Here's what I want everyone to understand. Whether we have more jobs which we want
or an inflation which we don't want is a decision made by a tiny minority of unaccountable people.
They're not accountable to us or to the society. They may bless with more jobs or condemn [us] with
more inflation. They do whatever they want for their profits, and we all live with the results.
And you know what the institution is i'm talking about? The free market. That's right. It's the
free market that gives to employers that choice: how to respond to rising demand from the public.
Produce more and get more people jobs, or jack up the price and produce the kind of inflation
we are suffering through now? And by the way, do you have to handle things this way? Not at all.
Let me give you some examples of other ways to do it. We could say 'Look, we're
going to produce more because that gives people jobs, and then, we're going to distribute them
not in a market, not by allowing anybody to jack up prices. We're not going to do any of that.
Prices are fixed. The government's going to fix them, and you know what the government's going
to do? It's going to distribute the goods that are being produced putting more people to work. We'll
get more jobs. We'll get more output, and we'll distribute it. We don't need the market. We don't
need all this price nonsense. Well, is that really doable? Yes. Did people ever do that? Yes. Did
that ever happen in the United States? Yes! I'm going to give you an example. During World War II,
we had a problem. We were fighting a war partly in Japan, partly in Europe. In Asia and in Europe,
and we needed a lot of resources to go to fight the war: to make the bullets and the guns and
the planes and the ships, to equip the soldiers and all the rest, which meant that the resources
we had left here in the United States to produce food, clothing and shelter for the American people
during the war were less. In other words, there was a shortage. The demand for food, clothing and
shelter at home didn't go away, but the supply was reduced because we were fighting a war. So,
the question was how do we distribute the reduced supply of food, clothing, shelter and so on
to the American people? If we had allowed the free market to do it, it would have meant allowing the
producers of food, clothing and shelter to jack up the price the way they're doing now. We would have
allowed it then, but wise people in Washington understood if we did that, rich people would be
able to get through the war very comfortably and everybody else wouldn't and that would destroy
whatever unity we had in this country which we badly needed to fight the war. So, we wouldn't
have a free market. We banished the free market. The government issued ration cards. That's right,
a little card that entitled you to buy a quart of milk, a pound of meat, a pound of sugar,
a gallon of gasoline for your car and many, many, many other things. If you didn't have a ration
card, you couldn't get it. Money didn't buy you anything. The price didn't go up. Didn't matter
if it did. Without a ration card, you didn't get it. With a ration card, you did. How were
ration cards distributed? Some of you will enjoy the irony here. To each according to their need.
If you had a lot of children in your family, you got a lot of ration cards for milk.
If you didn't have any children, you got fewer ration cards for milk.
Not so hard to understand, and it worked. And it worked for years here in the United States. It's
a non-market system of distributing. There was no inflation to worry about because we didn't handle
the distribution of goods and services with a market. A market is a human institution. It's
got its strengths. It's got its weaknesses. It's important to understand those weaknesses
so that we don't get bamboozled by right-wing folks who want us to bend over
and pray to the market in the way that we were warned not to let false gods
lead us into idolatry, if you may remember. The market is a false god.