SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18929, 26 April 1933, Page 9

SUPPLY AND DEMAND.

(To the Editor). Sir, — Mr Sykes apparently considers that Mr Seymour stands discredited as a man of public spirit in so far as he still persists In his advocacy' of the “law" of supply and demand as the only sound basis of economic operation. Mr Sykes will know very well that lam no more (if as much) in sympathy with Mr Seymour’s economic outlook and ideas than himself, and yet I must call into question the soundness of Mr Sykes’ criterion by

which Mr Seymour is to be Judged as to the acceptability of his economic doctrines. My first submission is that the unhampered operation of the principle of supply and remand provides the right and desirable basis of any economic system. Next I submit that freedom of supply and demand does not, in fact, operate in our economic •system, nor for many decades has ils legitimacy been recognised by the world’s effectual (though unrecognised) rulers and policy simpers. Mm llnimeicr —economists or super-bank-ers. My point is that the community has been given freedom of "minnlv." but not of "demand.” A~

a community we have been disallowed the means (purchasing power) of demanding more than a portion of the supplies created by ourselves. Of course, such lack of demand soon checked the freedom of supply also, for Industry cannot long function without recovering Its financial costs. Freedom of demand we have not experienced, nor (consequently) freedom of supply. This has been because, as Major Douglas has Illustrated In his famous A plus B theorem, Industry under the modern system of financial cost accountancy can not under any circumstances, and irrespective of any charge for interest or profit, liberate consumers purchasing power at as fast a rate as it generates costs, which must be recovered in prices; and no provision lias yet been made to make good, by a costless issue of new credit to consumers, this .deficiency of purchasing power (demand). TJiis monstrous impediment to the freedom of supply and dc-

mand lias for long been glaringly evident, and still the credit monopolists (bankers) will not deign to acknowledge, let alone rectify this "maladjustment in the works" of the economic system of supply and demand, j which is reducing lo pathetic ruin j the grand structure of capitalist I society—or, ralht'r, the grand structure which would otherwise have been (and may yet lie) created. As Major Douglas says, Capitalism practically vanished 7b years ago; I llial which we now suffer under is ! Credilism. Credilism it is which ! Socialists are blind'? assailing as . Capilalism. Credilism is more prn- ! parly known under such oilier names j a*, international Finance, Communism

and Fascism. It is based on the doctrine that the Individual must bd ' held In the shackles of a system, dominated from above. It Is the outworking of the selfish, unscrupulous “will-to-power" in strong and cunning men. Let us beware, for the i system of which we are the almost maddened victims here in New Zealand is fast approaching almost complete identity with the tyrannous politico-economic systems In operation in Russia, Italy and Germany. Only a restoration on Just and social lines

•of the principle of freedom of supply and demand can save us. In Douglas Social Credit are the unchallengable essentials of such a restoration. Douglasism means, to state the matter tersely, Capitalism without the corruption of cornered privilege and •monopoly, but mobilised, through the national credit, for the security and well-being of all. Who asks for a greater, a more truly socialising objective, than this? In conclusion I would like to bring to Mr Sykes’ notice a simple example of supply and demand. When my physical anatomy “demands" nourishment I “supply" it with such quantity ami quality of foods as it needs and asks for. Now. supposing Mr Sykes (analogous to the credit restricting hanker, in tills context) steps in and dominates me to the extent of deciding when 1 am hungry and what foods — if any—l am In cal, and suppose, | furlhennorc, I hat, I am forced by edict to produce many good things which I arc nevertheless denied me—other- [ wise I must go hungry—in such oirI ciimslanees would il not be a fantastic ! caricature of truth to say I was workj mg and eating under the law of sup-

ply and demand? \\nd yet, to do consistent, Mr Seymour would be obliged to make that assertion I —l am, etc., R. E. HANSEN. Orlnl, April 21, 1933.