I.Do We Really Want Free Enterprise?

Altogether, 51 per cent of business executives, according to this poll, are not certain but that socialism would be a good thing for them personally. Friends of Enterprise Are Divided Said one newspaperman to another, "I'd fall dead if I found a businessman who wasn't in favor of free enterprise." Replied the other, "I'd fall dead if I found a businessman who really wanted it." 1. A city chamber of commerce opposes restrictions which neighboring towns sometimes place on deliveries of merchandise by city merchants and truckers. Yet the same organization is likely to help erect similar barriers against out-of-state or out-of-town enterprise which might compete with its own industries or merchants. 2. Businessmen dislike restrictive policies of farmers and labor unions. Yet many of them say that free competition among themselves would be ruinous. So they lobby for measures to restrict business competition and to legalize price-fixing by government or by their own organizations.

3. Chambers of commerce frequently join the clamor for uneconomic local projects of the State or Federal government on the ground that "Other places are getting theirs; why shouldn't we get ours?" Such "chamber of commerce socialism" leads to increased tax burdens which correspondingly restrict markets and jobs in free enterprise. 4. Many prewar restrictions on business were imposed with the support of certain business interests hoping thereby to win an advantage at the expense of competitors or taxpayers. The wage-hour law, for example, was supported by certain New England manufacturers who hoped thereby to restrict competition of southern producers. Other restrictive measures were passed with the help of legislators whose votes were obtained in return for government favors to their business constituents in the form of higher prices for silver or costly public works projects.

2 DO WE WANT FREE ENTERPRISE? 5. Farmers denounce trade union efforts to restrict output, reduce hours or limit entry to a particular trade. Yet they themselves vote for crop restriction or prorate schemes, demand restrictions on oleomargarine, and in the name of pest control restrict outof-state competition. 6. Wage earners denounce business monopolies, and rightly. Yet many of them support certain monopolistic policies of trade unions, not only for themselves in their own occupations but for all workers. Some of these labor practices do as much to restrict output and raise costs of living as any capital monopolies this nation has ever seen. Recent corrosions of economic liberty in the United States are not due to the efforts of a few communists or fascists. Instead they chiefly come from the fact that so many of us care only about our own liberties and are indifferent or even hostile to possession of similar liberties by others of our fellow citizens. In fact, for a momentary gain in higher prices, higher wage rates or government favors, many of us are willing even to sell our own freedom.

The United States would not last long if the people of New England and the Middle West would not help to repel an invader from the Pacific Coast, or tif the people of the Pacific Coast were indifferent to the fate of the Atlantic Coast. Likewise, freedom from bureaucratic tyranny soon vanishes if no group will fight for any freedom except its own. To win and preserve freedom of enterprise businessmen must help establish and maintain for their competitors, their customers and their workers, the same liberties that they seek for themselves. Do We Know What Free Enterprise Means? Almost everyone seems to favor "freedom," or "free enterprise." Even Hitler said he was for free enterprise—provided it was properly regulated to protect the public interest. But what is "proper regulation"? Does it include: 1. price maintenance by government or by trade associations? 2. wage-maintenance by government or by the closed shop, closed union, secondary boycott and "hot cargo"?

3. crop restriction, the prorate, and "surplus commodity" purchases ? 4. protective tariffs? 5. government deficits and spending to "prime the pump," maintain employment, increase purchasing power, or to serve as the "balance wheel" of the national economy?

DO WE REALLY WANT FREE ENTERPRISE? 3 6. taxes on undistributed profits-, on high incomes or on idle funds in order to force money into circulation? These and related questions trouble even people who are most vigorous in proclaiming their support of free enterprise. They ask if such "controls" are not necessary to make free enterprise work. Differences of opinion on such questions do not arise chiefly from differences in patriotism or good intentions, but from differences in knowledge and understanding. Therefore, they cannot be overcome by name-calling, prohibitions on "lobbying" or suppression of "pressure groups." Instead, the need is for an understanding of what is a good economic system and how it may be built. Except as this understanding grows we shall accomplish little by repeating to ourselves and others, "Free enterprise—it's wonderful!" Production Comes First The primary test of an economic system is not the degree of liberty but its efficiency in supplying the needs and wants of its members.

Victory in war and progress in peace depend on production. 1. In wartime the United States has become "the arsenal of democracy," turning out more airplanes, ships and other war supplies than all the rest of the world together. This is because our economic system encouraged the building of greater resources of equipment, skill, managerial ability and cooperative spirit than those of any other nation. Only as other nations develop similar productive efficiency and capacity can they successfully challenge us. 2. In peacetime our high levels of production have brought about more sanitary living conditions, elimination of child labor, abolishment of back-breaking drudgery, spread of literacy and enlightenment, progress in science and art, growth of philanthropy, development of kindliness and goodwill. Progress for the masses can come about only as mass efficiency in production makes available mass supplies of the tools and opportunities necessary for better ways of living.

