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Show EDITORIAL: That Wicked Profit Motive One of the most intelligent discussions dis-cussions of what socialism can do to a nation has been written by Dorothy Thompson, in a newspaper news-paper column. It deals specifically specifical-ly with the British situation, but what is true there is also true in all the totalitarian economies. "The present practical confiscation confis-cation of profits stops the building build-ing of new capital, interest in profits is killed, and wages, interest in-terest and dividends are knocked away," writes Miss Thompson. "Actually, not production, but production costs, are rewarded. The businessman is interested to raise, not lower, costs in order to make the net taxable revenue small, not large . . . "Socialist planning always shows its worst failures, not in production figures, but in the price level. The enterpriser, exchanging ex-changing profits for security, in the form of fixed prices and subsidies, sub-sidies, stops caring about costs ... A rigid economy follows, in regard to all the elements of production, which shows inelasticity inelas-ticity in responding to consumers' consum-ers' shifts .... "No one can accuse Socialists of the wicked 'profit motive.' They genuinely desire 'the welfare wel-fare of the masses.' But this righteousness regarding their own motives induces a peculiarly irritating smugness, blinding them to the fact that 'noble' bureaucratic costs can greatly exceed 'wicked' profits, and that the welfare of the masses has to demonstrate itself by facts, not theories." We are being urged to follow much the same path that Britain has chosen. A determined campaign cam-paign is on to nationalize industry, indus-try, as in the case of light and power. An equally determined campaign would have us accept a compulsory health insurance scheme that differs only in detail de-tail from England's enormously costly experiment in this field. The advocates of cradle-to-the-gravc security at a cost which no one can estimate are beating the drums throughout the land. And, in spite of the tremendous burden of taxation that stifles our initiative, no real effort has been made to cut the cost of gov-1 ernment. I Every socialist or communist proposal is based on the appeal ing fiction that by eliminating-profit eliminating-profit we will advance the welfare wel-fare of the masses. Yet. in every case, precisely the opposite result re-sult has been achieved. It is not an accident that our high wages and high living standards have been gained under the profit system. The system has its faults but socialism, as the record rec-ord proves, has infinitely more and some of them are beyond correction. Industrial News Review. Re-view. . |