From Yeoman Farmers to Peasants

This aside provides a hint as to why federal New Deal and after policy led to the extinction of small farms:  

"The United States does not have roots in peasant culture. In such cultures, attacks by outside forces -- Cossacks, dragoons, bandits -- are met with flight and whimpering of the 'if the czar/doge/elector only knew, he’d surely do something' variety.

But the United States derives from the English yeomanry culture. Yeomen are not peasants. They are independent smallholders jealous of their rights and protective of their property. When pressed, yeomen tend to strike back, as a number of English monarchs learned to their dismay."

This insight helps to explain U.S. immigration and agricultural policy, the goal being to transform the U.S. into a society of peasants, which are dependent on and no threat to our now unlimited federal government.  It was not an accident that we went from lots of self-sufficient citizens, to being dependent on government and others for just about everything.