Montana labor news., 1933-02-16
TECHNOCRACY
AND THE
TIMES
by w. H. HOLIDAY
Continued from Last Week.

Continued from Last Week.
The "Technocrats' are endeavoring
to carry out that identical program by
Transforming the enforced leisure of
today into a blessing instead of a
curse, as it is under existing con-
ditions. How? That's what we
want to know. They tell us, first of
all, that the price system, in vogue
today and throughout the centuries
for that matter, must go; that it
blocks and impedes what should be
a constant and constantly flowing
stream of trade; that it handouts
m and destroys what should be
reciprocal trade relations. Through
artificial prices, manipulated prices,
fluctuating prices, through an utter in
stability, the price system today is a
menace to progress, a threat to civil
zation. Production and consumption
are entirely out of gear. The form
er is one hundred and eighty degrees
in advance of the latter, and why-what
is the reason? The price system.
Let us illustrate: We have a grove
of oranges here, millions of oranges
going to waste, rotting on the trees
and on the ground. People need the
n of course. Thousands of lit
tie, pale-faced children, for instance,
could use them to advantage, but their
parents, deprived of a job, possessing
not the purchasing power, r unable
to buy them. We have mountains Of
wheat and other food products spoil
ing, rotting on the ground, and people
needing bread the worst way but lack
ing the price to purchase it. Thou
sands of automobiles for sale but few
purchasers; car loads Of radios await
ing buyers; the market glutted with
necessity and luxury and no apparent
movement of goods. What's wrong?
The price system. The price system
without the price is an absolute flop,
a complete failure. Meantime COM
petitors are destroying each other in
a mad rush for business. Factories
are throwing out their old machines
which are not paid for and replacing
them with new mes which may
never be paid for, and in an u~navailing
effort to do away with their COM
petitors are doing away with them
selves. Debts are increasing faster
than population, faster than produc-
ton; our industrial debt is two hun
bred and eighteen million, the balloon
is stretched to its utmost capacity and
is due to blow up anytime. A rail-
road borrows three hundred and ten
million to replace its equipment. This
is to be paid back to the lenders when
the final installment Of n hundred
and n%inety-nine million in one hun
bred and sixteen years at a time when
the present stockholders will be all
dead and gone, when the equipment
will be worn out and on the scrap heap,
when the railroad perhaps will be non
existent and possibly forgotten by all
except those who must still pay the
piper. Not only the sins of the father
but the debts of the father seem TO
go down to the descendants of the
third and fourth and fifth generation.
All this, the "Technocrats" say, is
due to the price system. If it is it is
high time we were demanding a
change.
We must operate on a thermo-dy-
~namically balanced load, say the Tech
nocrats. We can forget the big words
and look at the facts; what do they
mean, what are they talking about?
Production, distribution and con-
sumption must be equalized, that's all,
In plain, everyday English, it means
what the socialists have been advocat-
ing for twenty-five years to my knowl-
edge, produce for use and not for
profit.
Produce for use and not for profit
and material goods will not be piled
up about you ready to crush you tc
death. Produce for use and not for
profit and you'll automatically estab-
lish your thermo-dynamically balanced
load.
Energy is the source of all physical
wealth the Technocrats claim, and en-
ergy is susceptible to measurement
the exact amount of energy consumed
in the production and distribution Of
CONTINUED ON Page Four1