The Whine of the Ancient Marriner

November 7, 2007 7:55 AM by Sean Corrigan (Archive)

For a wholly unabashed defence of full-blown Collectivism, the speech reproduced under the title 'Modern Governments Must' in American Affairs takes some beating, incorporating, as it does, every Keynesian fallacy and 'fatal conceit' you could imagine, including the chilling assertion that:

Modern governments, including our own, have long since assumed a primary responsibility for the economic guidance and progress of their peoples.

And who delivered this peroration of planning? None other than that failed businessman and evangelical New Dealer, Marriner S Eccles - sometimes described as the 'Father of the Modern Fed' and the man after whom that Temple of Moloch which is its modern HQ is named.