The Washington times., 1934-03-24
True To
Type
Chase on "PIenty"
Encoura ges
Amateur
By GILBERT SELDES

As q sideIine to his major &C
ttvities, Stuart Chase may yet
prove that ] am not totally q
fool. A fairish number Of cor
respondents have regularly writ
ten me that most of my ideas
about the economics Of the fu-
ture are impractical, paradox
tcal, and the work Of an igno-
rant theorist.
It Is quite true that I haven't
more than two statistics to my
name and that is where Mr..
Chase comes in. When he gets
an idea, he also gets to work; he
digs for facts and builds an ar
gunient as q good construction
engineer builds q bridge. I think
in this case it is the bridge to
the future: possibly because it
Is the bridge I want to walk
along.
I haven't yet read all Of
ChaSe'S book on the economics
OF abundance, which Macmil-
Ian has published, but from the
parts I have seen I know that
Chase has accepted one thing as
fundamental: we are out Of the
time Of scarcity and in the time
OF plenty and, therefore, the
ways OF life which were proper
TO q century. ago are not proper
TO our own time. It doesn't
seem revolutionary, but it is.
All Can Eat
About 4 year ago Mr.. Chase
and I said, independently, more
or less the same words; his were
the better words and I quote
them from memory-'not every
one can work, but everyone can
eat" Or, technically, we are all
consumers and the Job Of gov.
ernment is to see that we are
armed with the wherewithal to
buy.
At that time I suggested that
even behind the facade Of the
NRA there lay the idea of get
ting money into peoples hands,
regardless Of the need for their
labor. Since then the CWA,
which strikes me as q far more
radical experiment., has almost
come out in the open with that
principle; for it is not the actual
work done by the laborerS under
the CWA land the PWA) which
Is important. The important
thing Is that several million
people have temporarily had the
power to buy things.
Reverse Morals
Not being an economist, I
think I go farther than Chase
does. I am irresponsible and he
is not. My thought is that
when there wasn't enough Of
anything-Say a hundred years
ago in q clearing in a Western
3UreSU-tne man who refused to
work was q social criminal. Re
verse the situation-now there
is too much, so to speak, Of
everything. Then the criminal
is the man who insists upon
working-on producing goods
for which there Is no market.
Work-productive labor-will
be the rarest thing a century
from now. It will be done by
very small number Of people
and the millions who want to
work will not be allowed to
work. Just as the millions who
wanted more leisure a decade
ago were not allowed to loaf.
Or, for the sake Of a headline:
"Work q Statutory Crime" Ito
which you add, "says economic
imbecile").
Two Targets
The minority decision, written
by Mr.. Justice Brandeis, in the
Oklahoma ice case, is the funda-
mental document of the New
Deal. The next important ut
terance is the Presidents Com
monwealth Club speech in San
Francisco, which came after
that decision. Both point to
preventing unlimited and unor.
ganized production.
II you want to fight the New
Deal, those are your targets.
And If you want the New Deal
to go through, pray with the
President to stick to "plenty" as
the basic element in all his acts.
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