A subsidy is an allocation to particular persons, businesses, or other organizations of money or other goods acquired by taxation or other forms of initiated force. (Note that the concept, as understood here, does not include voluntary forms of assistance to such persons or causes.) Possible kinds of subsidies are at least as numerous as the special interests to which some people may wish to divert the apparatus of government. Where interventionism is highly advanced, as in the present-day United States, subsidies may even be granted simultaneously to interest groups that we think of as complementary or even antagonistic. Farm subsidies may be offered to rural areas, while urban areas receive urban-renewal benefits. Lower-class families may receive welfare payments, while small businesses receive low-interest loans (below free-market rates) and large corporations receive federal bail-outs. The cultural elite enjoys arts subsidies, while those they regard as less sophisticated receive publicly funded sports arenas.

All of these opposing subsidies do not simply cancel each other out, however. First, in order to receive a subsidy, a particular interest must first achieve a certain threshold of political power. Thus small interests tend to be quashed in a subsidy-permeated economy. Their adherents are denied the benefits, but are nevertheless compelled to support other interest groups through taxation.     

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