Lopping Oft Branchs Of A
Noxious Plant Not Enough
(Continued From Page One)
0f the vast credits and ' currtttdy' dcctimulattons
resulting from the processes suggested. A pitiable
state of affairs among a supposedly intelligent
people! ...... ;
The Consequence of Uneven Exchange of
Values
Please see that it is not the existence of the
vast accumulations of cash and credit that I deem
the maximum evil, though they are evils, but the
consequences resulting from the process of ac
cumulation. I hold it an.axiom that so long as a
just, or adequate, quid-prq-quo is rendered, no
...juch accumulations or very few can occur.' The
only alternative to the rendering of inadequate or
inequitable quid-pro-quo in accumulating such
masses of cash and credit is that of miserliness,
w hereby the skimper deprives himself of the bene
fits of real wealth to acquire the fictional wealth
of cash and credit. The results of such miserli
ness. so far as the condition of the country at
present is concerned, is of comparatively little
consequence. 'Those who hold the mortgages on
the present and the future wealth of the nation
have, as a rule, lacked for no necessities, nor
even luxuries. The inadequacy of their quid-pro
quo's lias been great enough not only to build up
their masses of cash and credit but to supply ,
them with luxuries, such as the Caesars scarcely
conceived, while they were making their- mon
Ptrous accumulations.
Bur what is the result of an exchange without
an adequate or equitable return of value?—In
the first place, note tfiat such exchanges are not
generally, but only exceptionally, at the cost of
the strong, but of the millions of wjeak. The big
fish fatten upon the small—not upon their equals.
A dollar taken unjustly from any of 100 millions
of America’s 130 millions of people means a les
sening of his purchasing power to that extent and
becomes the direct cause of underconsumption to
the same extent, and therefore of underproduction
or a resulting and useless surplus. Yet that state
ment should be qualified to a degree..When one
poor scoundrel steals a dollar from another equ
ally poor and of whatever moral fiber, he prob
ably consumes the equivalent of What his victim
would have consumed without the theft. On the
other hand, the moment a dollar passes unjustly'
from the hand of a needy man to one who has
no use for it except to add to his accumulations
of cash or credit, production, particularly of the
great staple stock of goods which are the crea
tions of the masses .suffers that amount of loss
in potential consumption, and that shortage passes
on in an illimitable succession of would-he con
sumers.
The Results of AH Individual Attempt* To
Provide For The Future
> >t course, tlie satisfaction of many present
needs is also a provision for the future, such, for
example, as the building of a home. Furthermore,
tlfe laying up of cash or credit for future food,
raiment, etc., bv the exceptional man is possible,
but not for every man. For if the amassing of
more than enough for the present is the result
or either the giving of inadequate quid-pro-quo’s.
or of selling more than one purchases, of anything
whatsoever, as it is except in case of the except
ional man who renders invaluable services to
hie generation, as Edison for instance, it is axio
matic that both parties to an exchange cannot
tender inadequate quid-pro-quo’s nor can all sell
more than they consume. Therefore, the sugges
h"n that all lay up a competence for the future is
farcici;.]. if not tragic.
And it is equally axiomatic that he who does
succeed in doing so does so at the cost, of the
■?rici;d hik1 v. However honestly such provision may
b? made, in view of the considerations above,
" niade at the cost of unbalancing production
a'id o 'Usumption, resulting either in less produc
e'l nr a useless surplus. And this applies to com
mercial life insurance, to the accumulation °
endowments for public institutions, and any other
scheme which withdraws funds at the present
^1,111 those who need to spend those funds or
their own immediate needs. Doutbless, a bd ion.
dollars a year for many years have been Pal
°ur in insurance premiums by young men an
^ omen at the very period when their expn i
tllT'e> for consumable and permanent goods shou a
be Heatest. That mehns that most of the sum is
a sheer loss to production accounts.
