A Case Study of Postwar Planning by Business

Abstract

A SIGNIFICANT experiment is being conducted at Peoria, Illinois. Its purpose is to test out the program of the Committee for Economic Development. The CED is a privately financed, nonprofit organization, the purpose of which is to see that business provides high employment and operates at a high level of production after the war ends. It was organized last year by Paul G. Hoffman, President of the Studebaker Corporation.' This article will illustrate how the program is actually applied to business by describing how the CED operates in one community. The Peoria experiment is a fairly simple one, and the reactions are simple. Yet both the program and the reactions have considerable significance for the American economy and for the American business man. The experiment is a test of the willingness and ability of Peoria business men to make plans now to provide for high employment and production after the war. Although in a sense, the entire CED program is an experiment, the results of which cannot be fully determined until the war ends and the program has been called upon to prove itself, enough of the results are available to make a description of the Peoria part of the experiment worthwhile.