DEAR EDITOR
Dear Editor The New Leader welcomes comment and criticism on any of its features, but letters should not exceed 300 words. Church and State Many opponents of prayer and the Pledge of...
...Haven Bradford Gow Working Harder George P. Brockway makes a persuasive case for the proposition that low unemployment does not result in high inflation ("The Fear of Full Employment," NL, October 31...
...1 sense this is irue in many service areas...
...In sum, I would argue that a labor shortage creates (a) an increased incentive to innovate, and (b) economies in the service sector due to the operation of Parkinson's Law...
...They believed that a society's public morality depends upon a religious foundation, and that the beneficial influence of religion on private and public morality is indispensable to the maintenance of good government and the survival of self-government...
...The scarcity of doctors ol'icn only means less unnecessary work is done...
...A surplus of providers often increases the total cost of a service io society, h is notorious thai when doctors are in shori supply, the number of unnecessary operai ions is less than when there are more dociors...
...In general, the technological developments which have so enhanced our standard of living are spurred by shortages of labor and high labor costs...
...Parkinson's Law applies more strongly to the service area than to manufacturing and agriculture...
...But when costs of labor go up, it becomes economical to invest in new technology and to seek ways to reduce the cost of labor...
...Each time the cost of, for example, harvesting a crop increases because farm workers become more scarce or because they insist upon a modest wage improvement, automatic harvesting machinery is developed...
...This is suggested as well in Poor Richard's contribution to the current debate on the issue ("About That Pledge of Allegiance," NL, October 3-17...
...Consequently, they wanted government to preserve, protect and foster the religious impulse and enterprise...
...This has been notable in agriculture...
...The result is a net decrease in the cost of harvesting and thus in the cost of the crop...
...The Founding Fathers did not intend governmental neutrality toward religion—a neutrality that in modern times has become simply a cloak to hide governmental indifference and hostility toward religion...
...The gut feeling we have for the classic proposition that there is a correlation between employment and inflat ion derives from the belief that if everyone has a job, then people will bargain to increase wages and the cost of services...
...The Founding Fathers intended the First Amendment not to safeguard society or the state from the influence of religion but, rather, to preserve and protect religious freedom from encroachments by the state...
...Church and State Many opponents of prayer and the Pledge of Allegiance in the schools base their position on the argument that the Constitution demands a strict and total separation of Church and State...
...They wanted government to champion and defend religion and religious freedom...
...namely, work expands to meet the time and the number of people available...
...These are major aspects of the reason why full employment does not create inflation in the modern economy...
...But, as the late U.S...
...does not say that in every and all respects there shall be a separation of Church and State...
...Arlington Heights, III...
...I would like to make a couple of observations in support of his proposition...
...My second observation is in (he services field...
...Our economy is now about two-thirds in services, including government services...
...Otherwise, the state and religion would be aliens to each other—hostile, suspicious, and even unfriendly...
...Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas observed in the 1952 case of Zorach v. Clauson: "The First Amendment...
...New York City Lloyd McAulay...
...Justice Douglas added: "We are a religious people whose institutions presuppose a Supreme Being...
...The First Amendment scholar O. Carroll Arnold rightly observes: "One would never dream of asserting that the government is neutral toward freedom of speech or the press, and it is (or at least should be) equally non-neutral toward religion and religious freedom...
Vol. 71 • November 1988 • No. 19
