Facts and Trends of Government Control Affecting Consumer Economy

Abstract

TN CONSIDERING this subject there is one Ibasic premise that I think we should always keep clearly in mind. When we talk about the consumer or the civilian, let us think of him first, foremost, and always in his role as a citizen. To me, at least, the word consumer emphasizes that phase of our lives that has to do with satisfying our own personal desires and needs. Citizen, on the other hand, immediately suggests participation in joint undertakings, even at the expense of our own personal needs. It suggests sacrifice and discipline in the interest of a better community and country that, in the end, we and our children can live a fuller life. I suspect that this citizen's phase of our life is what we wish most to preserve, rather than our personal comforts and pleasures. Goodness knows, our automobiles, radios, electric ice chests, our latest hats, our new living room furniture suite, or a host of other yardsticks of our so-called high standard of living have been no safeguard of the kind of life we really want. Let us make no mistake about it, what we really crave for ourselves in this life, the kind of country we are trying to build, will be born only of the powerful force of disciplined giving. Continued undisciplined softness is bound to lead to disaster sooner or later. In our grandfathers' time, it was possible to live in a personal orbit, grow one's own food, make one's own clothes, build one's own house. If anyone erred by failure to cooperate-and cooperation necessarily entails restraint and sacrifice -few had to suffer but themselves. Local and national groups were not interdependent to the extent they are today. The welfare of one did not depend upon the welfare of all. The modern machine, mass production, high speed communication, highly integrated transportation of the world's produce has ended this era of individual independence. Today, the whole world is one vast economic cobweb. We all are absolutely dependent upon one another. We either learn now that we must pull together, and that we must give cooperatively, individually and nationally, to build a stronger whole, or we die in chaos. We cannot escape, therefore, even if we would, our basic responsibility as citizens without peril and disaster to those things in life we hold most dear. If our own welfare did not depend upon that of others, we perhaps could afford to be selfish. But being, as we are, completely, mutually, interdependent upon one another in the 20oth century form of society, our selfish interest is to give as well as to get. Only thus can we win this war. And that is our first task. Only thus can we win the peace, and that is our second task. Only thus can we attain for ourselves personally, you and me, a life worth anything at all.