The Employment and Social Insurance Bill. I. General Principles and European Experience

Extract

The great economic depression from which we still suffer to-day has dealt a severe blow to individualistic thought, and a social or collectivist tendency has set in. The individual producer is no longer left to decide for himself what he wants to export and how much and at what price. Restrictions are put upon him under the Natural Products Marketing Act with regard to quantity, quality, and prices, to which he must submit in the interests of industry as a whole, although it may be to his own individual disadvantage. These restrictions originate as a rule from a voluntary agreement among producers. As soon, however, as the state recognizes the importance of such a regulation in the interests of national economy, it enforces it by a law, so as to protect the producing community and the general public against such producers as are not sufficiently farsighted to fall into line of their own accord. But the state must go only so far in exercising this influence and control over production and commerce as is necessary in the interests of the community, without limiting too much the private initiative which is essential for commercial success. Those aims are by no means incompatible, but are complementary to one another, like authority and freedom in the purely political sphere.