At grips with progress

Canada, like the United States and other developed countries, experienced what has become known as the Great Depression of the 30's. Its earmark was the wave of universal unemployment bringing with it the entire litany of economic evils, evils which were ended only by that greater evil, the Second World War which lasted for six years.

Once hostilities had been terminated, the various governments, well aware that their peoples would never submit to going back to such a depression, devoted themselves to a policy of universal employment.

The war ended with Europe in ruins and vast repairs to be undertaken; production had to be changed over from war materials to the issuance of all the multitudes of consumer's goods of which the people had been deprived during these six long years. Consequently it was not too difficult to maintain almost total employment during the years immediately following the war.

But finance, which can never do enough to implement and increase the production of war materials, also gave production (war) full rein to develop and perfect all the possible refinements of technique for turning out more and better materials with less and less manpower. Thus we came out of the war with a production system capable of very quickly filling all the needs of the consumer population. Thanks to the war in Korea and then to the uncertainties of the cold war which gave impetus to the armament industries, a repetition of the crisis of the 30's was avoided for a while.

Progress, however, continued its relentless march. Automation appeared upon the industrial scene. Production in every field was enormously increased. And within a very short time, unemployment once again became the number one problem of governments.

Why should progress create such a problem? Because on the one hand it produces so much more with so little help from human hands; on the other hand, the rules of an economy of scarcity makes it obligatory to be employed in order to have purchasing power. Thus it is that men who have been thrown out of work by progress have no money with which to buy the fruits of progress.

In such a situation it would seem logical that the government would seek some means of distributing purchasing power, independently of employment, in the measure that production became possible without the need of employment. But this has not been the case. The governments obstinately persist in pursuing, without any hope of success, a policy of universal employment, breaking its head vainly in the endeavor to find work for men in a production system which does not need these men.

A national productivity council

Last December 13, the Prime Minister of Canada, John Diefenbaker, moved before the House of Commons, the second reading of Bill C-52, for the establishment of a National Productivity Council. The purpose of the council is to group the best minds for consideration of ways and means to increase the level of production.

One would be led to believe that production in the country is declining alarmingly or is in danger of doing so, since a Council on productivity has become necessary in order to maintain the level. But then what precisely is the signification of all the unemployment if it is not that there is a superfluity of goods since all the unemployed hands are no longer needed in production?

The Prime Minister is well aware of this fact.

In presenting his case he said:

"I suggest an examination... of an article which recently appeared in the Christian Science Monitor, which sets forth the question regarding unemployment in the Morgan Guarantee survey, published by the Morgan Guarantee Trust Company of New York. The article is well worth reading. It sets forth the general reasons for the paradoxical phenomena of today, where with an increasing gross national product, with an expanding economy, there is still unemployment."

The Prime Minister continues:

"In the United States in the last few days it has been revealed that unemployment has been mounting very considerably, generally as the result of technological advance."

Has it taken so many years and so much research to discover that progress in techniques does away with the need of employing so many men while at the same time maintaining the flow of production? This is the very end and purpose of inventions and the perfecting of methods in the means of production. And if this is to be considered a problem then we must recognize that we are at grips with progress.

The Prime Minister enlarges, almost with an air of complacency, upon this fact that progress in techniques gives rise to unemployment without diminishing in any way production. To this end he quotes from an address delivered by a Dr. Eugene Forsey last November 7th (1960) before the Ontario federation of labor. Dr. Forsey, says the Prime Minister "goes on to outline the reasons for unemployment: the technological advances that have taken place, the shifts and changes in employment in various industries."

Then Mr. Diefenbaker quotes the following words of Dr. Forsey, stressing at the opening Dr. Forsey's words, "I am convinced":

"I am convinced that much of our unemployment results from technological change, or rather, from our failure to cope with technological change, to harness it, to make it do the job it could and should do. The evidence for this seems to me conclusive."

What job should technological change do if it is not the job of reducing the number of hands needed in the work of producing?

Dr. Forsey gives examples of such changes brought about by techniques, and Mr. Diefenbaker quotes them in the House:

"First, agriculture. In 1946, people with jobs in agriculture numbered 1,186,000. Last year, the figure was 693,000. This year it will probably be about 670,000. In 14 years, over half a million jobs have disappeared in this industry, nearly 44% of the 1946 total.

"Why? Because we are producing less? No. Because we can produce so much more with so many fewer people. Technological change, increased productivity: that's what did it."

Dr. Forsey, still being quoted by Mr. Diefenbaker, then goes on to deal with manufacturing:

"In 1946, the number with jobs in manufacturing was about 1,222,000. Last year it was 1,502,000... or an increase of 23%."

The Prime Minister then continues.:

"Then he (Forsey) says that while there was an increase in manufacturing employment of about 23% during that period, the gain in manufacturing production was about 75%. Then he goes on to point out with the tradition which stipulates that revenue must be attached to employment."

In effect, a revenue disassociated from employment can only be distributed by a revenue which has no link with salary which is recompense for employment. This is precisely what the Social Credit school has been advocating for over forty years, since, indeed, the first writings of its founder, Major C.H. Douglas; a distribution through the issuance to all of a dividend, a dividend which will gradually displace the salary in the measure that production per man-hour increases.

It would be necessary to apportion production through purchasing power which would be given if production were completely automated; for in that case, there would be no employment and hence no purchasing power through salaries. If there is an unwillingness to distribute purchasing power through such a procedure which will be partly gratuitous, since production is partly automated, the result can only be more and greater problems, attempts at all sorts of vain solutions, ever-growing crises which will mount just as long and in the measure that production becomes the fruit of scientific achievement rather than of human employment.

Social Credit is the solution, the only solution which at the same time respects human liberty.