Government role in economic life

Two of the most important questions facing the people of the United States today are these: What can be done to avoid World War III and to ensure peace throughout the world? And what is the proper relation ship between government and economic life for the United States? It is the latter problem that is the principal concern of this study. But the two problems are related.

Expanding government control over economic activity has character ized life in the twentieth century. The movement is not limited to the United States. Even the most casual acquaintance with events in other nations reveals something of the broad upsurge of government economic control throughout the entire world.

So widespread and persistent has this movement been that it is rather fatuous to attribute it, as some people do, to misguided reformers, poli ticians, or cloistered theorists. Rather, the forces pressing for more gov ernment intervention in economic life are fundamental and lie deep in the social structures of different peoples. Some peoples whose heritage is one of comparatively complete domination by government of economic life readily accept further twists of the old screws. Others, with a past of considerable economic and political freedom, find themselves impaled by the sword to a life of economic and political servitude. But for others, with a past and a current continuance of democratic government and an economic organization which relies upon private economic decision and individual ive, government economic regulations have increased by leaps and bounds at their own hand. For such peoples, and the United States is among them, the explanation of expanding government controls must lie in powerful economic, social, political, and military events which force themselves upon the people.