THE FREEDOM FROM FEAR OF ABUNDANCE
Reuther, Walter
The Freedom From Fear Of Abundance By WALTER REUTHER EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the fifth of a series of articles on the economic possibilities for postwar America. The final article, by Judge Thurman...
...Plans for agriculture should include migration of families from sub-marginal to highly productive land, encouragement of cooperative marketing, and the strengthening of family farm units to compete with large scale mechanized agriculture...
...Government projects should include housing, community buildings such as hospitals, schools, recreation centers, flood control and power developments, rural electrification, water-ways, highways and airports, conservation projects, etc...
...between producer and consumer...
...The fact we must face is that political democracy cannot survive under the economic strains and stresses which exist in a system based upon scarcity...
...Our railroad system must be unified and modernized...
...Mr...
...4, 1943, John F. Fennelly, executive director of the CED, spoke as follows to its convention: "Full employment would be incompatible with the free enterprise system which carries with it the right to a normal float of unemployed...
...Will their brothers from the production front join them in breadlines...
...A national housing authority should be created under the Peace Production Board to plan and coordinate the housing program and give immediate consideration to the following points: 1. Conversion of excess government-owned aircraft plants to mass production of pre-fabricated, low-cost homes, including bathroom, kitchen, heating, and air conditioning units...
...Full application of mass production techniques will stimulate construction of good housing and creation of jobs for millions of Americans...
...Finally, we must see to it that our tremendous technical progress works for democracy and jobs, not for stagnation and unemployment...
...The Peace Production Board should formulate procedures for the universal application of a 30 hour week...
...They are fearful of abundance...
...Now the farm folks fear that peace will again subject them to poverty and insecurity...
...THE scope of government economic activity will depend largely upon the degree to which private industry assumes social responsibility in the achievement of full and continuous employment...
...To implement the speedy conversion of industry to peace production when the war program permits, there should immediately be established industry and area tooling pools, composed of the total tooling facilities and skilled manpower in such industries or areas...
...There is much anxiety for the future in the ranks of American small businessmen who fear that the termination of our war production programs will see the further strangulation of small business by powerful trusts and entrenched monopolies...
...Will history repeat itself...
...An average operating rate of 70 to 80 per cent of rated capacity, which these figures suggest, has in the past not been wholly unsatisfactory for the industry, provided costs were in reasonable relations to market prices...
...their plans are only for "high levels" of employment, for "a normal float of unemployed," and for operations at "70 to 80 per cent of rated capacity...
...AGAIN, on Dec...
...Finding a satisfactory answer to these questions is an essential part of our total war to destroy Fascism...
...To the Four Freedoms formulated in the Atlantic Charter, there ought to be added a fifth freedom: FREEDOM FROM FEAR OF ABUNDANCE...
...It is clear from these statements by spokesmen of representative American industrial institutions that we cannot expect them to plan for full employment and full production after the war...
...The Government should also create a, central research clearing house to insure that patents and technical and scientific knowledge are universally employed for the public welfare instead of being restricted to enrich and strengthen monopolies...
...Postwar security to the individual worker must be based upon a guaranteed annual living wage...
...This will help to break the strangle-hold of monopolies which, with their cartel agreements, hold back our nation's defense program...
...Farmers, too, are worried about their postwar prospects...
...If a similar approach is followed in the machine tool industry, we can increase war production and cut the period of conversion to peace production to one-half or one-third of the usual time...
...In addition to the clarification of the contract termination question, the Government should declare the following policy on the disposition of Government-owned plants and facilities: ; Eirst, the Government shall operate, as a yardstick, Government-owned plants in monopolistic or semi-monopolistic industries, or in industries strategic to national welfare and defense...
...With the full realization of our productive potential, a 30 hour week can easily be the productive equivalent of our prewar 40 hour week...
...3. Organization of a commission of experts on designing, construction and materials to assure full use of advance technology in our housing program...
...These were the groups that secretly consummated cartel agreements with Nazi corporations before the war—the same ones that had to be bribed and bludgeoned by government into total production for war...
...It seems as unpopular not to want full empoyment as it would be not to believe in mother love, but we have to be realistic...
...We should not continue to pay for hauling dead-weight simply to protect dead investments...
...To yield such a volume of finished products would take about 65 to 70 million tons of ingots, out of facilities probably capable of producing close to 90 millions...
...human rehabilitation is no less necessary...
...We must act and organize now to free ourselves from fear of abundance, so that the desire of the vast majority of Americans for full production and full employment in the postwar period can be democratically fulfilled...
...Government projects should not be held in reserve as relief projects until our economy is in another tailspin but should be preventive in character...
...Tower, of the Iron and Steel Institute, tied his prospects for employment in the steel industry in with the CED philosophy of postwar planning when he predicted peacetime steel operations at "70 to 80 per cent of rated capacity...
...A Fifth Freedom Wishful thinking and pious slogans about free enterprise will not create employment, nor will they feed a man's hungry family...
...The development of light metals and Diesel power have made most of our rolling stock obsolete and uneconomical...
...With authority to plan, organize, and direct the conversion of our war economy to peace production so as to achieve full and continuous employment, its activities should cover both the fields of production and distribution...
...Plans for a far-flung public works program must also be formulated, not as a glorified emergency WPA project, but as a permanent part of a healthy, expanding national economy...
...In its first annual report, released in September, 1943, CED said: "The Committee does not undertake to guarantee full employment by business...
...For, if democracy cannot conquer unemployment and scarcity at the same time that it vanquishes Fascist militarism, Fascism will surely rise again to attack civilization with its terror and brutality...
