Henry C. Simons

Some Reflections on Syndicalism

Students of social science must fear popular approval; evil is with them when all men speak well of them. If there is any set of opinions by the advocacy of which a newspaper can increase its sales, then the student .... is bound to dwell on the limitations and defects and errors, if any, in that set of opinions; and never to advocate them unconditionally even in an ad hoc discussion. It is almost impossible for a student to be a true patriot and to have the reputation of being one at the same time.-ALFRED MARSHALL.2

Debt Policy and Banking Policy

rrHE scheme of putting our federal debt wholly into two forms, consols and currency,l is obviously too radical for early political consideration. Its virtue is that of indicating a direction for policy which, wisely pursued, would perhaps involve numerous steps and only gradual institutional change. Much can be said for focusing attention upon the radical, ultimate objective, namely, an economy where all private property takes exclusively the forms of government demand obligations (currency or full currency equivalents), government consols (always in process of elimination, save during total war), corporate common stock, and fee interests in real assets (along with an inevitable minimum of business accounts-receivable and

Hansen on Fiscal Policy

T _HE decade of the thirties marks an abrupt break with traditions of monetary and fiscal practice. Most economists who advocated bold fiscal measures for stopping deflation and initiating recovery, while intolerant toward extremist brethren who foresaw imminent financial doom, were nowise blind to less immediate political dangers in the repudiation of accepted fiscal norms. Their misgivings, first aroused by the senseless gold policy, were increased by the avalanche of reforms which discouraged investment and inhibited enterprise, by the unrestrained political momentum of spending which eventuated in bonus legislation at the worst possible time, by the surge of aggressive unionism and wage increases in I937, and especially by the subsequent recession which revealed how utterly deficit stimulation had been frustrated by other policies and trends. At this point early proponents of reflation became divided, as their conservative brethren had predicted, over policy for the future. One faction, led by younger economists close to the administration, found explanation of the recession merely in fiscal policy and went on solemnly to argue for perpetual deficits and uninterrupted increase in the

Economic Reconstruction: The Columbia Report

HIS volume is the result of the deliberations of a distinguished group, brought together early in I933 through the efforts of the president of Columbia University. The general report of the Commission, together with brief supplementary statements by seven members, fills some ninety pages. The rest of the book is given over to reports on special topics by individual members. The general report takes the form of a semipopular essay dealing mainly with the problem of industrial fluctuations. Its general character may be indicated by the following summary of the recommendations with which it concludes (pp. 73-76):