Reasons for farmers' discontent
In the 1870s, farmers suffered from the lack of money circulating in the economy with which they could invest in land and supplies to do their work.
Many farmers were getting foreclosed on by Eastern bankers.
Farmers had to sell their crops on a market that was driven by the whims of international production cycles.
Railroads charged more to ship farmers' crops to market than they charged big businesses to ship goods.
Evaluation of the validity of farmers' complaints
This is a valid complaint because the nation was trying to recover economically from the Civil War and was unable to balance the farmers' need for "easy money" and the need to control inflation. Farmers were stuck in the middle of this controversy.
Farmers certainly suffered from the greater concentration of wealth in the East, so it was hard for them to go about their business and invest in what they needed; however, it is also not clear that the bankers should extend their credit if that would pose even further risk of loss of capital.
As Laughlin says in his 1896 Atlantic Monthly article, farmers had no way to know how to plant their crops—which means how to invest in land and supplies—in ways that would not result in surpluses and falling prices, so, if they could not get more "soft capital," they should at least have access to information about worldwide production patterns to protect their investments, and the investments of the Eastern bankers. Because Americans, then and now, depend on farmers for the food we eat and the economic exchanges we engage in, we are responsible for their survival, at least in general.ts.
Farmers certainly have a legitimate complaint that they had to pay more for shipping their crops on trains to market than they would earn, although the railroads had the right in a market system to charge what they could and charge big business less if they could ship their goods in bulk with less expense. But if the railroads had not been so financially aggressive and ruthless, it would be easier to sympathize with them and believe they were just being reasonable capitalists.
