The "Consumer" and "Public" Interests Under Public Regulation

Abstract

rT HE planning of an economy, even the public regulation of a single industry, requires that the interests to be affected by the plan or the control be carefully stated. Usually there is no great difficulty in identifying and labeling the interests of particular producer-owner groups immediately involved in control schemes; but authoritative thinking and administrative practice have recently developed a pronounced confusion with reference to the interest of the group to whom, in the last analysis and over the economy as a whole, regulation of industry is of the greatest importance the consumer. In the case of a number of recent ventures in authoritative control (public and semipublic), both in the United States and abroad-notably in the instance of the National Recovery Administration-there has been added, as a kind of conscience-saving appendage to the public agency in charge of administering the particular scheme, a or committee whose function it is to represent the consumer, to present and even to press upon the public-at-large administrative board the special interests of the consuming public.' This tendency to