TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.
Full text is unavailable for this digitized archive article. Subscribers may view the full text of this article in its original form through TimesMachine.
Two very interesting communications dealing with the important problem of deficit financing have appeared in THE NEW YORK TIMES this week. The contrast between their approaches is most illuminating. View Full Article in Timesmachine »
Join a subscriber-only event. Connect with our journalists. See the lineup.
Financing Deficits
Real Effects Should Be Studied
To Curb Recklessness
The writer of the following letter is
a member of the Graduate Faculty of
Political and Social Soience organized
under the New School for Social Re-
search.
TO THE EDITOR OF THE NEw YORK TIMES:
Two very interesting communica-
tions dealing with the important prob-
lem of deficit financing have appeared
in THE NEw YORK TIMES this week.
The contrast between their approaches
is most illuminating.
On Monday Mr. Lipschutz confesses
puzzlement at the success of deficit
financing and the non-arrival of the
awful catastrophes which he, among
other opponents, foresaw as
results of a debt exceeding 45 billion
dollars. Mr. Lipschutz has tried to find
an explanation of this paradox and is
brave enough and honest enough to con-
siđer the possibility that his fears may
have been unfounded. He is seriously
concerned and asks for enlightenment.
He concludes his communication by
saying that, "So far the proposition
that deficit financing can go on for-
ever seems to be supported by experi-
ence. * .* Is this an invitation to dis-
aster, or have the New Deal economists
made the most brilliant điscovery of
evitable
modern times ?"
Limits Are Real
Such a serious question deserves to
be answered by a serious account of
the real limits to deficit financing and
a demonstration that one cannot simply
say that "the more the Government
borrows the more it can borrow."
On Thursday Mr. Kingsley answers
Mr. Lipschutz, but instead of indicating
the limits to deficit financing, he re-
peats the superstitions from which Mr.
Lipschutz has been emancipated by his
ability to face facts. Mr. Kingsley is
so eager to discredit deficit financing
and all its works that he sees no in-
consistency in saying that it was "or-
iginated by a post-Victorian politician
in Italy" and that "it is just another
one of the devious schemes that have
been thought up by the rulers of vari-
ous nations throughout the centuries."
His insistence that "the national debt
is no more and no less than a mort-
gage" is calculated to hide the funda-
mental fact that it is we who hold the
mortgage. The statement that we can
service a national debt of a size just
equal to the nation's material wealth
is completely without foundation, There
are limits to the size of the debt that
can be serviced without raising serious
difficulties in the working of
economy, but the critical limit may as
well be below as above the figure rep-
resenting the nation's material wealth.
Similarly without foundation is the as-
sertion that a national debt greater
than the nation's material wealth must
lead to repudiation or inflation.
the
Differences in Debts
All these errors may be based on a
failure to recognize the differences be-
tween private and public debts, with-
out which it is impossible to under-
stand any serious discussion of deficit
financing. But even more objectionable
is the illegitimate transition from re-
ferring to Government debt as "unpay-
able" to declaring investments in them
to be “unsafe." All that "unpayable"
means, as originally used by Mr. Lip-
schutz, is that the Government may
find it advisable to re-borrow as old
debts fall due and are repaid. Every
single investor can be absolutely secure
in the interest and repayment of his
investment no matter how long this
goes on. It is definitely misleading to
call the "unpayable" debt "unsafe" as
if the Government were not able
meet its obligations to the individual
owners of Government bonds,
Such an answer is not going to make
any impression on people like Mr. Lip-
schutz, who have escaped once for all
from the old unreasoning rejection of
anything that departed from tradition-
al "sound" Government finance. In-
stead there is needed a rational indica-
tion of the limits beyond which deficit
financing cannot go without doing harm
to the economy.
Thus it might be pointed out that
deficit financing cannot cure unemploy-
ment due to workers not having desired
skills or the proper machines to work
with when there is a great change in
demand, as when the economy is trans-
formed from war to peace production.
It might be pointed out that a very
great debt means a great income in
interest from the debt, that the spend-
ing of much of this income could cause
a price rise-inflation-unless heavy
taxes are imposed, and that such heavy
taxes might interfere with the most
efficient working of the economy.
It might be pointed out that the
growth of the national debt can have
important effects on the distribution of
income and wealth with possible grave
social consequences unless something is
done to prevent these.
