Planning by Whom for What?- Business Menaces FDR Schemes
BELL, DANIEL
planning by Whom for What?- Business Menaces FDR Schemes The Elite and the Masses ????????????????? |y SIDNEY ?????????????????????? rpg? conception of a democracy without 1 "eventmaking...
...But it is safe to say that we shall all have a nutritious and ' health-supporting diet though we shall not always be able to consume the particular foods we most desire...
...Yet consider the following statement: "We propose that thi government should underwrite permanent prosperity: that it be established government policy, whether Republican or Democratic, to maintain reasonably full employment in the U. S." (italics in the original...
...During January the Chairman of...
...We accept now the notion of planning for the way of life we want to live...
...For the working masses every final victory' proclaimed by their victorious leaders, even If It Is a real step forward, can be only another starting point In their endless struggle for more and always more...
...This is simply propaganda blah...
...There can be no guarantee that these decisions « well as the discretionary powers they entail JWB be carried out in the same spirit as that in •sieh they were authorized...
...The evidence of politics and history shows that democracy can and has rid itself of governing elites, and that it can do so more easily than is generally possible in non-democratic societies...
...dried fruits 35...
...The defects when recognized become problems to-be Onedied by actions, institutions, checks, and "etramte that are themselves informed by the Principle or ideal of democracy...
...In this reorganization^aUHictivrties of the Department and some of the WPB and the OCD concerned with food production and with food distribution, were lumped together into two huge new administrations, the Food Production Administration and the Food Distribution Administration...
...the third, Plans for Services and Security...
...There is no such"thing as absolute health, absolute wisdom, absolute democracy, an absolutely honest manor an absolutely fat one...
...Under what conditions and restrictions ? Here is the place for intelligence, experiment, critical adaptation, and political discovery...
...condensed and evaporated milk 20...
...Lend-Lease exports also accounted foi 10 per eent of our eggs, 7.1 per cent of our frozen and canned fish, 13.2 per cent of our fats and oils, but only 0.8 per cent of our canned vegetables, and 1.7 per cent of our canned fruits and fruit juices...
...f Behind the facade of logical argument in the writings of Mosca, Pareto, and Michel» are two significant assumptions...
...PLANNING, you see, is quite the rage...
...This proposal for government intervention in business was made by Fortune Magazine, the dollar-a-month spokesman for Big Business, in its supplement to its December 1942 issue entitled The Domestic Economy...
...An order has now been issued directing ^411 producers of more than 12.000 pounds ofVhat-ter monthly to set aside 30 per cent for direct war requirements...
...Will that be excessive...
...Take the figures for some specific foods: Our Lend-Lease exports amounted to only 5 per cent of our entire meat supply, less than one-tenth of 1 per cent for beef up to 9.8 per cent of our pork...
...To the extent that these (utes make history, their outstanding leaders tie heroes or event-making figures even in a democracy...
...The second assumption is that the amount of freedom and democracy in a society is determined by a law already known...
...No one can fully answer that question because no one yet know the demands to be made upon ns...
...Naturally they wanted butter, too...
...There can hardly be any doubt about the answers...
...PHEP.E are a number of ways in which our * food crisis can be met and we are going to try all of them...
...The nub of the problem now is shaping- up as: ¦ Who shall do the planning, Government or Business...
...In addition, the cri-,jque overlooks the fact that the problems of political power are always specific and that they allow choices between...
...What is the area of government control...
...That in consequence one elite is replaced by another is a feature of the political process in a complex society, not an indictment of democracy or a proof of its impossibility...
...They overlook the concrete ways4n which the governed through pressure groups, strikes, public debates' committee hearings, radio discussion, letters and telegrams to newspapers and their representatives, petitions, mass meetings, primaries, and elections actually contribute to moulding the basic policies and decisions of the government in a democracy.*** • · ' * · TTHE crux of the issue raised by the contention * that democracy is impossible because power is exercised by an organized minority may best be met by asking the following questions': Can a democracy get rid of its ruling elite...
