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Show CONTROL OF CREDIT A BASIC QUESTION Economist Describes Conflict Between Be-tween Opposing Social Viewpoints View-points on Government Bank. Agitation for government hanking Is a phase of the conflict between our present "personal competitive enterprise enter-prise system" In America and the "compulsory "com-pulsory state collective security system" sys-tem" of several European States, Virgil Jordan, President National Industrial Conference Board, says In an article in a recent issue of "Banking" published pub-lished by the American Bankers Association. As-sociation. "They involve Irreconcilable principles prin-ciples of human conduct and philosophy philoso-phy of life and the conflict between them is the key to the economic, social and political struggles of today," Mr. Jordan says. The enterprise system of which "the development of the United State3 has been the unparalleled example, depends de-pends for Its motive power of progress upon the inexhaustible reservoir of energy in Individual desire for personal advancement in prosperity, but it guarantees guar-antees nothing to the individual save freedom of opportunity," the article says in part. The collectivist security system, he says, "places all emphasis upon the j maintenance of a minimum standard of living for the mass without regard to the creative power of the individual, quite simply the security system involves in-volves the modern form of the philosophy phil-osophy of the slae society." He continues: con-tinues: A Sign of the Times "The many-sided movement toward governmental banking, deposit insurance insur-ance and currency management is the most direct and decisive expression of the universal instinctive search for security se-curity which is the sign of the times. In America our so-called social security legislation Is an Important indication of the drift away from the enterprise system toward a collectivist security system with concentration of authority author-ity in a central Federal government. "The nationalization of credit i. crucial and indispensable for complete state control of the complex industrial and business structure of this country. coun-try. The drive toward government banking and monetary control is most determined because the relation of the state to credit goes to the root of the enterprise system. A collective security secur-ity system is inconceivable withoul nationalization of credit. An enterprise system is inconceivable with it." Under a collective security system, based on government bankine the con- trols "lie solely in the hands of a few persons and depend upon their judgment, judg-ment, will or caprice," Mr. Jordan says, adding that it is they who must determine de-termine "upon the basis of some predetermined pre-determined plan or upon pure political expediency of the moment, what lines of industry and even what individual enterprises shall have access to the credit reservoir." The state, he says, has the power of ' if e and death over all enterprise that utilizes credit. "Every government is an organ of party power and must respond to the will of the party ..hat put it in power," the Jordan article says. "Under unchecked un-checked government operation it is an inescapable tendency of every currency cur-rency to depreciate and for credit to expand. However much it may be in the interest of the nation, deflation is too dangerous politically for any government gov-ernment to undertake it deliberately. "In the end government banking and currency management resolve themselves them-selves simply into the use of credit as a political instrument of power, and this instrument tends to be used In the long run -for expropriation of the savings of the community." |