Economic statesmanship means promoting "more goods and more services for more people." Mass unemployment must be abolished if our nation is to be strong in war and prosperous in peace.

4 DO WE WANT FREE ENTERPRISE? Can this not be done without inflation, waste and war? Class conflict weakens and impoverishes the nation. It grows out of the theory that one class can make real and permanent gains at the expense of another class. According to a 1943 Gallup poll 51 per cent of American businessmen and 73 per cent of our wage earners believe that election of one political party rather than the other would help business and hurt labor. If business is productive, no policy could help business without helping labor. Do 51 per cent of American businessmen believe they are parasites on labor ? If producers believe they can prosper more by political activity than by increasing their efficiency in production, they will turn from economic competition to politics. Constructive political activity removes obstacles to useful enterprise so that people may go back to competition in production.

Some of these obstacles may be private in origin; others may consist of unnecessary governmental restrictions. Destructive political activity will aim at using government to restrict production in order to raise prices or to tax one class of producers for the benefit of another class. A good economic system will develop and harness maximum energy for most efficient use in building a strong and prosperous people. This implies that a people will take as its symbol, not the pig trough but the workbench, not a bed of ease but a field of opportunity for useful service. "Pursuit of a Flying Goal" The end of man is not self-indulgence, but achievement. We live and grow by effort, not by idleness. Those who make happiness and idle contentment their goals should go to live among the South Sea Islanders. These primitive peoples, by all reports, are as happy as more civilized peoples, and they seem to get that way with much less effort.

Pleasures may help to guide us in certain choices, e.g., in food and drink. Pain helps us to avoid certain physical dangers. But the one who makes mere accumulation of pleasures and avoidance of pain his aim in life is like the traveller who travels only for the purpose of collecting signposts or avoiding rough roads. Man is highly adaptable. He may find pleasure in many things. Civilized man, who has acquired vast opportunities for self-gratification, must learn to find pleasures in those things which maintain DO WE REALLY WANT FREE ENTERPRISE? 5 and promote his efficiency. He must learn temperance, balance, selfdiscipline. Otherwise he loses the efficiency which gives him great opportunity for enjoyment. The living thread of human evolution is carried by those who learn to find their greatest satisfaction in striving and achieving. No one word or phrase can describe the highest, ultimate goals of human effort. As we progress our vision widens and our goal recedes. We strive for better health, more enlightenment, higher justice, greater kindliness. We acquire new wants and new activities, which in turn give rise to new powers, new opportunities and new ideals.

What kind of an economic system gives opportunity and encouragement to those individuals who make this flying goal their life's purpose? What system gives them opportunity and incentive to unite their efforts with others who possess similar ideals and purposes? Such a system makes a nation prosperous and strong. It is the kind of system we covet for our own country. Life Is Competitive War is merely an incident in the ceaseless struggle for survival among individuals and groups. We may hope and work for lasting peace. But will we soon remove the need for military strength to protect cooperative peoples against predatory individuals and bandit nations ? Whether or not war is eliminated, economic competition will remain. In fact, progress in eliminating war will depend on our ability to substitute higher forms of competition for it—as, for example, competition in production and trade. In this development America should lead the way.

The urge of people to multiply and their urge to develop and exercise their various abilities bring about competition for land, resources and markets. In war men try to win these by destroying their competitors. In peace they must win them by advances in arts of production and trade. H. G. Wells remarks that Utopian reformers have usually ignored the endless variety of men, their endless gradation of quality "over which the hand of selection plays." In planning the society of the future, he says, we must keep in mind the necessity for competition in life "to determine who is to be pushed to the edge and who are to prevail and multiply." He continues, "Whatever we do, man will remain a competitive creature, and though moral and intellectual training may enlarge his conception of success and fortify him with refinements and consola6 DO WE WANT FREE ENTERPRISE? tions, no Utopia will ever save him completely from the emotional drama of struggle for exaltations and humiliations, from pride and prostration and shame. Man lives in success and failure just as inevitably as he lives in space and time."

Increasing efficiency is necessary to life and progress, both for individuals and groups. This does not mean that the future lies with the arrogant, greedy, and grasping. On the contrary, it will fall more and more into the hands of the gentle—the "terrible meek." "Blessed Are the Meek . . ." The meek are the cooperative people. They are not conceited or arrogant, but instead are glad to learn. They learn from the words and experience of others. They learn from observing their own experience with men and nature. They adjust their conduct in the light of their knowledge. Thus they become better teammates, or workmates. They learn to think in terms of long-run goals, e.g., 1. in terms of their future welfare, as well as temporary gain; 2. in terms of their nation and fellowmen, as well as themselves, their trade, or class ; 3. in terms of their children, and their children's children, as well as their own generation.

And these "shall inherit the earth." In fact, they have been doing so for a long time. They still have a long way to go before winning complete possession. But that is only because opportunities for development inherent in man are so great that it takes a long time to realize them. This makes the future a challenge and an opportunity for those who are worthy to carry the torch of human progress.