Steel Imports and Basic Principles; W. Boyd

This article is from his statement to the Board of Directors of the Institute in October, 1967. 158 Steel Imports AND Basic Principles WILLIAM B. BoYD tributing factors, but I believe that by far the most important cause is the actions and interven tions of our own government all departments and all levels and of the labor unions to which government has given such great powers and privileges. Consider how our costs are skyrocketing because of high taxes, deprecia tion of our money, harassments, controls, regulations, strikes, union-imposed uneconomic wage levels, and inefficient work prac tices. These are the results of gov ernment actions, and they are forcing us to price ourselves right out of the market. If you don't believe it is our own government that is at fault, consider an industry which 'is little if at all affected by foreign governments, foreign producers, and foreign wage scales. Take the railroads - the New York, New Haven & Hartford in particular.

1968 STEEL IMPORTS AND BASIC PRINCIPLES 159 This road has been murdered by our own government and its crea tures, the railway unions. It has been heavily taxed by all levels of government, its rates have been controlled, its operations have been regulated, it has suffered from strikes, featherbedding, and un economic wage rates, and on top of this, government has built com peting highways along its tracks and subsidized competing modes of transportation. It has been ruined by its own government without the aid of foreigners and now, no doubt, will be completely taken over by government. And this will be the fate of many more industries if the present trend is not reversed. Why is government doing these things? The people in government are taking these actions because they believe the proper function of government is to guide and control our economy for "our own good" - that we are too stupid and greedy to run our own affairs.

And we have such a government because the overwhelming major ity of the people in this country have accepted and believe in stat ist ideas. If this is so, then it would be futile to run to government - the very perpetrator of our troubles - and ask for yet another political intervention to compensate for uneconomic practices already in effect. It would also be inconsistent with belief in the free market which we profess. So what we need is not positive government "help" (tariffs, quotas, embargoes, subsidies) but negative government help (revi sion of the labor laws to strip the unions of special privilege and power, reduction of taxes, a bal anced budget, sound money, aboli tion of government controls and intervention in business) - in other words, a move to the free market and a constitutionally limited government. Ideas must be fought with ideas, not with force. \Vhat we should do is demolish the prevalent ideas of statism and then win accept ance of the sound ideas of the free market, private property, limited government system.

This is a tall order and not something to be done overnight, but it seems to me the only sound way. It is a matter of enlighten ment and education because ideas precede and determine actions; people act in accordance with their beliefs. Good politics will follow good thinking. First, then, we must develop our own understand ing; for light attracts, and thus the ideas of freedom will spread. ~ TOOLS JASPER E. CRANE A PROMINENT AMERICAN indus trialist made a trip through the Orient recently, and in every coun try he visited from Russia to Hong Kong and Japan he met and talked with the ruler of that country. In everyone of these conversations he would ask what he called the "$64 question"-"You have heard of the high standard of living in the United States. What do you believe to be the cause of Ameri ca's prosperity?" Most of those in terviewed replied that it was our abundant natural resources with plentiful raw materials. The in dustrialist would then state that this was quite untrue, that some of these countries had more nat ural resources per capita than we did in America. The ruler of the country would then flounder about, but not one gave a reasonable reMr. Crane is a retired chemical manufacturer of Wilmington, Delaware.