Can Wage and Price Controls Cure Inflation; F.A. Harper

CAN WAGE AND PRICE CONTROLS CURE INFLATION? F. A. HARPER CONTINUING INFLATION inevitably poses the question: Are wage and price controls effective medicine for the illness? Does the bottle contain a potent remedy, or is it filled with the false potions of quackery? A doctor diagnoses illness from his knowledge of a healthy body and how it functions. The eco nomic doctors must do likewise. So our first step is to study the anatomy of a healthy trading econ omy. Ours is a nation of 195 million persons. L.ike any other giant and complicated machine, its operation can best be seen by focusing our attention on its small, integral, and essential working parts, so that we may clearly observe how they relate to one another. So let's start with Jones, a pio neer in the primeval forest. He hunts and fishes and grows some crops in his little clearing. He tames a few animals and uses them for toil or to provide food.

Then along comes Smith to be Jones' neighbor. He, too, hunts and fishes and farms. But Jones is the better hunter, and Smith is the better farmer. As they follow their respective abilities, Jones comes to acquire an abundance of furs, but is short of corn for his meal; Smith has a goodly supply of corn, but is short of furs. So one cold day in winter, Jones - warm in his furs, but hungry - wanders 15 16 THE FREEMAN October over to see Smith, who is well-fed but shivering in his cave. Jones proposes to trade some furs for some com. The two men may higgle and haggle over the terms of the trade. The margin for bargaining may appear to be wide in this instance, in contrast to real life in our com plex economy. No alternative mar ket exists for the product each has in surplus, except to keep it him self. But on closer scrutiny, we find that each has an effective bar gaining tool against the other: Each knows that the other realizes the advantage of making a trade, as compared with keeping his sur plus product. Each knows that there is little sense in driving so hard a bargain tha tit kills off a trade. Each realizes the absurdity of continuing to suffer for want of what the other has for trade. So we may assume that trade will somehow be arranged between them.

Now, what terms of the trade between Jones and Smith might be called fair and just? The question of a just price pre sumes certain antecedent ques tions: Says who? In whose judg ment? By what right to speak? Justice always presumes a judge with some principle by which to judge. Who is to be the judge, and what is the principle involved? Would it be fair to make Jones the sole judge, empowered to force upon Smith whatever terms of trade he shall dictate? Hardly, for to do so is to deny Smith all rights of ownership of the corn he has labored to produce. It would allow Jones to confiscate Smith's prop erty. Would it be fair to make Smith the sole judge? No - and for the same reason. The Historical Concept Historically, the concept of "a just price dictated by a disinter ested third party" has usually been offered as the solution of this seeming dilemma. This concept has persisted in the affairs of man since earliest times - since ancient man first congregated into groups of three or more, thus making it possible for one person to interject himself into the economic affairs of two other persons. Let us say that the third party in this in stance is Joe Doakes, a new and distant neighbor. Joe seems to be qualified to render justice since he is "distinterested, impartial, un prejudiced, and objective." He might be called the "public repre sentative." Shall it be left to Joe to decide what is a fair price?

Joe's presumed qualifications for judging what price is fair - being disinterested, and all that - are precisely the reasons why he is not really qualified at all. He has 1965 CAN WAGE AND PRICE CONTROLS CURE INFLATION? 17 not one iota of right to speak as an owner because he has done noth ing to produce either the furs or the corn. He has no relevant infor mation except what he might ob tain from Jones and Smith. They alone can know their own wants, and whether, at each specified price, they should keep what they have produced or exchange it. At best, Joe knows less about it than does either Jones or Smith. Bluntly and in simple terms, Joe is unqualified for the job of de termining a fair price; and fur thermore, it is none of his busi ness. To empower him to throw the bargain this way or that is to grant him the equivalent of owner ship of both products; and by the test of who has produced them and who owns them under private prop erty, he deserves no such right. At best, he is an interloper; at worst, he is an outright racketeer, hold ing a power by which he can de mand a bribe from either or both parties.