...It is of fundamental significance that only recently three major Business groups have organized comprehensive research on post-war economic planning...
...Shall membership in trade associations be compulsory...
...That there will always, be a governing elite to administer government is true...
...O'Daniel of the American Cyaniaiid...
...lard 25...
...In thi.s connection, of striking import is the itmaik bv Prof...
...the fourth, Plans for Actions by State and Local Governments and Regions...
...VARIOUS writers and Congressmen are going to pitch this fight on the level of "free enterprise vs...
...How high the price is depends in part at least on how much the governed ask.** The great limitation of the thought of Mosca, Pareto, and Michels is their failure to appreciate the differential advantages of the specific institutions available in a democracy that enable us both to select elites aneV-40 curb them...
...The issue is devoted to an analysis of a public opinion poll conducted by the Psychological Corporation for the NAM and reports that "the Public 92<~r) Wants Postwar Planning Now...
...But over 12 per cent of the food produced for human consumption went to our armed forces and our allies in 1942...
...Together .the armed forces and lend-lease took the following percentages of the foods mentioned: Beef 10...
...they seek a controlled economy with power residing in the hands of Business...
...this...
...Business plans are constructed within the limits of vested interest considerations...
...Mortal Myth...
...But their crying need was and je for edible fats and oils...
...Sweetpotatoes, Irish potatoes, and dried peas and beans should be abundant Freeh fruit and vegetable supply-depends on the weather and crop yields but is not expected to be short...
...Then you can say that about one-fifth of our pork went to war, though civilian supplies remained almost as large in 1942 as in 1941...
...But military and lend-lease needs will take 25 per cent of this production...
...That is the meaning of recent business developments, and that is the significance of the President's report issued last week We are laying now not the scaffolding but the foundations of a new America...
...Democracy is difficult, and it is made more difficult because many who call themselves democrats are totalitarians in disguise...
...Actually, then, our "free" market is gone...
...Who is to rule...
...according to this notion, new concerns would be forbidden to enter business if it upset existing conditions or competed unwisely with companies changing over to peacetime work/-A business committee in the area would judge ib* social usefulness of an applicant and pass judgment...
...The moral is not to call off the struggle but to struggle all the more...
...w The Russians-got fair amounts of our dried eggs, canned meats, pork, dried beans, wheat, ami flour ia 1942...
...The section on a "transition economy" provides for the sale of govirn-ment-owned plants to private operators, establishment in Federal tax laws of post-war conversion reserves, for business, etc...
...Families that could always afford to spend freely for favorite foods will certainly get lees...
...eggs 15...
...Rationing was' instituted or promised in the near future...
...The Frown of Gorerameat...
...determining thoso policies, either- diti»*J"?V Previously expounded anfl criticised fer.S?ctr of ihls school from a somewhat dif-gmtpoint of v)ew (n my ncum...
...In this category-are aluminum, magnesium, shipbuilding and aircraft...
...Master politician that he is, Mr...
...April 1942...
...there is no danger whatevei of any shortage...
...The Daily News headlines was "U...
...Special price-support devices and incentive payments have been developed to encourage farmers to produce more of foods specifically required with great urgency...
...The Government soberly assumes: "Formal acceptance by the Federal Government of the responsibilities of insuring jobs at decent pay to all those able to work, regardless of whether or not they can pass a means test...
...For hdw long...
...in a research capacity...
...And one answer is: that Business is organizing to preempt the primary say over our economy...
...The answer is no...
...Our civilian consumers, earning more than for many years and deprived already of many durable goods to buy, began to spend for food tremendously...
...But several of the suggestions advanced by the industrial groups would create a business collectivism or industrial erfritoratism...
...Army men in camp eat nearly twice as much aa the average for civilians...
...So far as the position of these social philos- « ophers is based upon the constancy of human nature, their entire political wisdom consists in framing a simple alternative to man—rule or be ruled...
