That's only true if you ignore that the government can spend that money on something else. And the successful farmers are actually net tax payers.

Compare subsidies to farmers, all farmers are highly inefficient farming with no exports. No great public transport system and roads with potholes.

To:

No subsidies. Highly efficient farmers that export. Fantastic bus connection and roads in the whole countryside.

> take what little profit there is

Before there was no net profit at all, it was a net lose to society. You were moving profits from other sectors to the farm sector.

> And profit is presumably held by fewer and wealthier people

If a farmer is successful, they should make money, just like people in all other sectors in the economy.

Nobody makes the argument that we should subsidize all manufacturing, so that we can have lots of small relatively poor manufacturing sites that lose money.

This if course doesn't necessarily work for every country, but the general doom and gloom about subsidy is often proven wrong.

This becomes a race to the bottom quickly. Why should the government invest any money at all in new york or california if that same dollar goes so much further doing literally anything at all in omaha or detroit? Its cheaper after all no?