What is wrong with this theory of an impartial judge determining what price is fair? Why is this any different from a judge in. a court of law who presides, let us say, in a civil suit concerning an alleged violation of contract? Such a civil suit involves an im passe of conflict, in which one or the other side must lose bya judg ment of "guilty" or "not guilty." A judgment is rendered based on the evidence: Was there a con tract? Was it valid? What were its terms? Were the terms violated by the actions of the person? Yet none of these conditions exist in the instance of Jones' and Smith's trade. There is no impasse which must be resolved against one party or the other; each· may keep his property and maintain his sta tus the same as it was before they met. In that sense, neither must lose. If they trade voluntarily, both will be better off than before. And the ownership of what is his own gives to each the right of veto the right to decree that there shall be no trade between them. As was said above, to violate this right by allowing Joe to force a trade at terms he dictates is to violate the right of ownership.

Dual Judgeship How, then, is the problem to be resolved? Jones has been disquali fied as the sole judge. And so has Smith. And so has Joe. Since that excludes all who comprise this so ciety, the problem may appear to be insolvable. But it seems that way only if one persists in looking for a single judge - some one per son qualified to make the decision. There is the appeal of simplicity, among other things,-jn~.havingau thority reside with one person some Joe - empowered to establish 18 THE FREEMAN October a just price. Throughout all his tory, this practice has been in evi dence. In Medieval times, for in stance, kings or lords fixed prices for goods, and thereby supported the traditional thought of the time, which presumed a just price according to the powerful church influence and the ecclesiastical "logic" of the time. More recently, various arrangements of govern ment have done likewise. But al ways there has been some Joe oc cupying the seat of authority, like our own heads of opA and OPS.

There has always been the urge, in other words, to find some one person who should be empowered, as the all-wise, to decide the price that would be just. And therein lies the error of the search. Under the beginning concept that J ones owns his furs and Smith owns his corn, it is clear that no rights are violated if no trade occurs and each keeps what he has. There is no conflict in that sense. The only sense in which a conflict can arise is if either Jones or Smith-or some third Joe-pre sumes ownership of what is not his, and acquires a power to dic tate the terms of a trade beyond his own rights as owner. But so long as the basic right of owner ship is preserved, a contemplated trade is never a conflict; it is an attempted act of cooperation un der which both parties, not merely one, stand to benefit. Each has a voice in the decision. Since both reserve the right of veto, their voices are equal in a decision that must be unanimous or else there is no "case in court" and no ver dict.

The exchange process involves two persons, not just one. There is no free exchange unless and until two persons, serving as judges, agree on what the price shall be. The .only persons who qualify as judges are the owners of the goods to be exchanged. The J95 Million Traders In our 1965 economy, there are some 195 million J oneses and Smiths. The ebb and flow of their trade and exchange is too complex for any human mind to grasp fully. What is a just price for shoes or wheat or a day's work in this· economy? There is no one just price for all shoes sold today. Justice, as al ready analyzed, rests on freedom of exchange for each pair of shoes, between the store which offers it for sale and the consumer who considers buying it. So the only way to have justice in the price for shoes today is to have free trade and free terms of exchange for each and every separate deal. Justice in prices, then, precludes any legal or authoritative decree of price for any trade of anything.

1965 CAN WAGE AND PRICE CONTROLS CURE INFLATION? 19 Justice on a large scale cannot be composed of subsidiary in justices. Justice in the aggregate comes only from justice in each of its parts - free and voluntary terms of exchange for· each buyer and seller. That demands the preservation of private property rights, above all else. Justice re sides in the right to keep what is one's own, if all buying offers are unsatisfactory; in the right of every offerer and bidder to resist coercion-even by the government, the presumed agency of legal jus tice. Once the search for justice ceases to focus on indi vidual buyers and sellers and scans the national "price of wheat" or "hourly wage," the hound is off the trail. In a free economy where personal rights are preserved, there is no national price of any thing; there are innumerable prices, trade by trade. Miraculous Balance When prices are freely arranged between each buyer and seller, an overall condition develops which is one of almost miraculous bal ance. Both surpluses and short ages disappear. Peace appears where otherwise there would be chaos and conflict. "Who shall have what?" is resolved in the only way possible if a person's time is to re main his own; if what he has pro duced is to remain his; if he may give his property to whom he wishes, or trade it on whatever terms are satisfactory to both him and the buyer.

