Government Control, 1946

November 2, 2007 11:46 AM by Jeffrey Tucker (Archive)

Look at this wonderful pamphlet from 1946, called One Year After, by Virgil Jordon:

WAR, which we profess to fear or hate, is only one expression of the growth of the power of the State over men's life and work, which in recent years so many have come to accept, encourage or support as progressive and desirable. Economic warfare, class and labor conflict, inflation, bureaucratic despotism, all forms of compulsory collectivism, national and international "planning," conspiracy and espionage, and the movement toward a world Superstate—all these and many other features of the economic and political panorama on the road ahead at home and abroad today are merely manifestations of the mania for unlimited government power which is evident everywhere in our time.

Though we fought and won this war in high hope of securing peace, plenty and freedom for ourselves and other peoples everywhere, the plain truth is that today there is less of all these things, less hope of them, and indeed less aspiration for them, anywhere in the world than there was before—even in America....

In place of the plenty which they hoped the promise of peace would bring, we have a planetary epidemic of political compulsion and control called economic planning which everywhere cramps and cripples, or ruthlessly exploits and dissipates the productive powers that have survived the
destruction of war.