...Our corporations are laying aside funds to rehabilitate their plants...
...Abundance is essential to the free and unrestricted development of democracy...
...Working farmers must be granted greater equity in our postwar economy...
...The Committee for Economic Development, which represents American industry, speaks only of high levels of employment, and its executive director, Mr...
...Will our heroes return to sell apples...
...Returning soldiers must have a prime place in such a program...
...Abundance Is Essential Racial minorities, called into employment by the manpower demands of the war, and tasting some of the sweeter fruits of democracy for the first time, are especially fearful that peace will return them to the status of second-class citizens...
...THE Peace Production Board, in conjunction wita the various industry councils, should establish, during the transitional period, control of materials based on social priority, allocating to each producer a fixed quota of the total production...
...Assistance in rehabilitating and raising the standards of other nations is not only humanitarian but sound economics as well...
...Such tooling pools will create strategic tooling reserves that will expedite war tooling by bringing the maximum tooling impact upon a specific tooling problem and will permit advanced conversion tooling on a non-competitive basis during periods of reduced war tooling...
...We cannot trust these economic powers to plan postwar America any more than we could trust them to run the war effort...
...As defined by itself, the CED aims to "stimulate and assist American business to make its greatest possible contribution to sustained high levels of employment and production when the war is over...
...2. Conversion of government-owned miscellaneous plants to serve as feeder plants to the main pre-fabrieating plants...
...To achieve this, free enterprise should mean cooperative enterprise, a system which will assign to ownership, management, labor, and government certain specific responsibilities...
...We must also have the courage and imagination to rebuild backward sections of our economy which have not kept abreast of technological progress...
...Housing And Public Works Housing is America's most challenging need and our greatest potential source of postwar employment...
...The type of postwar planning of which corporate America is thinking is, typified by utterances of the officials of the Committee for Economic Development...
...It does undertake to stimulate the energies of business to make the maximum contribution that is possible on a business basis to high levels of employment and production...
...12, 1944...
...Our postwar economy must be planned as a part of a total international economy...
...This will insure the production of the most necessary commodities first and will avoid early maneuvering for competitive advantage at the expense of war production...
...we must demonstrate the imagination and courage to do the same in peace...
...Cooperative enterprise is economic democracy in action, based upon team work between labor, management, and government...
...It is against this background of fear for the future that we must pose the problem of how to plan for full production and full employment after the war...
...Americans whose brawn, blood, and brains have made this achievement possible are not forgetting this fact...
...The success of our war effort against Fascist militarism has demonstrated that, working as a united people, under democratic government controls, we can produce abundantly to defend our land against aggression...
...The representative composition of both the Peace Production Board and industry councils will create the basis for the development of economic democracy within the framework of our political democracy...
...Too often free enterprise has meant business-as-usual, unemployment, and insecurity...
...Postwar planning must also include a broad program of human rehabilitation...
...The Peace Production Board should establish representative planning councils in each major industry...
...A National Agricultural Commission should be established to develop programs to achieve a more balanced national diet by shifting emphasis to the production of dairy products, vegetables, and fruits...
...These councils, vested with adequate authority, shall develop detailed plans for the conversion to peace production and postwar marketing techniques, to insure full employment...
...They are determined to wage a successful postwar battle against unemployment and insecurity...
...Second, the Government should lease to private industry Government-owned machinery and facilities for use in civilian production on the basis of guarantees that will protect the interests of Government, labor, and the consumer...
...We have achieved full employment and abundance for war...
...Another indication of the postwar thinking of corporate business is found in a speech by Walter S. Tower, President of the American Iron and Steel Institute, delivered in Cleveland, Ohio, on Jan...
...On Nov...
...IN fox-hole and factory millions of our fighting and production soldiers are asking the question: After victory what...
...29, 1943, Marion B. Folsom, Treasurer of the Eastman Kodak Company and Chairman of the Field Development Program of the CED, is reported to have said: "A job for every person willing and able to work is absolutely incompatible with the free enterprise system...
...These are the questions they demand be answered clearly and unmistakably...
...The Peace Production Board should be composed of Government, management, labor, farmers, and consumers...
...Third, special provisions must be developed to rehabilitate and protect small business during the conversion period...
...Tower said: "Annual capacity for producing steel ingots is now pressing close to 95 million tons . . . reasonable estimates of needs for steel, when war demand gives way to peacetime activity, are not likely to go beyond the range of 45 to 50 million tons of finished products...
...There is the essence of corporate postwar planning in a nutshell...
...Fennelly, insists on the right of free enterprise to a "normal float of unemployed...
...If vie1 tory pays off all these worried Americans with unemployment and insecurity, we will have lost our social war against Fascism, even though the Axis enemy is smashed on the military front...
...A Peace Production Board The majority of the American people who desire full production and full employment as the fruits of victory, paced by labor and other progressive groups, must formulate and articulate a popular demand for immediate establishment of a Peace Production Board by the Federal Government...
...The final article, by Judge Thurman Arnold, will appear in an early issue of The Progressive...
...Free enterprise can only be justified if it brings freedom from unemployment, freedom from want, and freedom from insecurity...
...This pattern of postwar planning will not banish scarcity, create abundance, or eliminate the conditions out of which Fascism grows...
...They remember the long years of agricultural depression in which they struggled between World War I and World War II...
...But there are powerful economic groups in America which fear abundance more than they fear Fascism...
...Such government projects will constitute the strategic job reserve of a functioning, full-employment economy...
...In the last three decades, there have only been two periods of prosperity in the land, both of them results of wars in distant lands...
Vol. 8 • June 1944 • No. 25