The manner in which this bal ance occurs is revealed by the accompanying chart. It combines two simple economic facts: 1. Consumers will buy less of a thing at a high price than at a low price. 2. Producers will produce more of a thing in anticipation of a high price than of a low price. Another economic fact, not shown in the chart, is important in in terpreting it: For a society· as a whole, the consumers are the pro ducers, and the producers are the 20 THE FREEMAN OctobeT consumers. This fact, coupled with the simple truth that we cannot consume what is not produced, necessitates a balance between con sumption and production. As the chart shows, a balance in this in stance is found at the free price (at 30¢) , where neither surplus nor shortage exists. The free price also generates a maximum amount of trading; and the terms of trade will have been accepted by every seller and every buyer as benefit ing himself - as evidenced by their having traded willingly. The only just price is the free price.

IIEconomic '"ness ll Against this background of the anatomy of a sound economic body, we may now proceed with its path ology. What is the economic illness for which the stand-by controls are intended ? What are the symp toms that will signal a rush to the economic medicine cabinet for the presumed remedy? "It will be when wages and prices soar due to war or inflation or some other serious disruption; when some emergency causes acute shortages of certain things." These, in the minds of those who favor stand-by controls, are the symptoms of the illness. Appearing before Congress, a former Defense Mobilizer said: "I am always delighted to see a re turn to the free market, but I must be sure that circumstances permit it."l The same view was expressed in the following release from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States: "In case of a seri ous new national emergency, a price and wage freeze would be the most effective way of dealing with the situation, as we learned in both the World War II and Post Korean periods. "2 Such persons believe that the free market with free exchange is a pleasant luxury-a lovely thing to be enjoyed only in those happy times when the economy is sailing over untroubled waters. At all other times, the government should prohibit the citizens from such wasteful indulgence, and should dicta te prices and wages under the control of administrative law.

Freedom of exchange, by this rea soning, should be considered a pleasant pastime - a privilege granted to us and bestowed upon us by the government only when officials of government consider that the circumstances warrant it. Weakness in Emergencies As clearly implied in the Defense Mobilizer's statement, those who lHearings before the Committee on Banking and Currency, United States Senate, Eighty Second Congress, Second 8ession on 8.2594 and 8.2645. March 4, 1952, p.27. 2Economic Intelligence, Number 55, February 1953, U. S. Chamber of Commerce.

1965 CAN WAGE AND PRICE CONTROLS CURE INFLATION? 21 favor stand-by controls for emer gencies look upon controlled prices as strength and upon free prices as weakness. Why, otherwise, would they prescribe the medicine of controls in emergencies? Any price either above or below the point of a free price, forced by some "Joe" armed with political authority rather than with rights as owner, is injustice. As prices depart from that point, more and more trading is killed off, to the detriment of both buyers and· sell ers. Then further controls over the affairs of workers and producers are likely to be added in order to obfuscate the new difficulties brought about by the first injus~ tice. Error is piled on error in an inverted pyramid of interferences, until eventually the monument of mistakes must be dismantled or collapse under its own unstable 'weight. Whenever a false premise is adopted for medication, the "cure" is likely to aggravate the condition; then there is the temp tation to apply more and more of it under the assumption that the dosage was inadequate or that the area of application was too narrow.

Nothing - not even the famous guinea pig - is as prolific as con trols in the hands of political au thorities, during so-called emer gencies. In the light of the previous anal ysis, enacting stand-by controls of wages and prices amounts to hav ing a medicine cabinet stocked with injustice to be used in times of emergency; to creating sur pluses. and shortages, rather than balanced distribution, when emer gencies arise; to giving a poison as an antidote for itself. If justice is strength and injustice is weak ness, it amounts to prescribing weakness at precisely those times when strength is most needed. Goodness and justice, it would seem, are luxuries to be tolerated during an indulgent binge; but when the going gets rough and sobering realities must be faced, it seems that the emergency bottle should contain injustice. Historical Failure of Control For those who find the proof of the pudding only in the eating, history affords continuous and am ple evidence, since the first known price control laws were enacted in Babylonia 3,800 years ago. They failed of their purpose, as has every similar attempt in recorded history since that time.

