Summer Cabin (VERSE)
Wagner, Charles A.
580 THE COMMONWEAL October 9, I929 ing, a general and constant capacity for overproduc- tion. It is most pronounced in agriculture, coal mining, textiles, the boot and shoe industries and is...
...Another large part of advertising is intended to arouse in the minds of the public a consciousness of needs that they do not now feel...
...the total purchasing power in the hands of the working classes need not increase except with the increasing employment...
...But it is not necessarily an actual demand for any kind of goods now existing...
...nevertheless, a great part of the money would not have been spent at all, since its possessors did not desire any other kind of actually known goods...
...For example, the owner of a textile mill does not care to exchange his surplus product for the surplus produced by a farmer...
...All of those having an excess do, indeed, possess the power to obtain some of the other surplus products, but not all desire these surpluses, while those persons who feel a desire for the excessive stocks are without the purchasing power...
...Perhaps the last-mentioned phenomenon is the most conspicuous indication...
...Dry and broken lies the ground Fingering little sheaves of sound-Tiny futile wastes of straw For winter mice of snow to gnaw...
...Every supply of goods, is, of course a potential demand...
...Similar statements can truthfully be made concerning the producers of surplus coal and shoes and a great many other products that are turned out faster than they can be sold...
...insofar as it means anything practical, it is untrue...
...It is manifested not only by idle men and idle productive instruments but in the greatly increased costs of selling goods, in the prevalence of "high-power salesmanship" and in the enormous outlay for advertising...
...The other and more disagreeable side of the picture is widespread idleness of both machines and men...
...Wants are almost insatiable...
...there are new wants which will make way endlessly for newer wants, as fast as they are satisfied...
...But the effect upon employment differs only in degree between the one case and the other...
...At the present time and during the recent past, the excess has taken the form of productive capacity rather than stocks of goods...
...Through a crack I read the stir Like a thin barometer: The sediment of summer lies Sunken under liquid skies...
...However, this picture has two vital defects...
...In the first place, it is quite unlikely that the requisite new commodities will be invented...
...Owing to this divorce between the desire and the power to consume, it is quite possible that surpluses may exist simultaneously in most of the great industries...
...By far the greater part represents an attempt to persuade the consumers that Brown's product is better than that of Jones...
...Possibly, he would like to exchange his surplus for a high-priced automobile, but the producer of the automobile does not want more textile goods...
...580 THE COMMONWEAL October 9, I929 ing, a general and constant capacity for overproduction...
...When two persons have a surplus of goods on their hands, only one may desire the products of the other, or neither may desire what the other has to offer...
...Twenty-five years ago the automobile was generally unknown...
...To be sure, a great part of the purchasing power expended upon this commodity would have been exchanged for other goods if the automobile had not been invented...
...A supply of any kind of goods, we are told, is a demand for other goods...
...Since then, hundreds of thousands of workers have found the means of a livelihood in this industry...
...all the workers would be employed in making goods to supply the new wants which had been developed in the possessors of surplus consuming power, that is, the rich and the well-to-do...
...This situation may be general throughout the greater part of industry...
...As a general proposition, this is true...
...e~ummer Cabin Through a crevice in the wall Summer squeezes into fall The brittle wind anoints the trees With strong embalming treacheries...
...Scales of wages need not rise...
...Most of the real information that purchasers need could be obtained from a classified telephone directory, from the classified notices in the newspapers and from trade journals...
...If other inventions as appealing as the automobile should appear next year, undoubtedly they would attract sufficient actual purchasing power to put all idle men and women to work...
...CHaaLES A. WaC~ER...
...It constitutes a power to call for some other kind of goods...
...The people of our age, even the wealthy, would not be benefited by new luxuries, and the masses ought not to be required to provide superfluous goods for the few, while they themselves are unable to obtain a reasonable amount of necessaries and comforts...
...Recent Economic Changes suggests an eventual remedy...
...This statement is not to be construed as a condemnation of all that sort of advertising, but merely to emphasize the fact that goods cannot be sold as fast as they can be produced...
...More fundamental is the objection that this would be an undesirable kind of industrial society...
...Without any change in the present distribution of consuming power, all the workers might find employment supplying actual and potential wants if only the latter and the means of supplying them could be developed fast enough...
...Of course, these hypothetical commodities would fall under the head of luxuries...
...The proper end of advertising is to supply information, but probably not more than Io percent of the "information" currently thrust upon the public is genuine...
...To be sure, traditional and theoretical economics assures us that general overproduction is impossible...
...Insofar as that formula is true, it has no practical meaning...
...The latter may, indeed, want more clothing, but the former does not want more food...
...Hence we have a vast overcapacity to produce and a constant danger that this capacity will be converted into action...
...It is most pronounced in agriculture, coal mining, textiles, the boot and shoe industries and is becoming rather pronounced in the building trades...
Vol. 10 • October 1929 • No. 23
