The Washington times., 1934-12-28

of society" Lew"
rs a sort of big corporation
which exists independently Of
us individuals. You and I are
supposed to be subordinate
"cells' in the body polite, ex-
isting solely for the good of the
corporate State. The "best
minds" or some "brain trust"
is to be the head, and decide
what we shall do.
This social brain is to decide
for us what we want, and what
values all things are to have.
They want a "super-Organism"
which will regiment us.
But, while they would thus
subordinate us individuals to an
economic aristocracy (probably
themselves), they fancy that
some hocus pocus of political
democracy" is to be maintained
Apparently we are to go through
the motions of voting" to elect
our social brains, but they are
to do our thinking for us. What
sort of democracy would that be?
They do not see that one
trouble with us is that our busl
ness organizations are now too
big-so big that they won't com
pete, and can't function
efficiently-so big that no man
can run them at minimum cost
So they propose to go ahead and
"centralize" industrial control
still further, by social planning"
What we should be going is to
force our overgroWn businesses
to break up into workable units,
which would not be too big for
efficient supervision, nor too
proud to fight. Then we could
have some economic democracy
and political democracy would
become much more effective.
AS usual, too, there are the
super-economists who think their
ideals are the most important
things. They imagine that they
know what ought to be, and that
others ought to- be coerced to
their way of thinking.
These funny Super-ecOnOm1StS
would set up some System"
of values which no one can
know but themselves or other
inspired persons. In fact. they
would ignore economic values
and costs, and would merely
decide what is right" or
POLITICALLY expedient" by in
tuition-their own intuitionS,
of course.
If you tell them that some
scheme they propose will cost
more than it is worth and
won't pay for itself, they say,
eve know what it is worth
and our intuitionS tell us that
1t ought to be DONE" $50 they
force taxpayers, present or fu-
ture, to pay).
OF course. they can apply no
objective tests. nor even meas
ure the results in any quantita-
tive way, so they just assume
various rights" and duties" and
let it go at that.
In fact, they go so far as to
assert that we can't assume any
given set of conditions, and that
economic forces will not "stay
put" long enough to allow us to
measure them. They rejoice IN
the notion that things are chang
ing so constantly that all we can
do is keep trying experiments.
There are no economic laws, say
these super.economists, so we do
not need to bother with individual
wants, or costs of production, or
weather. Hurrah!
But, ask, if individual business
men can't plan, how can brain
trusters" plan? Or if we can have
social planning" why not lndl-
vidual planning?
If there are no economic laws
or quantitative measurements Of
economic value, there can be no
economic planning, social or other.
Indeed, no one could know whether
an experiment" had succeeded or
not!
The plain fact Is that eco
nomics is one thing, government
another, and ethics another.
Economic costs and values are
important as a separate con-
SideratiOn, and must be meas
ured and considered in matters
Of policy. The economist does
not know everything, nor deal
with the whole of life, but he
has an important job, and the
statesman must consider eco
nomics in deciding what is ex-
pedient or right to do.
CA No41 10~v%~~vv%