It is ever the same. When a gov ernment inflates the money or some other cause pushes prices upward, attempts are made to conceal the symptoms, rather than to attack inflation at its source or otherwise get at the root-cause. The attempt is made to adj ust the scale on the thermometer by edict, rather than 22 THE FREEMAN Octobe1' to cure the fever that causes the mercury to rise - so to speak. The treatment applied to the fever vic tim is to throw him into a deep freeze. Notional Socialism Via Control The evidence against controls, even during emergencies, is so over whelming - by logic, and as re vealed in the historical record that one wonders how their enact ment has gained so much credence in this "land of the free." Could it be that we have been so busy man ning the machines of physical de fense that an intellectual mass at tack upon our bastions has gone unnoticed? Sometimes our perspec tive on such matters is helped if we back away from the illusory be lief we have embraced and look at the evidence from a distance.

Lassalle, the German Socialist, in a letter to Bismarck on June 8, 1863, wrote: "The working class instinctively feels attracted to dic tatorship, if they can first be con vinced that it will be practiced in their interests." Spengler accu rately forecast an age of govern mental demagogy when he wrote: "What is truth? For the multi tude it is that which they constant ly read and hear ... what it [the press] wants, is true. Its com manding officers engender, trans form, and exchange truths. Three weeks' work by the press, and all the world has perceived the truth." In the early forties, when we were at war with national so cialist Germany, the United States Department of State published a revealing treatise on these ideo logies of our then enemy. It is re vealing because it shows that we embraced, and are still embracing, the ideologies of our enemy in na tional socialism. 3 This source warned us that as the plan of national socialism pro gresses, an authority is to be made supreme; his decisions are to be final and always right; his follow ers are to owe him the duty of un questioning obedience. This is the same concept that was advocated by the ardent nationalistic philos opher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte.

A Prophecy But under the influence of Na poleon's repulsive example, Fichte later opposed absolutism in the state, foretelling the character of a future fuhrer and describing how he might come to attain his power: The future fuhrer would educate his people in cool and de liberate piracy; he would encour age extortion; robbery would be made the honorable token of a fine 3Raymond E. Murphy and others, National Socialism: Basic Principles, Their Applica tion by the Nazi Party's Foreign Organiza tion, and the Use of Germans Abroad for Nazi Aims, Department of State Publication No. 1864 (Washington, D. C.: U. S. Gov ernment Printing Office, 1943), pp. 11, 12, 15, 22.

1965 CAN WAGE AND PRICE CONTROLS CURE INFLATION? 23 reason; the State should virtually eliminate private enterprise, set ting up a rigidly planned corporate economy - including, of course, price controls and other controls of various sorts; there would be strict governmental control of la bor and production, concealed in flation and blocked currency, inter national barter agreements, and intensive armament as a prelude to territorial expansion. Those are the concepts embodied in controls, whereby legalized loot ing of some persons by others is authorized under guise of fighting inflation. It is the blueprint of na tional socialism as told by our own State Department. We should read it again and again - and judge our own acts by its measure. Goering's Advice This quotation from Henry J. Taylor, of what Goering said in an interview long after Goering, Rib bentrop, and others had been jailed following the surrender of Ger many, is revealing: "Your America is doing many things in the economic field which we found out caused us so much trouble. You are trying to control people's wages and prices - peo pie's work. If you do that, you must control people's lives. And no country can do that part way. I tried it and failed. Nor can any country do it all the way either. I tried that too and it failed. You are no better planners than we. I should think your economists would read what happened here.

"Germany has been beaten, eliminated, but it will be interest ing to watch the development of the remaining great powers, the stupidities they practice within their home lands, their internal strife, and their battles of wits abroad. "Will it be as it always has been that countries will not learn from the mistakes of others and will continue to make the mistakes of others all over again and again?" This same view - believe it or not - was confirmed by the then Vice-president of the Council of People's Commissars and People's Commissioner of Foreign Trade, in an interview printed in all So viet newspapers on May 18, 1945.4 In explaining the serious food sit uation in Germany, he blamed the Hitler regime for having forbid den free trade of all articles of daily consumption. He stated that the trouble was due to the closing of all markets and the forced de livery of all farm products to the government, thus killing the incen tive to produce.

It is not, perhaps, entirely a co incidence that the man who was 4Sup pUed through the courtesy of Professor Jacques Rueff, of the Institut d'Etudes Poli tiques, Paris, France.