...The President's message was a bold and imaginative thrust, one whose economics is weaker than its political psychology...
...We could not depend, as-we had for the past 150 years or so, on the "automatic" functioning of a free market to exchange goods and create I jobs...
...The National Association of Manufacturer's Public Opinion Bulletin of February, 1943, also represents a significant shift in the thinking of that organisation...
...T'HE salient fact is that planning, an idea * viciously derided only a decade ago, is hereto stay...
...pork 20...
...Democracy is a political form that conceals both Je conflicts of interest between the governing ate and the governed and the fact that these eonfliets are always undemocratically resolved in favor of the former...
...If that is not possible, we are likely to see a new phase with Business more highly organized to grab a greater and more direct influence in the central state controls...
...For we never can be sure that «onient is freely given, that is, not in bondage to ignorance, rhetoric, or passion...
...other edible fats and oils 10...
...Sumner Slichter of Harvard, Harold Lasswell of Library of Congress, Lloyd Garrison of Wisconsin, and others...
...Further, the division of labor requires that decisions be earned out by individuals and not by the assembly...
...Unleae a higher incomes than for many years, the 1943 civilian supply of moat foods whieb is roughly equivalent to that available ta 19.45-36 is rationed, inequitable distribution is bound to occur, in many instaaees favoring those who have leisure and meeey to shop around...
...Except for butter we should have sufficient fats and oils...
...Must we look forward to starvation in 1943...
...We must do our level best to make every ounce of food count...
...Where elites must contend with out-elites, the victor must pay a price to the governed for victory...
...has already organized 12 regional groups, and 150 district chairmen under the regional chairman...
...butter 8:' cheese 32...
...In December the President by Executive Order placed the Secretary of Agriculture in charge of our entire wartime national food program...
...It is fearful of Government, for Government is susceptible to the politicaljressurps of Farm and Labor groups" wTiosedemands do not^abiiaig^j+bek, with that of Industry...
...The Ga-vemment should retain control over patente- and properties it has seized from enemy aliens and operate them directly or license their use in such a way as to encourage competitive development by private operators...
...In 1942 our volume of total food production was 11 per cent above 1941, and 28 per cent above the 1935-39 average, the greatest increases being in truck crops, sugar crops, meat animals, and poultry...
...Again, {^remedies may be defective...
...also Arthur Bentley's important but neglected study...
...299...
...What the Administration is seeking to do, according to its National Resources Planning Board report on Transition From War to Peace, is to find out how to use the techniques acquired in creating an Economy of Abundance (for War) to an Economy of Abundance for Peace...
...a scale-down from 2 ounces, as in November, 1942...
...Vested Interests Plan Own Boards {or Economic Control By DANIEL BELL SOMETHING of the old New Deal tone, sadly lacking for the past year, was heard again last week when President Roosevelt sent to Congress the fruits of the National Resources Planning Board researches ef the past three years...
...S. Bayard Colgate of Colgate-Palmolive...
...190...
...The remedies PJ Of course imperfect, fallible, and unguaranteed...
...However, Lend-Lease took 6.1 per cent of our dry whole milk, 23 per cent of our dry skim, 7.2 per cent of our condensed and evaporated milk, 23.1 per cent of our cheese, but only—note it—seven-tenths of 1 per cent of our butter...
...B. Folsom of Eastman-Kodak, Charles F. Kettering of General Motors, Clarence Francis of General Foods, Chester ? Davis of the Federal Reserve Bank, Eric Johnston of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce...
...In its fundamental assumption the NRPB accepts capitalism yet proposes a "mixed"economy...
...Finally, it underestimates the tremendous differences between lodeties, all of which fall short in varying degrees of the »defined ideal of democracy, and the crucial importance of institutions in the never-ending process of realizing ideals...
...It means 1'» ounces per man per day...
...It is expected that they will take more than half of all our Lend-Lease shipments in 1943...
...There is something to think about here...
...They have been eating lard on their black bread...
