PLANNED ECONOMY

Evening Star, Issue 23324, 21 July 1939, Page 15

PLANNED ECONOMY

OPPOSED TO ORGANIC GROWTH At the Douglas Social Credit meeting on Wednesday Mr Lind spoke on planned economy as the undesirable antithesis to organic growth. Ever since man had been able to provide food, clothing, and shelter against periods of scarcity or hardship, he said, there had always been planners anxious to undertake the task of providing or planning for the rest of society. J Ims there had developed a kind of freemasonry of rulership composed of people who acted, not in consideration of the people, hut of their own particular class. This freemasonry still existed, though in a different form, and there was to-day a tacit understanding amongst the planners of the world of which the people knew nothing. Decisions were made by the planners and the people paid the cost whether in blood or taxes. From ancient times, Mr hind said, the ruling factions had used agencies to perpetuate their power. One agent was organised religion, which kept the

people quiet c : '’’or by promises or throats. A s»v. .1 method was the development in people of the herd instinct towards conformity and uniformity. This instinct, which in time became custom and was then sanctified as tradition, finally emerged as law with established precedents. People who refused to conform, to run with the herd, wore treated as outldWs. A third method was the fomentation of sectional differences and divisions in society to distract people from the main grievance, while a fourth was the economic agency. The speaker enlarged this, showing how in olden times economic power was expressed by the means of subsistence and the man who could acquire fields, crops, and food had the most .power. To-day, however, the sign of power was not real wealth, but tickets or credits, which were a demand to real wealth. The holders of tickets and credits ruled the world and planned for us to-day, creating booms or depressions at will. We should, therefore, beware of people who plan for us, the speaker said, as only wo ourselves were capable of judging what was good for us. It was our own fault that we allowed the planners to •be our dictators, and until we got what wo wanted we should continue to lead perverted lives. The opposite to planned economy was organic growth, which meant a growth as natural as that of a plant or tree. Humanity had not been allowed to grow as‘it was intended; hundreds of voting lives were continually • being thwarted, and instead of being allowed to develop some special talent or faculty woro forced to become labourers in order to. sustain life. To-day, despite the fact that we lived in an age of plenty, there was no one who felt absolutely secure economically, but the solution was not held by revolutionaries whose method—being similar to that of the planners—only led the people into another bondage. The vital test for any Government, whatever label it adopted, was whether it delivered the goods. Each person had a responsibility to contribute to • the _ common well-being, but also had the right to an equitable share in the goods and services produced in association. If we wanted to grow organically we should demand of our governments that they “ deliver the goods,” and by uniting against the hidden enemy, demand that the planners be removed from our midst.