The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1913-12-28
SAYS CAP|TALISEID
SYSTEM CAUSE OF
HIGH COST OF LIVING
University of Chicago Dean
Addresses Economic So
ciety in Minneapolis.
Principal Falaci0us

Minneapolis. Mimi, December 81.
The overhead charges of the capitalistio
system are the cause of the increased
cost of living. according to the address
today of Dean Albion W Small of the
University of Chicago to the twenty
Fsixth annual meeting of the American
Economic association. Dean Small is
president of the American Sociological
society, meeting with the Economic as
ISOLATION.
Our inquiry into the central prob
lens of our time will amount to moth
ing" said Dean Small. until the lead
ers of our thought and action consent
to policy of candid and thorough in
CURRY as to whether there is something
radically mistaken in the capitalistic
system itself
Now, when we are paying for to-
days dinner we are paying also for
dinners served and paid for long ago
and we are also paying installments on
other dinners that will be served gem
erations hence. Yet we marvel at the
growing size of the bill
Interest on Debt
I'VE are still paying interest on four
hundred and forty-on millions of ma
tional debt incurred before 1855. Inter
est payments already have equalled the
original loans twice over. Thorough
continuance of the annual interest pay
ments which do not reduce the prin-
cipal we are now discharging these
loans a third time Americans for the
next 80 years will be paying interest
for portions of the Panama canal and
at that time will have repaid the origi-
nal borrowings, but the principal and
interest still will be just as much due
as If no payments had been made.
Improvements of railroad terminals
completed or projected in various cities
are bonded for s100.OO0,OoO. The inter-
est will be permanent charge upon the
earnings. 1t will press down upon
wages and life demands for higher
rates. Our industries will repay these
loans over and over again to the
children and the children's children
of the original lenders"
Dean Small pointed out what he de-
scribed as functional fallacies that
radically ignore social efficiency"
1.-THE fallacy of treating capital as II
1t were an active agent and of credting
income to the personal representative
of capital irrespective of their actual
services.
THE fallacy of Incorporating the fall
lacious capitalistic principle, thus
ir1cr
tality.
Fallacy of System
"rhe fallacy of a system of inheri-
lance which assigns the powers and
privileges of incorporated capital to
sentimenta11y designated individuals.
This creates hereditary economic soy
ereignty which must eventually become
more intolerable than the hereditary
political sovereignties overthrown by
revolution.
"a warning corrective measures
was voiced at the same session of the
two organizations by David Kinley,
president of the American Economic
association.
Man is so constituted that when he
feels the evils of an existing system
he is likely to adopt measures of re-
form which will produce evils as great
as those he is seeking to remedy" said
Dr. Kinley.
mat danger he continued, exists
now. We need to look very closely at
the tendency toward the extension of
the authority of the government into
the details of our economic life. The
principle of competition, the system Of
economic liberalism, has been too val
liable to the progress of mankind to De
given up altogether. For competition
has been a developing force, even if
1t has failed somewhat as a controlling
one. The motive power to action is
of more Importance in the long run
than the regulation of action.
aside from Industries that are clear
ly monopolistic by nature, the whole
aim of government interference should
be to establish conditions which will
induce healthy competition"
The speaker said that the attitude
of the courts toward the character of
acts of corporations needed readtust-
ment There is a demand, he said, that
personal responsibility for corporate
acts shall be fixed upon the officers of
corporations in such way as to pre-
vent the recurrence of many of the
evils that have given rise to the hos
ttlity toward corporations
The meeting will continue over Tues
day. Railway rate making, with an adj
dress by B. II. Meyer of the interstate
commerce commission syndicalism and
the economic effect of supreme court
dissolutions are subjects scheduled.