MACHINERY THE CAUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 77, 28 September 1938, Page 12

MACHINERY THE CAUSE

(To the Editor.)

Sir,—rThe above title is part of the heading to a published report by the Labour Department with, regard to unemployment. It may be the cause of workers in commercial industries becoming superfluous, but the cause of the continuance of unemployment is the refusal of our economic and social leaders to bring about the necessary social reforms or changes necessary to put the surplus labour at more important work than that from which they have been removed by advances in technique and machinery. There is work waiting for millions more than are unemployed at present —the work of making the world a better place to live in. Our economic experts continue to defend orthodox commercialism which has proved itself to be an anachronism. c They still stick to the old idea that we must sell at least half of what we produce before we can consume the remainder. They still believe in slumps being a necessary part of economic life. They still advocate putting on i taxation when people are poor and j taking it off when they are prosperous. They still throw up their hands j in shocked surprise if much-needed public works are carried out in prosperous times, saying that these works should be done during slumps. If these same public works were not being done in good times the slumps would come sooner and the people would not then be able to pay the necessary taxation to pay for the work. The economists of the depression mentality do not seem to have grasped the idea that money is useless unless