orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (02/04/85)
It is amazing how people can forget inconvenient facts of history in the cause of ideology and their pet theories. Previously Danny Mck. has repeated the recently resurrected laissez-faire apology for the Depression: in spite of the fact that Herbert Hoover and the Republican administrations consistently pronounced against government intervention in the economy and acted in the same vein, somehow "government intervention" is blamed for the Great Depression. The argument here is basically one based on faith: regardless of any evidence of an overall lack of government intervention in the economy under Hoover and Coolidge, the fact that a Depression in which fully 30% of Americans found themelves out of work occurred is proof that "something went wrong". Since we know (from the immutable laws of free market economics) that such problems could not have resulted from the natural evolution of the economy away from the conditions under which free market laws really work, then they must be blamed on the familiar villain: i.e. government intervention. Notwithstanding these meticulous attempts to find *some* scraps of evidence that government intervention *led* to the Depression, the stalwart defenders of immutable free market laws never go on to mention another salient fact: just what it was that brought the country *out* of the Great Depression. For that is yet more damaging to their naive faith in a free market system that has become no longer a free market system. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that World War II with its consequent enormous government expenditures on the supplies of War for both the US and allies brought the US out of the Great Depression. How could this be? How could massive government expenditures bring the country out of a Depression that had been languishing for years? What does this historical evidence tell us about the knee jerk opposition of free-market ideologues to any government intervention in the economy? It tells us their abstract theories do not adequately explain the REAL WORLD in which we actually live. But it is also quite irritating the degree to which these defenders of privilege will readily grant the impediments to the free market represented by groups of workers who have banded together to insure their rights in the workplace ,higher wages and greater benefits. To wit: > > I did not claim that we live in a Free Economy; elsewhere I have > repeatedly pointed out that we do not, and in the analysis that Kelly > responded to, I introduced coercive unions and Minimum Wage laws (hardly > the stuff of a Free Economy). I will not deny that unions and minimum wage laws affect the assumptions of the free market by creating monopsony power. But does Danny Mck. or other naive apologists for the people who now control our economy admit to any distortion of free markets by *monopoly* power or the increasing dominance of the economy by big corporations and conglomerates? And the "coercion" of unions? Unions, in the first place, must be approved by a 70% vote of the workers. In the second place, Union leaders are elected by the membership and in the third place, contracts are approved or disapproved by a vote of the membership. Who elects the company president or the managers? If a nonunionized worker is fired by the company president or manager because he has long hair or (the *worst* offense!) has petitioned his fellow workers for a union is this not coercion far worse than paying union dues? No,( say the ideologues) because it is a "free" market. (even tho' in conditions such as the Great Depression 30% of the people may be unemployed: he is always "free" to take another job(???)) If one is to be fair, then it is necessary to admit that the distortions to a free market involve both sides, labor and capital. And before making blanket condemnations of government intervention it is important to consider the lessons of the Great Depression and just how exactly the country both got into it, and *out* of it. tim sevener whuxl!orb
russ@ihuxf.UUCP (Russell Spence) (02/06/85)
> market system. There is no doubt in anyone's mind that World War II with > its consequent enormous government expenditures on the supplies of War > for both the US and allies brought the US out of the Great Depression. > How could this be? How could massive government expenditures bring > the country out of a Depression that had been languishing for years? > What does this historical evidence tell us about the knee jerk opposition > of free-market ideologues to any government intervention in the economy? > It tells us their abstract theories do not adequately explain the REAL WORLD > in which we actually live. > > it is important to consider the lessons of the Great Depression and just > how exactly the country both got into it, and *out* of it. > tim sevener whuxl!orb This is simply not true. It wasn't the expenditures of WWII that got us out of the depression, it was the rebuilding of Europe and Japan that got us out of the depression. Times were still very tough during the war. Granted, they always are during war-time, but it wasn't until after the war, and the rebuilding programs began, that the recovery really started. There is alot of money to be made rebuilding the massive damage caused by a world-war. And yet, it can also be argued that even now we are not free from the effects of the Depression. Along with the so-called recovery that WWII brought us, it also brought us the first instances of national debt. The deficit. This is what we have had to live with since then, and don't fool yourselves, until it goes away, this country will not be really healthy. There is no free lunch. I just hope that this country doesn't have to learn that fact the hard way. -- Russell Spence (new path ->) ihnp4!ihuxf!russ AT&T Technologies Naperville, IL