...Add in rationing and it can be said that the average family will get a little more or a little less than it did in the thirties...
...The source of this Committee is the Business Advisory Council of the Department of Commerce...
...The Department is now organised to deal with problems in the field of agricultural labor, material, supplies, and so on, as well as to aid stoiers, transporters, processors, and distributors of food...
...Food shipments to Russia, for instance, have greatly increased...
...The report states: "The main reliance for an effective consumer demand must come from private activities taking the lead in opening new enterprises and in-using our productive capacity...
...Thomas Lamont, of 1. P. Morgan Co., head of its research committee...
...The amount and quality of freedom and de-' rocracy in a society are determined by many-things—economic organization, education, tradition, religion, to name only a few...
...Actually, the main significance of the President's report, in terms of the tugs and pulls for the post-war world, has been obscured by the old-line press whose political hatred for President Roosevelt has blinded it even to the shifts of thinking ia the business community...
...Families that did not have enough to buy a decent diet in the thirties usually now have better income and will undoubtedly be better fed...
...In virtue of the nature of things and men, no ideal-can be perfectly embodied...
...Tkr Making of Society, edited bv V. F. Calverton...
...Late in Feb-~" ruary, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce created a special committee on the post-war economy headed by Edgar...
...In our complicated, highly specialized, interrelated economic world, we found that this business of marketing had got beyond control...
...Civilians took up the slack, and more, immediately .they got the money to afford that...
...But at this moment, giving life and stirring the fretful aspirations of an anxious people is the primary need...
...The governing elite will always have more power for good or evil than the medical elite...
...But if we be-l^e^hat those whose interests are affected ¦r the policies of government should have a 2...
...Whether it does take that direction depends greatly upon us...
...Food is a critical material...
...More credit has been made available to food' producers...
...Take, for example...
...The C.E.D...
...and its equivocations...
...Through pressure of banks and credit associations, a squeeze would be put ton any company defying the "order...
...Cereals will be abundant...
...W$ continue to improve them—if we are demo-<*ats...
...They represented 3.4 per cent of all milk products, expressed in terms of fluid milk equivalent, and farmers did not achieve the milk goal of 125 billion pounds...
...of Commerce was loaned to the C.E.D...
...And so with states...
...The Government will seek measures to prevent the rise of new industrial oligarchies during the war or during the period of readjustment following the cessation · of hostilities, including enforcement of anti-trust laws to break up monopolies and provide opportunities for small business enterprises...
...The leading men in this group are Paul Hoffman' ef the Studebaker Corporation, chairman oi the Committee for Economic Development...
...He promptly reorganized his Department to carry out the order...
...These forces of business form a powerful bloc in shaping the post-war world...
...Max Nomad, in his "Masters — Old and New...
...Industries based on scarce raw materials, or those with rapidly diminishing reserves, and industries supplying power and fuels, fall into this category- Transportation aad other public services may likewise be more closely controlled in the interest of national defense and the public welfare...
...The administration plans, molded by-New Deal history and labor and farm pressure, as well as business views, embrace a more comprehensive view of the economy...
...But spendable income in 1942 was 23 per cent above 1941, and 69 per cent above the 1935-39 average...
...R. S. Lynd in a foreword to a recent book: "We shall emerge from this war well on our way to having a permanently planned and- managed economy...
...The National Resources Planning Board Report for 1943, which comprises the President's message to Congress, is divided in four parts...
...Yet when we employ these ideals intelligently we can order a series ef flesh and blood men in such a way as to distinguish between them in respect to their being heslthier, wiser, or fatter...
...How much of a say shall Business have over new business...
...Fresh vegetables have been divided into the essential and the nonessential...
...Take butter as a specific instance...
...Plans will go ahead on this basis...
...It can enable us to provide a nutritionally sound basic diet for all American citizens whan, peace comes and our unavoidable food-relief program is completed...
...This suggestion closely parallels the eimftar idea advanced last year by Oliver Lyttietori, British Minister of Production, as applied to British Industry...
