While subsidizing poverty (normal welfare) is normally justified by saying that the alternative is to have enormous personal suffering, corporate subsidization is actually justified on pseudo-economic grounds.

The argument is something like this

• Industry (or company) X is doing poorly, therefore we have to take money off the companies which are doing well, and give the money to the companies which are doing poorly.

• Industry (or company) X is doing really well, therefore we have to take money off the companies which are doing less well, and give the money to the companies which are doing really well.

The government plays robin-hood and the Sheriff of Nottingham at the same time, depending on where their friends, the particular special interest lobby group is at the time.

The benefits of letting the free market do its thing (profitable industries growing, unprofitable industries shrinking, or stopping completely), are well understood by savvy politicians. They are not understood as well by the voters, who continue to suffer from the results. Stupidity is the bane of democracy.

See

• Welfare
• Middle-class Welfare