Government Project

Government Project tells the story of an attempt by the US government to remake the lives of some of its citizens by establishing a cooperative farm in Pinal County, Arizona, in 1937. These individuals were among the most desperately poor and disadvantaged in the nation.

Casa Grande Valley Farms was an elaborate venture that provided the Americans who volunteered to settle there with housing, work, and the opportunity to earn income. For five years, the farm succeeded. The revenues from the sale of its crops gave the Casa Grande settlers material comfort and wealth far beyond what they had ever possessed.

But in the farm’s seventh year of operation, the inhabitants shuttered it and walked away with hardly anything, to the shock and dismay of the government officials overseeing it.

Government Project explains what went wrong at Casa Grande. In telling this story, it illuminates larger truths about human nature and the limits of governance.

Edward C. Banfield (1916–99) was a professor at the University of Chicago, Harvard University, and the University of Pennsylvania. He authored more than a dozen books on urban politics, political cooperation, and American governance.

Kevin R. Kosar is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he studies the US Congress, the administrative state, American politics, election reform, and the US Postal Service.