malist approach helps the needy through a temporary crisis but with
assistance to tide them over until the immediate crisis has passed.
A long-term approach, on the other hand, seeks to build strong and
vital communities. In the present situation rural workers need help
preparing for and finding jobs outside shaky primary industries. For
the long-run, rural communities need help pulling themselves to-
gether to lay the foundation for sustained prosperity.
A related question about commitment is that of responsiveness to
the rural clientele. Stated bluntly, there is an unresolved issue about
whose interests should be served by rural policy—farmers and other
managers of traditionally rural industries, the rural poor, potential
investors in rural development schemes, the local power elite, urban
citizens? Ambiguity has produced a dilemma in the distinction be-
tween farm policy and rural development policy. Without the support
of agriculture, rural development has little hope of receiving even a
hearing in the policy formulation process. Yet it is quite apparent
that resources now invested in farm programs could be better spent
on more general rural problems.
Confusion as to clientele also takes its toll on the level of citizen
participation in the policy process. Who speaks for the rural poor at
local, state and national levels of government? Lack of access of rural
citizens to the policy formulation process is a most glaring deficiency
in a democratic society.
There also are questions about the underlying philosophic basis or
justification for rural policy. Is the aim to promote equity in well-
being between people living in rural and those living in urban areas?
If so, what comparison in welfare would be equitable? Is equality the
goal? If so, where is the equity in a geographic transfer of income to
achieve spatial equality? Is the aim efficiency? That is, are there
“market imperfections,” as some economists call them, which, if cor-
rected through strategic investments or by calling attention to stra-
tegic investment or employment opportunities, would increase the
economic vitality of rural areas? Or is the aim some other more eso-
teric one such as preservation of traditional values and lifestyles or
protection of rural ecology for the recreation and appreciation of ur-
ban America? Or, at its core, is rural policy simply an object of politi-
cal maneuvering, a largely rhetorical device for squeezing votes out
of what is perceived to be a vast, vaguely defined reservoir of positive
sentiment in the national consciousness toward things rural?
Once the goals are clear, attention can turn to the question of how
to achieve them. Take rural development. How could we achieve or
even encourage that, even if we knew how to define it, and even if we
were resolved to promote it? Hundreds of instruments have been
tried. Which ones work?
There is much talk of rural development policy mechanisms to en-
courage diversification of local economies—through infrastructure in-
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