THE BATTLE FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT

...It recognizes that no specific proposal will have a chance to contribute to full employment in this country unless it can be given systematic consideration in Congress and made part of an integrated and overall program...

...Most important of all, the bill, establishes a procedure for program-making...

...There is one kind of risk that it is his function to assume—the competitive risk that he may have to meet the challenge of a better and cheaper product...

...A free competitive economy implies freedom from irresponsible and unlimited Government controls...

...Only the government is in a position to look at the economic scene as a whole, to, locate the trouble spots, and to take effective action to forestall inflation or deflation...

...At the same time we recognize that forthright and vigorous action must be taken immediately to demonstrate that private enterprise can function as it was supposed to...

...Capacity means more than plants and machinery and tools and assembly lines...

...Purchasing power tends to get clogged up and to pile up in idle hoards...

...One of the most startling events of recent history— indeed of all history—has been the remarkable increase in our productive capacity in the last few years...

...They will note that it does not expand the existing functions of the Government...

...ASECOND group opposes the bill because they fear Government intervention of any sort...

...These people point to the impressive record of production and employment by American industry under war controls...

...3A procedure for working out a coordinated and ? consistent full employment program...

...BUSINESS cannot by itself keep those wheels turning...

...that the world trend in this direction is irresistible...

...But the real danger lies beyond the present demobilization period...

...Because so far that right, which so many of us blandly accept as self-evident and fundamental to those other basic rights of "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness"—that right has not yet been made real in this country...

...Excess capacity" means excess men and women...

...As matters now stand in Congress, isolated proposals are initiated, debated, and decided separately from one another, without regard to interrelationships, total effect, or the final objectives...

...It would be amended or modified if necessary, and reported to the Congress in the form of a joint resolution...

...And the better the training and equipment of these workers, the higher our capacity...

...It does not authorize either the continuation of wartime controls or the imposition of new economic controls...

...Individual workers and their families know that both sheer subsistence and human dignity depend on the right to a job...

...These indicate that leaders of all major groups in our economy are convinced that we must have some such legislation as that embodied in the Full Employment Bill...

...The third group feels that the bill does not go far enough...

...He cannot, however, be expected to take on the additional risk that the bottom may fall out of the market—not so long as we continue to operate within the framework of the private profit system...

...Unless producers have confidence in adequate markets, they dare not expand plant and equipment...

...When business and consumer and foreign backlogs have been filled, the postwar bubble will burst...

...MEANWHILE there are basic difficulties in our system that will emerge just as soon as we get back to "normalcy...

...They are convinced that full employment can be approximated only if the Federal Government asserts far-reaching direct controls over the working of our economy...

...For government this is new...

...We must assure producers that there will be an adequate and sustained overall market for their goods...

...There are at least 3 kinds of people opposed to the Full Employment Bill: First, there are some, believe it or not, who feel that our objective should be something less than full employment—who want jobs for some, not for all...

...The bill does not prescribe the specific items of such a program...

...Who is for the Full Employment Bill...

...Even conservative estimates tell us that by 1950, our gross national output will be almost double what it was in the peak prosperity year of 1929...

...Excess capacity spells potential tragedy as well as potential output...

...Government expenditures are being slashed at an ever more rapid rate...

...And we must engender confidence through a consistent, constructive, and integrated national economic policy...

...The minimum and indispensable first step toward any policy decision in the world of business is to take inventory...

...The tool kit of policies at the disposal of the Government includes many more measures than we have yet learned to manipulate effectively and intelligently...

...To correct this the Full Employment Bill requires that the President should submit to Congress every year a program for legislative action to achieve full employment...

...We know, of course, and we are constantly being reminded, that for a while we may expect activity of boom proportions—that those who have saved during the war will be purchasing the cars and radios and refrigerators that they have gone without for years, that agricultural and other exports to the devastated world abroad will be at a record peacetime high, that producers will be spending feverishly—to restock inventories and replace worn-out capital equipment...

...This requires that our productive potentialities be channeled into higher living standards —that they must not be allowed to poison the economy by stagnation...

...It can be most concretely visualized in terms of men and women equipped to produce...

...also to give effect to that right within the framework of the kind of economic system which we cherish...

...The more workers there are, the greater the productive capacity of the nation...

...Some measures have been taken to cope with these short-run difficulties, and others are now under consideration...

...It does not guarantee individual jobs, or profits, or markets, or allow Government determination of output or prices...

...Not enough of the income created by production gets into the hands of those who will spend it back into production again...

...A careful reading of the' bill makes it clear that the intention is only to provide such opportunity for those who want to work, and are capable of doing so...

...WE must attack irresponsible restrictions in every form, and must make it possible for the masses to consume the output of industry, for small and new enterprise to compete, for new ideas and methods to be translated into production...

...MOREOVER, we don't need any new devices to put the economy into working order...

...Battle lines are now forming for a showdown fight for full employment, and this week may see a decisive step taken by the United States Senate...

...The second step is to take stock of economic trends...

...What the bill does do is to take constructive action to preserve our system of free private enterprise by undertaking to assure full employment opportunity...

...This program would be studied by a joint committee comprising representatives from both Houses...

...Why is it important to declare the right to work...

...And he would compare the expected total with the desired total, i.e., the total necessary for full employment...

...Producers—manufacturers, farmers, distributors, proprietors of services—know that their markets and profits depend upon purchasing power in the hands of consumers...

...By now it is hardly necessary to stress the grim fact that unemployment is a real threat in America...

...But these are temporary factors that don't last...

...Every businessman knows that sound judgment must be based on information as to where we stand and where we are headed...

...Fear has been creeping into the hearts of all America—of our returning soldiers, our war workers, our young graduates facing an uncertain future, our older and handicapped workers—a fear that relates to what is happening as things get back to "normal...