...We must honor our commitments to our armed forces and our allies, but we must not1 mir» any time, materials, or equipment producing food that civilians can get along without...
...There will also be a medical elite to minister to our health...
...The civilian egg supply will probably be almost as large this year as last...
...The role of active Government intervention to stabilize the flywheels of our economy is a role that Business will not relish, if it feats, as it does, that it will not have the complete say over what interventions...
...Carroll Wilson of the Dept...
...Ideals, in short, are functional...
...of societies, despite the succession of differ-pat political forma, is in substance nothing but the succession of different political elites...
...Can a democracy rid itself of a governing elite more easily or at a lesser cost than a nondemocratic society...
...So long as the governing elite operates within a framework of a democracy, we have a choice between elites...
...IF we define a democratic society as one/in * which the government rests upon the freely ?iven consent of the governed it is obvious that no society is a perfect democracy, even one in *hfch,the members are so few that they can all ¦est in one place without delegating power to wpresentatives...
...the production of the former is to be favored, of the latter discouraged...
...The NAM has several committees working in the field...
...If the message to Congress is an augur of a fight, it is still doubtful whether the President can succeed...
...The Committee was organized quietly-late last year and given, rent-free, Room 3311, of the Department of Commerce Building...
...Under* Lyttleton's scheme, no new companies would be allowed to compete with war firms changing over, and that these latter firms would have special privileges in buying government reserves in their fields...
...But we are going to live in a society where food is a munition of war, net a mere substance for the pleasurable satisfaction of appetite...
...While less than 1 per cent went to our Allies, the'armed forces took about 124 per cent...
...But in the details the Business and Government- orientations differ, and in the immediate political sense differ sharply...
...and if business controls the goals of that planning, that »ill mean the management also, from top to bottom and from center to circumference, of all relevant social and cultural life," Facts About Food for 1943 — r - ----—— - - --------— |"\URING 1942 Americans were confronted by many annoying food shortages...
...In 1943, if food production goals are achieved, we shall have 7 per cent more than in 1942, or 37 per cent above the 1935-39 average...
...bat follows...
...the War tary of Agriculture authority to handle the Manpower Commission delegated to the Sec re farm labor problem...
...canned vegetables 25...
...Consideration should be given to the desirability of various types of partnership in the direction of those industries of crucial importance in both wartime and peacetime economy and in which the Government has made great investments...
...Beardsly Ruml, and others...
...wheat 4; rice 5; canned fruits and juices 30...
...Civilian consumers, however, were willing to buy more butter than we could have produced in 1942, at current ceiling prices...
...courses of conduct that strengthen or weaken, extend or diminish particular political ideals...
...The first deals with Plans for Transition from War to Peace, the second, Plans for,Development of an Expanding Economy Through Cooperation of Governnu nt and Privets Enter-prise...
...Civilians buy tremendously more food than they bought in the thirties when they had less income- Army men do not overeat and civilians do not buy food for the pleasure of wasting it...
...But they depend just as much upon our willingness to fight for them as upon any other thing...
...Very briefly then, it looks as if civilian supplies of meat will be somewhere in the neighborhood of what they averaged during the thirties...
...Previous organized conversations had been held at the Harvard Club under the chairmanship of David C. Prince of General Electric...
...Given democratic controls, should not the Government, with its wider view, be in the position to make those decisions, rather than Business with its vested interest considerations or unbridled monopoly ? Or further: "Wartime .experience has indicated the public importance of certain industries and the desirability of continued Federal control of their operation...
...Roosevelt undoubtedly will wait to guage the reaction of these hopes held out, among the common people...
...government collectivism...
...The his...
...Special devices have been set up to ensure the processing of citrus fruits and canning vegetables in amounts required to meet needs while at the same time encouraging civilian consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables...
...Business would prefer to plan on its own...
...The issue then is no longer Plan or No Plan, bat Who Plans and for Whom...
