ShmoopTube

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[ musical flourish ]

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And here's your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by a fair wage.

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That's the salary workers earn at a carnival.

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No? Fair? All right.

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Check out the excerpt.

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[ mumbles ]

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American farmers opposed to free trade agreements

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such as NAFTA would most likely agree with the beliefs of which of the following groups?

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And here are your potential answers. [ dog barks ]

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All right. [ mumbles ]

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[ mumbling continues ] All right.

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Well, what do we know about NAFTA?

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The excerpt shows that the North American Free Trade Act

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led to increased trade among member nations and

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higher business investment in the United States.

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Sounds like good business...

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for people who are in business.

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So let's see which answer describes a group who,

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like American farmers, weren't particularly interested in

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buying what NAFTA was selling.

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Would American farmers opposed to free trade agreements like NAFTA

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have aligned with B - merchants in colonial New England?

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Hmm. Well, merchants in colonial New England depended on international commerce

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and foreign markets for their livelihood.

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For that matter, so did industrialists in the 1920s.

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So that takes out B and C.

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Would American farmers opposed to free trade agreements have sided with D -

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plantation owners in the 1850s?

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Well, actually, American farmers opposed to free trade worried

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that farmers in other countries could produce the same products

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at much lower costs.

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In the 1850s, the plantation owners

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were those farmers in other countries

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since their cost of labor was, well, nothing.

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So it isn't D, either.

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Which means that American farmers opposed to free trade agreements

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would have most gelled with A - the Populist Party of the 1890s.

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That's right. The Populist Party was all about representing

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farmers and their interests,

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fighting against corporate interests and policies that would benefit the elite.

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So the correct answer is A.

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American farmers worried that without tariffs or subsidies,

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they'd be priced out of the global market.

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No wonder they were feeling so croppy.

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