Dear Editor
Dear Editor Warning At the conclusion of his thought-provoking article, "The Limits of Industrial Policy" (NL, September 19), Robert Lekachman cautions: "Liberals should temper their enthusiasm...
...We can consume them right here at home by remembering the unemployed and the working poor: "If our national and industrial policies were directed to helping these our fellow citizens, there would be plenty of domestic business to keep U.S...
...Perhaps that will be the subject of one of his future "Dismal Science" columns...
...His clearheaded deflation of the free-traders* outmoded notions is a small gem...
...The hard fact is that the Japanese produce better cars than we do at less cost under possibly superior working conditions, and their standard of living is fast approaching ours...
...In our own confused society, it is just possible that progressives would be happier with the existing muddle...
...We need to wake up, revive our resourcefulness and get back to work...
...Never have 1 seen the case for protecting this country against those who would unfairly ravage it put so effectively or succinctly...
...What we need from Margolis are the kind of specifics that might finally help produce that elusive new Liberal Agenda so many of us have been looking for...
...In an ideal America, a coherent, progressive industrial policy would be an attractive prospect...
...Even General Motors has had to concede that much...
...I can't say that I disagree with him...
...As for Brockway's overall proposal, there are so many things wrong with it that a small textbook would be required to point out all the errors of his logic...
...Philadelphia Albert Riccio Bravo to George P. Brockway...
...Los Angeles Paul Kornreich...
...Protecting ourselves from the rest of the world will not resolve our malaise...
...That sounds good...
...Of course, Brockway neglects to tell us precisely how we might go about helping our less fortunate fellow citizens in an economy that I am sure he would agree is hardly on the certain road to recovery...
...The warning is worth remembering in a larger sense as well, especially as the Democratic Presidential candidates assail us with the standard liberal shibboleths...
...Anyone who doubts this ought to think a moment about the breakup of AT&T, which warmed the hearts of all anti-trust advocates...
...And his proposal for keeping the plunderers out strikes me as the ultimate in common sense...
...Dear Editor Warning At the conclusion of his thought-provoking article, "The Limits of Industrial Policy" (NL, September 19), Robert Lekachman cautions: "Liberals should temper their enthusiasm for novelties susceptible to capture by corporate boardrooms...
...Not to worry that the goods we will thus be producing won't be competitive on the world market...
...industry fully occupied and highly profitable...
...The trouble is, though, that policies cannot be fashioned out of glittering generalities...
...Besides, we get enough of those from the politicians...
...Indeed, it would seem rather that the time has come to face some harsh truths-that we may have become too fat, too inefficient, too mentally lazy...
...This will keep Americans on the assembly line at the wage level to which they have become accustomed...
...New York City Morton Greenstetn Liberal Cry After assessing the seven Democratic Presidential hopefuls in his inimitable fashion, Richard J. Margo-lis finds them all wanting ("Homogenized Democrats," NL, October 3...
...But then Margolis goes on to tell us that' 'the Great Society's reforms must once again be thought through and fought through...
...We should have suspected when the giant allowed itself to be slain too easily that we would soon be the real victims-forced to suffer poorer, less comprehensive service and pay a higher price for it...
...Let us, therefore, just briefly consider autos...
...It hardly seems sensible, therefore, to "protect' ' ourselves from those cars or to deny this reality...
...All we need do is ban the entry to these shores of products produced in countries where wages, working conditions and the general standard of living do not measure up to our own-particularly in the case of such endangered industrial species as autos, steel and textiles...
...Chicago Robert Prttzker Protectionism George P. Brockway makes economic protectionism sound so simple ("The Way to Protect," NL, September 19), and even morally righteous...
Vol. 66 • October 1983 • No. 20