The Real Remedy
Ao one is so simple as to propose to revert to
an age of absolute barter in order to prevent e
e.Vlls ’Mentioned, and that dther monstrous evil,
filling of the channels of trade with the goods
o£ moriopplistic industry to the, denial qf ;thq$e of
mm to whom an exchange of his surpliis is vital.
n the other hand, -it is the part of wisdom to
eliminate the incentives to courses that are dis
astrotis to the commonweal/ and also the possi- •
bihties of the greedy’s successfully pursuing such
courses. As suggested above, possibly die chief
incentive to the pursuit of unnecessary -wealth,
.even if it be fictive wealth, is fear. The removal
of fear of the future, then, is the first and chief
requisite.
An adequate system of pensions is the remedy.
'But the correct pension scheme, unlike that pro
posed by the recently enacted administration bill,
must not extract from -those who should; spent
them yu/itf, in order to provide funds for future
spending. The industrial, insurance feature of the
bill has every evil of any other accumulation
of spendable funds from the masses. It necessar
ily cuts consumption to the equivalent extent of
the withdrawals, and therefore production
to the same extent.
The world lives from hand to mouth, as I have -
so often remarked. The effective pension system
must be created with that fact in view,- The
administration’s scheme not only unbalances pro
duction and consumption but would pile an ossa
of mortgages upon future production upon the
'Pelion of mortgages now existing.
Ine Lxample of the Manna Again
The practice of true economics must conform
itself to the principle illustrated by the faily fall
and consumption of manna in the wilderness.
No use in piling up today for tomorrow, since
tomorrow will have its supply of manna. To^
give a mortgage upon the future provision is
as foolish as futile, resulting in what I have call
ed saving what isn’t—the kind of saving that is
now so general.
The world, and particularly America,. has
reached the stage where it is ^easily possible to
have as steady and as dependable a supply, of
the necessities of life as the Israelites had in the,
manna—an abundance for all. It only remains
to inaugurate, a scheme of things which will
make the supply available ta every co-operating
individual *in the country.
Why. should one who has the assurance of,
plenty all his own life, on the one condition that
he heartily co-operate in. the production scheme
while he can, desire to lay up fictive wealth or
a mortgage upon the future, which when laid up
is subject to defalcation? Pensions for old-age,
widows, orphans, disability, unemployment and
any other form ef desirable protection for every
co-operating person in America are readily avail
able. The so-called overproduction proves as
much. And a scheme of things which removes the
curse of idleness from millions, and of useless
or hurtful employment also, can easily double
the annual production of wealth in the country,
while at the same time achieving those public
ends of conservation which are now being sought
by the means of borrowed money and reducing
to a minimum the incentive of nearly every kind
of crime rampant under the dog-eat-dog scheme
of things.
The Means at Hand '
The means for securing the funds is already
at hand in the income tax levy. Pensions paid
from the yield of annual income tax have the
merit, as the industrial pensions have not, of con
forming to the eternal fact that the world, lives
from hand to mouth. They conform to tKe ex
ample of the manna. The nation is consuming
in one productive period what accrued in the for
mer, and need make no scruple about using it
up, since it is proven that actual consumable
wealth is not available for storage for the remote
future, ana since the next year’s ^ supply is as
sure as the manna’s fall in the wilderness.
Nor is there any question ■ about the source of
an available sum, since the very existence of a
surplus, due to reapings where the reapers have
not sown, to the deprivation of the sowers, testi
fies to the bountifulness of the source. However,
collection of the tax in goods instead of cash and
their direct distribution would much simplify
and amplify the amassment of the reeded funds
for an adequate pension scheme. . . • .
As said the accumulations existing did their
worst when being accumulated. Yet that question
of interest of which Mr. Barringer writes will
be settled when the vilhan which created it has
been cut to the bone by inheritance and gift le
vies Nor need the institutions now relying upon
endowments created by funds won from de
structive methods suffer. Funds drawn similarly
fl Z nensioh funds from the annual, increment
will enable the state to sustain such institutions
as it should (and fewer will be needed of every
kind), while a redistribution of wealth and a
fair sharing of annual income will enable the
Sixteen Plums pall in a Day
. Thursday was a lucky day. for sixteen North
■ Carolinians.; Mr. Coan, head of WPA: operations
in this state, announced his eight, district mana
gers and eight assistants. Phillip Whitley, gives
up his secretaryship to Congressman Cooley to
accept the managers job in the Raleigh district.