It is only a consideration of real ef-
fects, and not the repetition of ancient
shibboleths which can prevent deficit
financing in the future from being applied recklessly with possible harm to
our economy and its free institutions,
ABBA P. LERNER,
New York, Aug. 4, 1944.
DETACHMENT
With what detachment does our cat
View the adjacent scene.
A notable achievement, that!
Poised, confident, serene,
With bland and supercilious eye
He lets the feline world go by.
Thus clearly does he demonstrate
A trait we well might emulate.
How many nagging ills of life,
What smarting pricks of petty strife,
We likewise might 1gnore if we
Would view the world objectively.
UNA W. HARSEN.
財政赤字の本当の効果を研究し、無謀な行動を抑制すべきである 次の手紙の筆者は、New School for Social Re-searchの下に組織された政治・社会学大学院のメンバーである。ニューヨーク・タイムズ紙の編集者へ。今週のニューヨーク・タイムズ紙には、赤字財政という重要な問題を扱った2つの興味深い記事が掲載されている。両者のアプローチの違いは、非常に示唆に富んでいます。リプシュッツ氏は月曜日に、赤字財政が成功し、450億ドルを超える負債の結果として、他の反対派とともに予見していた恐ろしい大惨事が起こらないことに困惑していると告白しています。リプシュッツ氏は，このパラドックスの説明を探ろうとしており，自分の懸念が杞憂であった可能性を考慮する勇気と誠実さを持っています。彼は真剣に心配しており，啓発を求めています。これまでのところ、赤字財政は永遠に続くという命題は、経験的に裏付けられているようです。* それとも、ニューディールの経済学者たちは、現代の最も素晴らしい発見をしたのでしょうか？" 限界は現実にある このような深刻な質問には、赤字財政の現実的な限界を真剣に説明し、「政府が借りれば借りるほど、借りられる」と単純に言うことはできないということを証明することで答えるべきです。木曜日にキングスレー氏はリプシュッツ氏に答えていますが、赤字財政の限界を示す代わりに、リプシュッツ氏が事実を直視する能力によって解放された迷信を再掲しています。キングスレー氏は、赤字国債とその仕組みを否定することに熱心で、赤字国債は「イタリアのポスト・ヴィクトリア朝の政治家が発案したもの」であり、「何世紀にもわたって様々な国の支配者が考えてきた巧妙な計画の一つに過ぎない」と言うことに何の整合性も感じていません。国の借金は住宅ローン以上でも以下でもない」という彼の主張は、住宅ローンを抱えているのは私たちであるという基本的な事実を隠すためのものです。国の物質的な豊かさと同じ大きさの国の借金を処理できるという発言は、まったく根拠がありません。経済活動に深刻な問題を引き起こすことなく処理できる借金の大きさには限界がありますが、その限界は国の物質的な豊かさを表す数値よりも低い場合も高い場合もあります。同様に、国の物質的な豊かさよりも大きな国の債務は、否認やインフレーションを引き起こすに違いないという説も根拠がありません。 債務の違い これらの誤りは、民間債務と公的債務の違いを認識していないことに基づいています。しかし、それ以上に問題なのは、政府債務を「返済不能」と呼ぶことから、政府債務への投資を「安全でない」と宣言することへと、違法に移行していることである。リップシュッツ氏が最初に使った "unpayable "の意味は、政府が古い借金の返済期限が来たときに再借り入れをすることが望ましいと考える可能性があるということである。このような状況がどれだけ続いても、投資家は皆、自分の投資の利子と返済に絶対的な安心感を持つことができる。返せない」負債を「安全でない」と呼ぶのは、あたかも政府が国債の個人所有者に対する義務を果たせないかのような誤解を招くものである。 このような答えは、伝統的な「健全な」政府財政から逸脱するものを理不尽に拒絶することから一旦逃れたリップシュッツ氏のような人々には何の印象も与えないであろう。その代わりに、赤字財政が経済に悪影響を与えずに済む限界を合理的に示すことが必要である。
DETACHMENT With What Detachment does our cat View the adjacent scene. 特筆すべき成果ですね。堂々としていて、自信に満ちていて、落ち着いていて、淡々としていて、上から目線で、猫の世界を見ている。このように、彼は私たちが見習うべき特性を明確に示しています。私たちが世界を客観的に見ることができれば、どれほど多くの人生の厄介な問題や、些細な争いの痛みを感じても、同様に無視することができるでしょう。UNA W. HARSEN.
0 件のコメント:
コメントを投稿