The Chronicle-star combined with the Moss Point advertiser., 1949-06-17
The Next Depression

I basis Of full production. In 1929
free enterprise produced 80 bill
lion dollars worth of goods and
services, the highest number in
our history, and the depres-
sion. In 1914, with IL million
men in the armed services. we
produced three times what we
did in 90. An ever increasing
number of people has been ask
ing a very embarrassing question:
If we ean produce ESQ billion
dollars worth of goods to be shot
up, why can't we do the same to
raise the standard of living of all
our people in this country? Why
not schools and houses and roads
and refrigerators and medical
care instead of guns and battle
ships? For the first time in the
history of the world, we have the
resources, the money, the labor
force, the industrial plant, and
the "know-hoW' to bring decent
lives to all u people. That is
the most amazing fact about the
society in which we live. But
do we have the brains to con-
tinue to adapt our capitalistic
system to the needs of our peo-
pie?
We sometimes forget that the
originators of ~laissez-faire and
free enterprise championed this
way Of doing things on the basis
that it would bring the greatest
possible production and hence the
highest standard of living for all
in a world which lack of
mechanical progress made a world
of scarcity. The greatest pro-
duction, said Adam Smith, would
come as the result Of individual
ruggedness, of unlimited person
al freedom and few or no govern
mental restrictions. His scheme
was based on the economic facts
of the l770's, (and a great part
of the l800's for that natter, on
the supposition that the free mar
ket was made up of tens of thou
sands of businessmen, each so
small by himself that he could
not possibly control any stable
part of the market. The con-
sumner a to be protected by
competition. Yet Adam Smith
realized that no three or four en-
trepreneurs ever got together
without trying TO restrain the
competition which was the basic
ingredient of his free enterprise
doctrine. He could not possibly
have f%oreseen the concentration
of ownership and control which
has been so characteristic of
America in the past rs years. In
short, business men learned
quickly the benefits that come
from organization, control of pro-
duction, control of price. 1t has
been, then. the American business
man who has sabotaged free en-
terprise ever since the Civil War.
For specific instances. you need
only consider such monopolistic
practices as the tariff, subsidies,
cartels, fair trade laws, production
and price devices, freight rate
differentials, and the like. Most
of the people in this room have
engaged in such practices or
would like to = and it all leads
to the simple fact that free en-
terprise has never been tried in
industrial America and probably
never will be, except in the ad-
%vertisements and propaganda of
certain agencies you could name.
Three Pressure Groups
Perhaps unfortunately for the
business men, the farmers and
the laborers, as we'll as the pro-
fessional men in many cases, de
cided that what was good for
business might be of value to
them. and after years of failure
the farmers and laborers got
themselves organized organiz-
ed to restrain trade = : and since
1893 the central fact of our econ
omy has been the existence of
three great pressure groups in
stead of one.
One other economic fact before
we try to draw a conclusion or
two. Back in the 1905 and early
l900's lack of money (savings)
was the factor that kept us from
expanding our production - and
our standard of living any
faster than we did. We were
: fortunate in being able to Dor
row from the savings of other
countries - England, Scotland,
and Holland. In those DAYS.
when my thrifty grandfather
, denied himself something to save
: his money to be invested in pro-
. ductive enterprise. he was doing
: himself and society a good turn.
: because that money was used to
> expand production capacity. But
! by the end of World War l We
; have turned from a debtor to a
t, creditor nation, and never again
: was lack of capital going to be a
detrimental factor hampering the
tayDanciop ~ DrnI,,c4f1~ = IL.