PURCHASING POWER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21764, 2 April 1934, Page 12

PURCHASING POWER

Sir. —I have read a good deal of criticism levelled at the Douglas scheme, but the chief aim to promote increased consuming power is logical if we are living in the machine age foretold by prominent scientists. Why should we hare man-power wasting when with the aid oi modern machinery we could have an abundance for all, including the capitalists themselves? The great masses of all possess at present very few commodities. A short time ago such commodities as tea, coffee and white bread were only within the reach of the upper classes. Pins and matches were so cheap before the war that countless millions were being used. They were cheap because the workers employed in producing them turned out vast quantities with the help of powerful machinery. No one would claim that if the workers' reduced their output of matches to six where they now produce 600, and the price of matches was one penny each instead of one penny per box, then more labour would be required to make the world's matches, to the great benefit of the match workers.. All that would happen would be that the use of matches would be enormously reduced, and the labour employed in manufacture would be correspondingly reduced. The industrial law is that the consuming power of the world ia literally unlimited, and the increased production will stimulate it in the ratio' nf its own increase. Tho great mass of people will realise that by co-opera-tion of effort between capital, management and labour, they can bring the price of commodities within the reach of the workers. There are undoubtedly thousands of people who believe that there is only a limited amount of work in the world, and that an increase in the individual output must end in overproduction and unemployment. Yet poverty and misery are the result, because the theory of restricted output is false, and the facts prove its falsehood, P. H. Pearson.