24 THE FREEMAN October the administrative head of German Price Administration until 1923, when their inflation exploded, came to the United States, wrote the book entitled Price Control in the War Economy in 1943, and be came chief consultant in the Office of Price Administration. A Matter of Degree Now, rather than being at war with a national socialist Germany, we are involved in a "cold" war with communist Russia. Let's take a look at the advice from that quarter. Not that there is much difference between the communism of Russia and the socialism of Ger many prior to World War II. Com munism is merely socialism in a hurry. Even Marx spoke of what we now label "communist" as be ing socialist, and the Soviet state was named the Union of Soviet So cialist Republics. Moreover, the Communist Party in the United States, in its advice about recruit ing new members, says that it should be easy to recruit a social ist by showing him that the Com munistParty is the only real fight er for socialism in America; that the most effective way to help at tain his ideals is to join the Com munist Party.5 In 1848, Karl Marx, the "father"

of communism, listed ten measures 5Gaini1f.g Recruita for an Idea, single sheet, Foundation for Economic Education. for a successful communist-social ist revolution. Among them are several which specify controls by the State of prices in their various forms, and also the confiscation of private property. In 1950, Earl Browder, former leader of the Communist Party in America, discussed the American trend toward communism. He listed 22 specific attainments which he said had furthered the com munist program in this country even beyond that attained in Brit~ ain under their much-maligned La bor government. Among those listed were controls over prices, credit, money, laborers, and busi nesses; also bribes, in the form of special privileges to various groups. The program is so far ad vanced already that the govern ment owns nearly one-fourth of all wealth other than land, and has licensing and other controls over practically every type of business.

Stand-by Controls for What? The most kindly charge that can be made against one who favors stand-by controls for emergencies, it seems to me, is that he does not understand the workings of a free market and that he lacks confidence in the performance of free men working with private property in a voluntary exchange economy. And if that be his belief, why does he not propose government CQD1965 CAN WAGE AND PRICE CONTROLS CURE INFLATION? 25 troIs of everything, all the time? Why not use the "strength" of controls all the time, not just in emergencies? Stand-by controls? For what? Not, to be sure, for the purpose of either productive efficiency or jus tice! Not to maximize trade, nor to balance distribution so that shortages and surpluses will dis appear! Not to further the free dom of man in this land which we claim will be the last bastion of freedom in the world struggle in which we are now engaged!

To enact stand-by controls would mean putting into the law of the land a permanent endorsement of a basic tenet of socialism - the principle that control of the vital mainstreams of commerce and con fiscation of the rights of private property are sound and just prac tices. A nation· of freedom cannot enact even stand-by controls and remain basically free. ". . . it hath been found by Experience that Limitations upon the Prices of Commodi ties are not only ineffectual for the Purposes proposed, but likewise productive of very evil Consequences to the great Detriment of the public Serv ice andgreivous Oppression of Individuals."6 • • • 6June 4, 1778. Journals of the Continental Congress (1908 ed.). p. 569, Vol. XI. One Set of Ills for Another THE RESULTS have been astonishingly uniform .... The history of government limitation of price seems to teach one clear lesson: that in attempting to ease the burdens of the people in a time of high prices by artificially setting a limit to them, the people are not relieved but only exchange one set of ills for another which is greater .... The man, or class of men, who controls the supply of essential foods is in possession of supreme power .... They had to exercise this control in order to hold supreme power, be cause all the people need food and it is the only commodity of which this is true.

MARY G. LACY, Pood Control During Forty-six Centuries JOHN C. SPARKS IMPATIENCE UNDERMINES FREEDOM THE TYPICAL American of the 1960's enjoys a level of living, health, and comfort unimaginable to those who struggled twice as hard a half century earlier. The increased leisure of a shorter work week and longer life span might be expected to yield an air of pa tience and relaxation. Yet, .some future historian is likely to re classify our age of speed as the era of impatience, marked by lack of time, annoyance at delay, intoler ance of those held responsible. Ours definitely is not a time of great patience among men. Sports and Recreation One by-product of our extra time has been the rapid growth of sports and recreation. Here, Mr. Sparks. is a business executive of Canton, Ohio. 26 surely, one might expect to find relaxation - and patience. Ama teur and professional sports have alw,ays been popular in this coun try, but never before have there been so many organized activities - from Little League haseball to professional football, from small girls vying for victory for their swim club to the women's profes sional golf tour. Spectator interest also has grown along with in creased knowledge ,of the tech niques of the games. Televised broadcasts, with statistics sup plied by commentators, afford the average fan 'enough knowledge of the game to be well aware and highly impatient when the players or the coaches err ever so little.