Suchergebnisse

While the war lasts most decisions and policies can only be provisional. It has now become apparent that the view that the conflict had settled down into siege warfare, supported by the Allied blockade of Germany, has been belied by events. In the last war the long military stalemate in France gave the Allies time to organize their superior economic strength, and in the end this superiority tipped the scales. The economic strategy so far would seem to have been based upon the assumption of much the same kind of military development. If, however, the military situation is as critical as it appears to be, the economic strategy will have to alter. Our economic and financial measures are then likely to undergo a series of improvisations which will defy all attempts at precise calculations. Germany's blitzkrieg will certainly warrant new forms of economic mobilization in the United Kingdom, and probably in Canada too. In this situation careful attempts to minimize costs, involving a widespread reliance on private-initiative and the free pricing system, must and will be thrown overboard. And with them will go the framework and modes of thought of much of our traditional economic theory.Discussion of the finance of war is also complicated by the fact that public finance—or the larger problem of war economics—is as much a problem of politics as it is of economics. And it is the political aspect of the subject which surrounds war finance with most of the controversy which it possesses. Whether a particular form of taxation, or the decision to do by government decree what is normally done by taxation, is desirable or not, turns more and more on the state of political sentiment, and less and less on questions of economic analysis. In this domain of politics the economist has no particular jurisdiction; and for the politician himself the condition of public opinion changes so rapidly during war that measures deemed impolitic today may be universally demanded tomorrow.