...It is more diffi-g« Under certain social a?id historical condi-???8 than under others...
...This month, the NAM created a special sub-committee on the particular problems of jobs~-fbr men in the armed forces and ^e*~the/ffarrsfer of war plants...
...Whether this represents the final flickers of a decade that is passing or the sparks of a new fight ahead is still a question...
...Chicago...
...The war has brought certain controls over our way of living: over prices, supplies of commodities, etc Huge sums of Government money have been expended to enlarge the productive capacity of America...
...Why was...
...But we do not therefore reject them...
...From time to time, as extreme scarcities develop, the Government releases considerable quantities of some foods that it has in excess, like evaporated milk, in order to sustain the civilian market...
...Our supplies of canned and dried fruits and vegetables will be smaller than last year while demand will be greater...
...The most important, that of the slick, streamlined "far-seeing" business executives, is the Committee for Economic Development...
...It is true that we sent a billion dollars worth of food out on Lend-Lease in 1942, but that had little to do with the food shortages that developed here...
...Such food shortages as we had stemmed primarily from the fact that we at home here tried to buy more than was available for us in 1941, a great deal more...
...There.'is no absolutely democratic state, but we am tell when states are more democratic or less democratic...
...The demand came in a lump, it is true, and when better supplies were seasonably low, but it was ,far from excessive...
...Cf...
...But it need not be more permanent or even as permanent as the medical elite...
...What Government proposes for its future role represents a sharp break with our lafaMes faire past It is the summation of the New Deal philosophy, with all its humanitarian...
...Lend-Lease and the armed forces did not produce the food short-ages then...
...They ate principles of organization and reorganization but cannot be identified with any particular organization as it exists at any place and time...
...The Lend-Lease program of this year will take a larger share of products exported than it did in 1942...
...one advanced by a member of the' Department of Commerce staff, now on leave and attached to the Committee for Economic Development...
...We have left behind the notion of letting a rickety economy hobble along and make adjustments as best it can...
...For other alternatives must be taken together with it...
...Our fighters will need two-thirds of that butter...
...This is indisputably true...
...In such a system it is a question of hoV much government and how much business—but just as must the question of how much business influence in government...
...The war has brought about new concentration of control and power in the hands of a few giant monopoly corporations...
...The Russians will get about 6 per eent of our butter production...
...Business elements have been brought in wholesale and today dominate the war agencies...
...the brief but excellent discussion of Glenn Morrow In Rthlrs...
...Industry has learned (after a two-year public opinion poll conducted by the Psychological Corporation) that the public responds best to the American system when it is called "Free Enterprise...
...S. Business Control, FDR Postwar Aim...
...Did we send so much food . out on lentWease and to our armed forces that we failed properly to provide for ourselves...
...The first is that human nature has a fixed and unalterable character from which it can be predicted that democracy in action must fail, not in the innocent sense that a perfect democracy cannot be realized, but in the sense that a working democracy cannot be bettered from the standpoint of its · own ideal...
...they produced only 119 billion pounds...
...Two statements in the Post-War Plan sum up what this now changed attitude of government thus: "Government is already taking considerable part in the management of war industries which have been greatly expanded by use of government funds...
...These .phenomena simply mean that a third of our population was malnourished when we "rationed" food on a price basis...
...Despite many brave new words and proposals that represent startling departures for the role of Government, the NRPB seek these changes as a means of buttressing a capitalist economy...
...conception of a democracy without 1 "eventmaking figures," i. ?., uncontrolled' l^joeg, nine counter to a plausible but fundamentally mistaken critique of democracy devel-p^j by s notable school of Italian theorists— Jiea, Pare to, and Michels.» These men in Afferent ways seek to establish the impossibility democracy...
...rectly.Jor indirectly by controlling the makers of policy, the direction which the never-ending task of democratizing the social process must take is clear...
