AN ECONOMIST S PRESCRIPTION

Evening Star, Issue 22843, 29 December 1937, Page 11

AN ECONOMIST S PRESCRIPTION

“ We are setting a . nude figure, with all its blemishes patent to the eye, against a figure that is veiled,” writes Professor A. C. Pigou, the _ eminent Cambridge economist, in his latest book. The author’s nude figure is Capitalism, for the faults of Capitalism are only too -obvious to the thinking man. Socialism is the veiled figure, its weaknesses at present unknown to us, because the Socialist programme has yet to be put to as universal a test as has been that of Capitalism. The writer outlines what he would do were he, by some stroke of imagination, placed in charge of his country’s affairs. He says that he would adopt a graduated system of taxation _ with “ the deliberate purpose of diminishing the glaring inequalities of fortune and opportunity which deface our present civilisation.” Certain industries affected with a public interest or “ capable of wielding monopoly power ” would be subject to public supervision. The Bank of England would become m name what it is now in fact, a public institution. All these changes would be carried out * gradually, but Professor Pigou concludes “ that gradualness implies action, and is not a polite name for standing still.”