upon monopolist, bankers, and manufacturers from the North. However, the progressive taxation led to unintended consequences in that it influenced wealthier people to get tax preferences, like private welfare, and options, like the national sales tax, often failed because income tax was seen to be the "working" way to financing the state. Prasad argues that when the economic crisis hit in 1970, progressive taxation was overused in where it became a problem. To overcome this, credit was brought into play to deal with the U.S. welfare state, especially healthcare. The author says that the "unusual productivity and disproportionate political power of America farmers during this period had crucial effects on political economy that resound to this day" (Pg 94). This is to say that