Robert D. Caldwell, of. Lnmberton, and E. J.
Hill, of Warsaw, are among the number of ap
pointees. It is the job of Mr. Coan’s force to get
something like fifty thousand men at work on.
construction jobs. Here is the starter—a score of
men at good salaries, including Mr. Coan him
self and other immediate employees. We want to
see the other 49,980 get their jobs as quickly as
possible.
people to support their religious agencies with
• ease — each year’s support coming from the im
mediate year’s production. Likewise, unusual
demands for funds—needed for home building
and furnishing, may foe provided, as now under
the new deal program, on long-time and mini
mum interest terms, by the government, thus
again reducing such expenditures to a conform
ity to the hand-tp-mouth principle cited and, con
sequently, without producing a disturbance of
the balance of production and consumption of
the staple products of the masses.
Profit a More Deadly Foe to General Pros
perity Than Interest
When the bad dog’s head is cut smack off
there is no occasion to worry about the wagging
of the tail. And when the scheme outlined above
shall have been effectuated, neither Moses, Ford,
nor Barringer need worry about interest. But
Mr. Ford may bewail the loss of the privilege
of heaping up hundreds of millions of profits.
He then will no longer be able to make and hold
a profit upon one car equal to the gross annual
income of many a laborer who has helped to pro
duct the meat and .bread that sustain the profit
Gorgons. And no longer will he cart off to for
eign countries millions that have been extracted
from consumption channels at home and pay them
out to those who can use them to buy the very
ASmerican products which his excessive profits
prevented many Americans from buying in ade
quate amounts, and whence his profits have no
reasonable prospect of ever returning to American
soil, since every such foreign plant is located in
a country whose trade balance with fhe United
States is unfavorable.
Yet the Ford plant is a national asset, its pro
ducts a national necessity, and nobody should de
sire to interrupt an efficient control of it, or
them, provided the principle of an equitable
quid-pro-quo be maintained, as it has not been,
what with hundreds of millions of profits, wage
scales quadrupling prevailing wages in industrial
plants and on farms, in fisheries and forests,
which produce the goods essential to actual liv
ing. It matters little who owns any real capital
so long as it function properly and
adequate quid - pro - quo’s are rendered
in the echange of its goods. . For
Mr. Barringer has sensed the real distinction be
tween capital at work and money -(incorrectly
called capital) playing the parasite and becoming
an agent of ruinous speculation, though he seems
not to call to mind that money cannot be loaned
to capitalize the borrower’s business and used
at the same time to capitalize a business of the
lender’s. Only loans for speculative purposes
would serve a different purpose by being retained
and invested in industry by its lender.
However, the distinction he has sensed is real.
'And Mr. Barringer’s fertilizer plant is a blessing.
But it would be a different thing if Mr. Barrin
ger ana a dozen other manufacturers could mono
polize the business and should on that account
simply because they could—charge ungodly prices
for their products.
The income tax on a sufficient scale will serve
to undo the evil of excessixe profits and of undue
fees and winnings of any kind, if not prevent
them. For profits and unconscionable charges
for services can readily becoVne, and have be
come, a far more deadly foe to general prosperity
than is interest. And it is apparent that the rav
ages of* interest are already upon the wane.
A just distribution of the annual production of
\vealth, which is a different thing than the ma
chinery of distribution which Mr. Barringer seems
to laud, and a loan of funds from the national
treasury at nominal interest rates for expenditures
too large for the individual’s annual income,
which process has already largely superseded
bank and local capitalists’ loans and time stores'
exorbitant credit prices, will reduce the menace
of the interts demon to a minimum.