...But as long as we ¦old te democratic principles, again the remedies ^Jjjy.-in'thinking up of specific mechanisms, and checks which (1) increase the ytfeippfio» of the governed in the processes ^government, (2) decrease the concentrations ™ Powers—in the hands of the governors, and IS) provide"?er the renewal or withdrawal of 7* "»»ndajtes of power by the governed...
...The whole force of this argument rests upon a failure to understand the nature, of ideals, including political ideals...
...wThe Army and Navy used less than 5 per cent of our total dairy products and about 4 per cent of our eggs...
...Furthermore consumers' spendable income will be 10 to 15 per cent larger than in 1942, or 85 to 90 per eent above the 1935-39 average, while the supply of durable goods will be still further depleted...
...And we test by the fruits of the process validity of the unrealizable democratic prin-Wfc that serves as our functional guide...
...But one does not have to be a Utopian to maintain that nothing in human nature limits us to this simple alternative...
...The past year and a half has seen the jettisoning of New Deal agencies and the dispersing of New Deal forces...
...About a quarter of our record pack of canned vegetables also went to war...
...pp ?9 SU New York, 1940...
...Especial emphasis is placed upon the Victory Garden and the farm-home food production and food preservation programs to save transportation and processing wherever possible...
...plus the requirement* of our ova armed forces/ and with civilians earning reason for rationing is clear...
...As a whole our diet should be about like that of 1935-36, in nutritional essentials, and it was then slightly inadequate in its raw state, much less cooked...
...Many programs have been instituted...
...MOSCA, Pareto, and Michete^make much of the fact that when power is delegated in a democracy and when political organizations *n**vas they must in a society sufficiently complex, ,the decisions of the government may re-i*t'the interests of ..the governors more than *e interests of the governed...
...In final objects, both the government views and the plans of business are fundamentally the same for both are constructed within the definite framework of a private enterprise and profit economy...
...But ^ the question remains who shall plan...
...Price controls, rationing, and other devices will enable them to get their fair share...
...A research committee is staffed from the leading universities including Theodore Yntema of Chicago...
...A committee headed by Robert Lund of Lambert Pharmaceutical is developing a set of plans outlined by a special group fhat had been headed by Bayard Colgate of Colgate-Pal-molive-Peet...
...The leading monopolies of American Business want to run yieir own show...
...But they will have enough to keep healthy, which is tbe main thing...
...p. 89...
...What follows ? That democracy is impossible ? No more so than that a man cannot be healthy because he cannot enjoy perfect health...
...The single, fundamental concept of the 1 last ten years, introduced by the New Deal, was, that it was the responsibility of someone to grab hold of the madly spinning economic tiller, and to use the fiscal mechanism* to-create jobs by public works and other government investments...
...Sufficient unto the day is the problem thereof...
...In the transition or demobilization year (or year...
...Planning is here to stay...
...Government has a direct responsibility and should participate in the decisions as to what areas and what concerns shold continue to operate in these industries...
...Not that democracy is im-HW* but that it is difficult...
...Over what...
...Both assumptions are false...
...Our 1942 batter shipments to Russia finally came to 17 million pounds, which sounds like a lot of butter "yet it is only one-tenth what the Army reroiired, and it represented less than 1 per cent of our total supply...
...However, we shall have better means of preventing the waste of food, of distributing food, and of cooking it without destruction of valuable vitamins and minerals, so we should get by...
...They also asked for tallow, linseed oil, and fatback to , eat...
...Their chief argument is that all political rnle involves organisation and that all JJIanization, no matter how democratic its mythology...
...Meanwhile we shall be learning how to use the best scientific methods of producing and distributing food so that none need go without That knowledge can be made of permanent value...
...i ·. . * *¦ ??/HEN you add in the supplies sent our "/armed forces, these figures go higher...
...With that partly incalculable drain open 1" ue...
...How well-fed shall we civilians be in 1945...
...sooner or later comes under the effective control of a minority elite...
...The demand for dairy products is also expected to exceed the supply...
...When it comes to beef, the figures are surprising...
Vol. 26 • March 1943 • No. 12
