Economic Advice | Tom Woods

Chivas Kern writes:

I was on the web researching a company for my work (sales), and needed to convert yen to dollars. I hopped on Google to do the conversion and one of the searches returned a periodical from the 1920s titled Economic World, edited by Arthur Richmond Marsh.

I just randomly found page 616 with a transcription of a speech given by James S. Alexander (president of National Bank of Commerce in NY at the time) to the 110th meeting of the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers.

This was such a brilliant find I had to share with you:

“Retailers must come to see that it is better to have a large turnover at lower prices than to have to low a turnover at prices based on the cost of their goods on hand. Labor must also come to see that it is better to work for lower wages than to insist on high wages and be out of work. Adoption of these principles will bring prices into coordination with the present purchasing power of the general public. Thus would a wholesome stimulus to business be provided. The remedy is not to be found in easier credits or cheaper money, which might serve as an artificial but temporary stimulant, creating a situation worse than the present one.”

Further in the speech it gets better:

“The fundamental principle of enlightened labor leadership to-day to be to inculcate a return the doctrine of an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Inflated wages and non-competitive conditions of the war and later boom period produced inefficiency and irresponsibility.”

Even better:

“Any Government that countenances privileges to any class as against another class on the ground of social justice undermines the stability of society.”

Anonymous

It should be obvious that this author had read Meltdown.
vox

What a simple and forthright statement revealing that our natural elite of the past
(in business), was far superior in communicating fundamental economic truths. Entrepreneurs today are no less gifted, but most probably have little to no knowledge of the Austrian School.
Alexander’s speech is a detail of an influential, but short-lived push toward the policy of “normalcy,” a return to fundamental principles that had been sandwiched between the Civil War and WWI, both of which forced a more centralized command economy upon a duped citizenry. It is strange to think that the beneficiaries of a corporate-state alliance could possibly believe that any form of socialism could be successfully amalgamated with “characteristic American efficiency” ( Norman Dodd’s account of the Carnegie Endowment’s meeting minutes, circa 1909).
It seems that once ideas are developed, they never die completely. They can be suppressed, lost or transferred, lying dormant for the living to rediscover and build on. Austrian economists have not only consulted great economists and historians, but also moral business leaders, novelists, reporters, and theologians. Rothbard was amazing at drawing from all sectors of knowledge to build an advanced cross-disciplinary approach. Thus, he was extremely critical of overspecialization in academics, as other great thinkers have been too.
The complexity of human nature seems to be at times a convoluted duel between thirst for knowledge toward common/individual good, and the manipulation of that thirst by appealing to the emotions through various forms of sophistry. While some people do not blush in their action of voting away other people’s property, most would not do it directly by brandishing a weapon. Government is there to do that. It seems to me that since the action of stealing is far removed from the direct action of regular citizens, they persistently fail to make the connection that how they live, and what they believe, affects the overall freedom of millions of people.
Anonymous

The first two quotes are golden. The last one is nonsense. Every government countenances privileges to one class as against another class, if only the propertied against the unpropertied, the titled against the untitled, the haves against the have nots.

Even if the purest, Lockean (or Rothbardian) standards of propriety prevail, government still protects the privilege of laborers adding value to land exclusively to govern the land. Land being scarce, late comers to this party are subject to the early comers.

And of course, the purest, Lockean standards of propriety do not prevail, not remotely, even if they should, and even these standards are debatable.

Debating statutory privilege is all well and good, but if you only debate the privilege of others, you ignore the only privilege you are most competent to judge.
Anonymous

Thanks Tom