...The task is to direct this impact toward the final goal, and to make sure that all of these many elements gear into each other and do not work at cross purposes...

...The first step toward constructing a national economic policy built around this basic right to work is to declare it to be the law of the land—to...

...Those who are interested in making our economy work in high gear realize that unless our growing productive capacity is channeled into mass consumption and constantly rising standards of living, the system will break down...

...The use of job scarcity to weaken the bargaining power of labor is out of line with our fundamental traditions of fair play...

...This should be all to the good...

...There are deeper implications to the word "capacity...

...But this is because roughly half of our national product was consumed by the Government and poured back into production by Government payrolls and Government purchase of materials, plants, and equipment for war...

...By now it is clear that any economic system that fails to provide the right to work is in danger of repudiation by the people...

...Worse still, it has perverse economic consequences which in the end would threaten the profits of business and, indeed, the profit system...

...But all of the people acting together through their government can provide the necessary assurance...

...Finally, and of paramount importance, practically everyone realizes by now that the ultimate hope for world peace hinges upon the maintenance of full employment levels of activity in the leading industrial nations...

...A national economic policy must be founded on a solid base of facts and figures...

...Those who want to preserve our political system are keenly aware that our basic freedoms and the whole structure of our democracy could be endan-gered by the resentment and bitterness of a people deprived of the right to economic citizenship—particularly a people who have fought for this right, and who have witnessed that full employment can be achieved...

...The more we are capable of producing, the more important it becomes that we keep the wheels turning, and the greater the risk involved if we don't...

...These people can reassure themselves simply by rereading the text of the bill...

...But how can a businessman expand when he is gripped by fear that we are headed for depression...

...Hundreds of letters have been received by the sponsors of the bill...

...And it will be if we take full advantage of it to expand the stream of goods and services flowing to the people...

...Actually the road to serfdom is the road of inertia and inaction...

...The bill proposes to establish for the first time in this country a national economic policy...

...What does the Full Employment Bill propose to do about it...

...Rather it puts first things first...

...In this country we are committed rather to a higher kind of motivation founded on minimum economic security, and working through the urge to do better than the next fellow, and to reap appropriate recognition and reward...

...They argue in terms of the danger of a rigid labor market and the need for a "safe margin" or pool of unemployed to ensure worker incentive and efficiency, and to keep wages under control...

...Already the Federal Government can and does wield a tremendous influence in the fields of banking and currency, monopoly and competition, taxation, development of resources, technical assistance to business, credit facilities, wages and working conditions, international trade, etc...

...We have seen the first impact of demobilization and reconversion in many areas of the nation, especially in communities where aircraft and shipbuilding industries boomed in wartime...

...Who is against the Full Employment Bill...

...We cannot deal with specifications until we have learned to draw blueprints...

...When agreed upon, with whatever changes might be made, the Joint Resolution would serve as a guide to Congress and individual committees in enacting specific legislation...

...The terroristic approach which would maintain worker efficiency by the stark threat of destitution is clearly not compatible with democracy...

...The result is less output, fewer and smaller incomes, a decrease in jobs, slowing down of the wheels of industry, depression, mass unemployment...

...We must know first of all what full employment means in terms of production and of demand necessary to purchase this production...

...It would then be subject to full debate in both Houses...

...JAMES E. MURRAY AMERICA has triumphed in the greatest war in all history, but we have yet to face the major enemy at home—unemployment and all the tragic waste and misery occasioned by it...

...It is true that by expanding—a lot of them all together— they could create their own markets by making it possible for workers to purchase...

...Failure to put capacity to use means idle men, empty pay envelopes, hungry families, inadequate markets, cumulating depression, and unemployment...

...document it, and thus give official sanction to what the majority of people consider to be the paramount issue facing the nation...

...It is true that we have had full production and more than full employment- during the war...

...No one group can by itself create economic prosperity...

...Having translated these goals into concrete terms of jobs and output, we must take inventory of what is actually happening at the moment, to see how it stacks up against the objectives, and whether there is need for action to prevent either inflation or deflation...

...In the same way farmers, workers, consumers—all are dependent upon good markets for the prices and wages and incomes which will enable them to be good customers...

...Or else, we shall be operating our economy far below capacity...

...This national economic policy would have three facets: 1A declaration of the right to work in the kind of ? a system we think of as American...

...The exact wording is important...

...Nobody has forgotten that they petered out after the last war, and they are just as certain to this time...

...These objections to full employment opportunity can be quickly disposed of...

...This clearly means that the slack must be taken up through expenditures made by business and consumers—or else...

...But for business it is old...

...The dread lies in the word "normal...

...They hold that the forces of instability and irresponsibility are so powerful that they can be restrained only by similarly powerful and detailed governmental controls...

...Unfortunately, however, our economic vulnerability has kept pace with the rapid growth of productivity...

...It became apparent in the last depression, and the experts all agree, that there is something wrong with the circulation of income in our economy...

...This the Full Employment Bill would do by enunciating the right of full employment opportunity in a free competitive economy...

...It blueprints machinery which will enable the President and Congress to work together in threshing out a consistent and comprehensive plan of action...

...also on the spending plans of all groups in the country—the state and local governments, businessmen, and consumers...

...It also implies freedom from those private controls associated with monopoly power...

...Under the Full Employment Bill, the President would report annually to Congress not only on the proposed expenditures and revenues of the Federal Government, but...

...The sponsors of the Bill do not agree that free private enterprise is dead, and we do not believe that the people think so...

...2A continuous national inventory of the factors ? that influence employment...

...And it does not authorize unlimited Government spending or deficit financing...

...They look upon every increase in Federal responsibility as a further step down the road to serfdom, complete regimentation, and totalitarian control...

...It would be the framework for a national economic policy...