Full employment or stagnation?

The high unemployment level and weak economic growth of the United States in recent years are not a mysterious visitation of Fate, but the cost of misguided government economic policies. The errors of policy, in turn, are not accidental, but rest upon certain fallacious economic ideas. These are ancient and tenacious fallacies. They are not fading away, and their proponents are not retiring from power over public affairs. Our present eco nomic problems are only a token of those that continuation of these policies can bring upon us. Since the fate of the free world depends upon the successful performance and leadership of the United States, the stakes in this are enormously high. Closely tied to the conflict over domestic economic policy is conflict over the direction of United States leadership in build ing the international economic system. The central issue here is whether the United States will try to take the world back to something like the gold standard that prevailed before World War I. If this unpromising experiment is tried again and fails again, we may reap another harvest as bitter as that of the early 1930s.

Economic policy can be put on a secure foundation only through an aroused public discussion-one that stirs the intel lectual leaders of the nation to meet their responsibilities, to bring government economic policy under the sway of modern thought. The purpose of this book is to contribute to such a discussion.
The ideas in question do not involve the niceties of economic theory so much as its basic logic. Indeed, a principal issue is whether policy is to be based upon an economic theory par taking of the modern scientific spirit or is to rest upon traditional formulas whose appeal is emotional and ideological.