Chapter XIII - Legislation on Profiteering

Whatever may have been advisable in old times, with their lack of commerce and transportation facili ties, it is to-day at least a matter of opinion whether governmental interference is needed at all; still more whether it can he applied without becoming a remedy in ultimate economic and political conse quences far worse than the disease. My own per sonal conviction is very definite indeed, namely: that no man, group of men, or government can under modern conditions of finance, transportation, and communication, effectively control prices of any [ 27° ] Legislation on Profiteering world commodity; or limit its distribution as wisely or as justly from start to finish as does the free opera tion and infinite variation of local supply and de mand. The job of such control is too vast for the human brain, and the delays and mistakes inevitable are too costly for the human pocket; even of the ablest and most experienced men actually engaged in trade itself. Witness the disastrous failures of the historic Secret an copper corner, the Leiter wheat corner, etc. etc.; and the aftermath of governmental sugar and grain control during the World War.

When we come to legislation, the proposal to submit such a trackless jungle and bottomless morass of trade to the survey and exploration of some hun dreds of Congressmen or State Legislators, in the limited time at their command, is too idiotic for calm descriptive language. General Dawes' succinct An glo-Saxon would best suit the case. Here again the duty of the legislator is absolutely simple: to do nothing whatever, unless, if he is a Congressman, it be to repeal the laws establishing the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the Railway Labor Board~ and the Board of Arbitration and Conciliation of the Depart ment of Labor, etc.; and utterly do away with all of these agencies to the extent that. they attempt to regulate or interfere with buyer and seller of labor or anything else on earth. In so far as they merely re cord, tabulate, and establish the results of free rela tions between buyer and seller, they are most useful and well worth maintaining.

In actual operation, "profiteering" -which means the making of unusual profits-is its own quickest and surest cure. Nothing stimulates production like excessive profit, while nothing does away with excessive profit like excessive prod uction. The whole [ 271 ] Too Much Government-Too Much Taxation· history of trade and the fluctuation of prices is one long demonstration of that fact. Why in the name of common sense Government should interfere to do what nature, left alone, is bound to do much quicker and better, is a question that can be answered only by the demagogue; or the crank who thinks he knows it all, and can beat nature, the law of supply and demand, and the Almighty in general. Nevertheless, I have never personally happened to meet either demagogue or crank who, for instance, if he chanced to pick up in the desert or on the public street a piece of gold or a diamond, would turn it over to the next man he met, "at cost of production plus a fair profit, say 6 per cent." On the contrary, although to pick up the gold or diamond cost him absolutely nothing, he would sell it, if he sold it at all, certainly for what the first buyer was willing to pay; and in all human probability, at the best price that he could obtain by shopping around between that buyer and his neighbors.

I need say but one word more. When President Wilson first recognized the political value of such phrases as "the high cost of living," "profiteering," etc., which was just before the Presidential cam paign, I think in 1919 or 1920, he announced, with much approval from the womenfolk, a crusade against profiteers; and started it by asking Congress for an appropriation of $4,5°0,000 with which the Attorney-General should prosecute them. The four and a half millions was voted him by a subservient House, and doubtless was paid out in hiring lawyers and detectives to catch and jail profiteers; but can anyone of my readers recall that the high cost 'of liv ing came down by so much as a nickel or a dime in consequence? The record thereof, as tabulated by R. G. Dun & Co., shows no result whatever from the [27 2 ] Legislation on Profiteering Considered President's gallant effort, as the reader will see from the following: DUN'S INDEX NUMBER PRICE OF ALL COMMODITIES 1914-119.9°8 1916-145.142 1918-232.575 1915-124.95 8 1917-211.95 0 1919-233.707 1920-260.414 192I-General Deflation.

Was there ever in all history a better chance for government to step on profiteering? Was there ever in office an executive more willing to do so, or a con gress more lavish with public money to chase the profiteers to their lairs? If Wilson and his Attorney failed as utterly as the Dun Index Numbers-and the common knowledge of every man, woman, and ten year-old child in America-prove that they did, what government is likely to succeed? Ask the same question in Soviet Russia, if you choose, and get the same answer. Away with· the whole rotten demagogy of price regulation, oh, ye readers of this book! and let our Commerce be freed at least from governmental dis.. honesty! [ 273 ] CHAPTER XIV REMEDIES SUGGESTED-POLITICAL APATHY THE time is now upon me for suggestion and discus sion of remedies. I have thus far played the easy role of "knocker"; of the man who simply denounces things as they are. I have done it, of course, in a very sketchy way, endeavoring simply to hit the high spots of my huge subject, without overburdening the reader with the enormous mass of evidence that lies ready at hand. Now comes the far more difficult task of constructive suggestion, upon which I ven ture with great hesitation; but with the feeling that the mere "knocker" is almost the most useless of human beings. There is no use in the ablest analysis of evil if it does not serve as a basis for attempt at remedy. I would, therefore, now set down such structural outlines of better politics as seem to me worth noting; to be filled in, I hope, in the course of time, by abler and perhaps more practical men than I deem myself. They are throughout consistent with the broad yet definite idea of minimizing the difficulties of free government by minimizing govern ment itself. Their constant object is LEAST GOV ERNMENT, simplification.