Good to know! The fact that I was not able to find out ANYTHING about the fact that subsidies were involved until I actually read the decision of the court is fairly interesting. Thank you for the information. This probably says something about the quality of the media we receive these days.
However...
Justice Jackson, who wrote the opinion for the Supreme Court summed up the legal issue of the case in one sentence: “It is hardly lack of due process for the Government to regulate that which it subsidizes”
Unfortunately, this is simply one sentence of the entire opinion. As you put it...
But the court being Roosevelt appointees had to confuse the issue
And this is exactly the problem, and it's certainly not without legal consequences. The court went WAY past making it about subsidies. From the opinion:
"The commerce power is not confined in its exercise to the regulation of commerce among the states. It extends to those activities intrastate which so affect interstate commerce, or the exertion of the power of Congress over it, as to make regulation of them appropriate means to the attainment of a legitimate end, the effective execution of the granted power to regulate interstate commerce"
Now, thanks to Wickard v. Filburn, we can't ignore that this opinion exists and holds the lofty position as supreme court precedence which holds a whole lot of weight. Especially considering that this decision was supported unanimously by the court.
Since we're talking about court precedence, the fact that his neighbors weren't regulated is not at issue because they were not on trial. It's certainly not as if the government tried to regulate them and the supreme court stopped it. Since their circumstances are slightly different, we can't say for sure how the SCOTUS would have ruled. However, they did provide multiple reasons for ruling the way that they did against Filburn. Even if his neighbors wouldn't have been ruled against because of subsidies, they still would have fallen under the other arguments, especially the previously mentioned argument, which means since the court accepted that argument, they likely would have ruled the same way.
And even if they wouldn't have at the time, they almost certainly would now that there's precedence for it. At least it certainly seems that way to me.
Of course this is just how it seems to me from my limited knowledge and research. If you have any more interesting information about the case I would be happy to hear it!
It's quite likely that I'm missing something fundamental.
But in the end, the court is also an agent of the state, which benefits from a certain security that comes with the state's monopoly. Sometimes, I feel like they twist themselves in pretzels and really go the extra mile to secure the power of the state..