Evening star., 1933-10-08

OUCvHO0 CSIt61ll 1u1CC, 04A0 VvVA RAVAOC~
ton at unnatural prices and valuations
is undoubtedly a factor in depression.
Four million automobiles could not sat
isfy the demand in 1928, while million
and q half cannot be sold in 1888 at
greatly reduced prices. This Is break
down in distribution, not overproduc-
ton. Prosperity is always greatest In
times of greatest productivity, misery in
times of lowest production, as now.
THIS monumental misinterpretation Of
the economic process might truly
be called the father of economic lies.
In one direction it inspires ponderous
articles by pseudo-economists giving
awesome figures of excess productive
capacity in our steel and auto and tex
tile plants This reached its finest flower
in the incomprehensible gibberish Of
democracy. In another direction this
error appears as the "fallacy of spend
ing" the false idea that blind spending
assures prosperity, theory as old as the
Greek philosophers and as new as the
recurrent drives for senseless spending
in our time In this form the fallacy
is used to defend every form of destruc-
tive waste from a 1O,0O0 bill for flowers
at wedding to an unnecessary govern
mental bureau. It was used to encour-
age the profligacy of the French nobility
until at last the overburdened people
sent the lot of them to the guillotine.
What would the doughty philosopher
Voltaire say if he could know that his
Apologize du Luxe helped to cause the
French Revolution? Believe it or not,
an academic economist in 1891 proposed
to end the depression by having every
family spend S more week.
This error appears in its most harm
full form in the theory that there Is q
fixed and rigid volume of work to be
done, so that any development that re-
duces the need for labor is a menace to
wages, employment and prosperity. This
belief guides the policy of organized
labor and dominates the philosophy of
those high in authority in our Govern
ment. It has bred progeny of ill-fa-
vored offspring. One is the bitter oppo-
sition to the introduction of machinery
which has marred the record OF labor
from the riots to prevent the use OF the
power loom more than a hundred years
ago to the protests against bottle-blow-
ing machinery. without one of these
Improvements most of our present popu-
lation would never have been born.
Without the other, we would not have
the huge preserving industry which en-
ploys many hundred times the number
of displaced bottle blowers. Another
offspring is the notion that time OF for
spending is cessary to proper "con-
sumer power" The most sinister of all
these children Of error is the theory
that a nation can create prosperity by
arbitrary reduction in hours and blind
increase in wages.
What are the facts, in this vast welter
of conflicting economic forces? The
first fact is that in all history shorter
hours and higher wages have been wholly
a result of economic improvement, and
never cause. Wages now, as always,
are merely the workers share in the
total social product. Every hard-won
improvement in labor's condition has
been laboris share in an increased ma
tional productivity. Whether they like
the relationship or not, whether they
are properly recognized as such or not,
the workers are partners of the capital
lists and the landowners in joint enter
prise. This Is q platitude il you like,
but one that Is often forgotten by all
parties to the enterprise.
THERE is less land per capita than
ever before, more mouths to feed,
more bodies to shelter. Yet there is an
astonishingly better living for all. In