Rethinking the Welfare State: The prospects for ... - e-Library

Food stamps 43
features of what has since been termed the “two-stamp program,” for example, strongly
suggest the higher importance legislators placed on securing the well-being of food
producers and retail grocers than the well-being of the poor. To participate in the
“twostamp program” individuals were expected to purchase a minimum set of orange
stamps at face value with their own disposable income from the government. Only upon
purchase were they supplied with free blue stamps. However, the blue stamps were
restricted to food items appearing upon a monthly list of surplus commodities issued by
the Secretary of Agriculture. Thus, the blue stamps served the function of subsidizing
domestic producers. With respect to retail grocers, the implementation of stamps
effectively created transactions that otherwise would not have occurred. The retail grocer
was introduced as the middleman in the transactions between the government and benefit
recipients. The introduction of redeemable stamps ensured an increase in the volume of
goods sold in the grocer’s store, while also increasing demand for food products supplied
by farmers and food manufacturers.
Many scholars have thus characterized the food stamp program as catering to the
interests of producers and retail grocers. Barbara Claffey and Thomas Stuckey have
argued that “[a]lleviating hunger never commanded as high a priority as increasing farm
income,” 13 while William Boehm et al. have conceptualized the program as a surplus
removing mechanism. 14 In surveying these arguments, William A.Eisinger observes an
interesting result. In seeking to further the interests of farm producers and retailer
grocers, the food assistance programs were provided with what he refers to as a “modest
protective cover.” 15 Because of the self-interested motives of the agricultural lobby
groups, the poor were the beneficiaries of an organized political voice. Notwithstanding
these arguments, however, an alternative view can be taken. That is, the government had
noble intentions when it introduced the food assistance programs but recognized that
political support was vital for the adoption of the program. In this light, it can be argued
that the well-being of those in need of assistance was achieved by government sensitivity
to the interests of food producers.
Working from the perspective on the modern welfare state established in Chapter 1,
there are two primary ends which rationalize the FSP in its current form: equitable
distribution of resources and economic stability. Humanitarian justifications for the FSP
fit under the former rubric, while arguments that adequate nutrition is essential for a
thriving labour force are subsumed under the latter. Although we discuss them separately,
the two rationales are inextricable. For instance, encouraging labour force participation is
humanitarian insofar as it improves people’s ability to provide for themselves, while
equitable distribution of resources enables people to participate more actively in the
economy.
Equitable distribution of resources as an end of the FSP
With the expansion of international markets in the aftermath of World War II, the need to
support the agricultural economy with food stamp-driven consumption proved
unnecessary. As such, the “two-stamp” program discussed earlier had a short operating
life, ultimately ending in 1943. 16 It was not until 1960, when Presidential-aspirant John
F.Kennedy committed himself to the reinstatement of food stamps, that government food
assistance regained popular support. Kennedy campaigned on issues of state obligation to