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CHAPTER 16“Stabilizing” Commodities1Attempts to lift the prices of particular commodities permanentlyabove their natural market levels have failed so often, so disastrously,and so notoriously that sophisticated pressure groups, and thebureaucrats upon whom they apply the pressure, seldom openly avowthat aim. Their stated aims, particularly when they are first proposingthat the government intervene, are usually more modest, and moreplausible.They have no wish, they declare, to raise the price of commodity Xpermanently above its natural level. That, they concede, would be unfairto consumers. But it is now obviously selling far below its natural level.The producers cannot make a living. Unless we act promptly, they willbe thrown out of business. Then there will be a real scarcity, and consumerswill have to pay exorbitant prices for the commodity. The apparentbargains that the consumers are now getting will cost them dear inthe end. For the present “temporary” low price cannot last. But we cannotafford to wait for so-called natural market forces, or for the “blind”law of supply and demand, to correct the situation. For by that timethe producers will be ruined and a great scarcity will be upon us. Thegovernment must act. All that we really want to do is to correct theseviolent, senseless fluctuations in price. We are not trying to boost the price;we are only trying to stabilize it.97