Show Rm r n 7 t f o Business j s Why wage price controls dont don't work part 4 By Dy Arch Booth president of I the Ithe the Chamber of Commerce of the United Stairs States I t have been described as an arch foe of wage-price wage controls 1 I t dont don't think any pun was intended and I t suppose that's a fair description But it would be bp wrong to assume either that I t have always opposed controls or that I do so in any reflexive unthinking way Many executives and business organizations actually supported the 1971 experiment with controls I was among them So was the National Chamber Frankly we should have known better But at least we learned from frem experience which is more than I 1 can say for some politicians WilY WHY WERE we willing to back something we had good cause to doubt Several reasons Some of us were attracted by bythe bythe bythe the theory that temporary controls could break the psychology of l. l inflation lation that is if people expect inflation to continue they may act in ways that tha t contribute to it Some of us believed the unions had grown so powerful that only the government could restrain their wage demands And many of us were stung by charges that business is always against everything never willing to try anything progressive etc The Latest Failure So we went along With the experiment and it failed That failure was only the latest in a along along along long unbroken string of wage- wage price control failures stretching from the earliest recorded history as regular readers of this column will know THE TIlE SIMPLE fact that controls dont don't work is in itself excellent grounds fon fOI opposing them But for an American there is an even better reason Controls are a very serious threat t to individual freedom In all 11 of the experiments with economic controls in history one of two things had happened Either the controls have been scrapped when they fail or the initial failure has led to stricter controls with greater limits on freedom t Do we now now care so little for freedom liberty and individual dignity that we will trade these rights for a phony promise of economic stability I hope not In my historical survey of controls there is one witness I skipped over Now is the time to call him in This witness is an expert on the relationship between controls and freedom lie He Should Know Ills His occupation was of Nazi Germany ills His name was Hermann Goering Hitler's deputy A journalist Interviewed Goering then a prisoner in 1946 Pay close attention to his words taken from that interview YOUR YOUn AMERICA is doing many things in the economic field which we found out caused us so much trouble he said You are trying to control peoples people's wages and prices peoples people's work If you do that you must control peoples 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 As George Santayana warns us Those who cannot remember the past are condemned condemned condemned con con- to repeat it Single copies of my speech Wage Price Controls The Challenge to Learn from History are available to readers free of charge If you would like one write to News Department U U. U S S. S Chamber of Commerce Washington D. D C C. C ask for publication number |