The Durant news. (Durant, Miss.) 1882-1985, 1943-05-20

Postwar Power Planners

When we read about the many schemes of postwar
planners who are busily engaged in drawing up the blue
prints for a more abundant life for the world after the
shooting stops we are tempted to go out in the WOODS
and enc. it all. M
lines of postwar recovery and development, private INDUS
try and the government planners. The schemes adj
vanced by private industry seek first to preserve the sys-
item al. private enterprise which has developed this coun-
try. from a vast wilderness to a nation with the hlghest
standard of living in the world in the short span OF l5o
years. The government reformers and bureaucrats, re-
sponsible for postwar planning schemes, seem anxious
to discard all schemes of the past and change the system
of the entire country with a view to Utopia on this earth
in our time.
Latest sample of postwar planning comes from a
pamphlet entitled, Regional Resource Development"
published by the National Planning Association, and pre-
pared by Alvin H. Hansen, Harvards professor of eco
Monies and Harvey S. Perloff.
The gist of Mr.. Hansen's plan is that IVA has been
such a magnificent achievement" that Congress should
Immediately establish regional authorities for the devel--
opment along IVA lines, of every major river system and
its watershed in the land, except those in Atlantic coast
regions. Other points of MI. Hansen's plan embrace:
(2) That these regional authorities should be grant
ed (a) "broad engineering economic-social planning" po-
wers; (b) authority to make comprehensive resource
surveys; (c) the right to conduct research and to develop
new processes, new industries, and new markets; and
I'D power to operate multiple purpose projects for the
control and utilization of water and land resources;
90 That they should be granted authority to con-
duct such surveys, research, and planning studies as are
necessary to bring these projects to an immediate blue
az That construction of key projects should be
started as soon as the war ends;
90 That, since these projects will be built with
IunQS OF n feucfdl treasury, central financing ana pro-
~gramming should be exercised through the executive Of
flee of the President, as well as through policy directives
from Congress; and
CO. That around two billion dollars annually for the
next generation should be spent on these projects.
The authors of the regional resources development
plan, however, have their own peculiar ideas of account
ing. They say that the costs and benefits of development
projects must be viewed broadly from the standpoint of
whole economy" They say that the effective utilization
of resources in any part of the land makes the whole ma
ton richer; that raising the standard of living in any
appreciable area makes for prosperity throughout the
whole of the land; and that, therefore, it is the duty of
the government of the whole people to develop our river
systems, regardless of their cost or direct return.
The authors of this scheme have apparently given
little thought to the fact that the government will own
equipment when this war ends. What disposition will be
billions of dollars of industrial plants, buildings and
chemicals, aluminium, motor vehicles, aircraft? Will they
be dismantled, sold to private enterprise or converted into
"yardsticks' Qike TVA) to measure the fairness of pric-
es of similarly produced commodities?
On the answer to this question depends the type of
economic system we are to have in the future in these
United States whether we stick to the system of
private enterprise or whether we have business COM
pletely dominated by the state, which is, in fact, the
same totalitarianism we are fighting in the world.
If totalitarianism, as we have seen its workings
abroad, has taught us anything, it is that men cannot
lose their economic liberties without losing every other
liberty they prize. And establishment of a regional plan
ming authority, with broad engineering-economi social
planning" powers, in the watershed of every major river
system in the land, particularly when these projects
would be responsible to the executive office of the Presi-
dent, would mean effective bureaucratic control over the
economic activities of the American people. AS Senator
Joseph c. O'Mahoney said, in his December 9Th broad
cast, IAN unrestrained bureaucracy, subject to strong GEN.
trail leadership, would be an easy avenue to state social
the London Economist of October II, 1912, pointed out, a
gradual spreading of state control, by way of capital in
vestment in every corner of the land, would put the entire
nation at the mercy of any political adventurer who could
capture the political machine.
n Eustlond Speaks