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try, organized into local groups united by national councils, wouldplan each year not the amount of goods it could sell but theamount needed by the nation. This estimate, approved by the government,would be authorized as the production program of theyear. Each region and each unit in the region would receive itsallocation of what it might produce. Prices would be fixed and allthe producing units would proceed to turn out their respectivequotas. The government would guarantee the sale of everythingproduced, underwriting the whole program and taking ofí the handsof all producers their undisposable surpluses. The risks of businesswould be transferred almost entirely to the government. 9What is stewing in Washington is a potpourri of all these ideas.The National Resources Planning Board in its report to Congress didactually propose that the government should become a partner in railroads,shipping, busses, airlines, power, telephone, telegraph, radio,aluminum, and other basic industries. It proposed also governmentparticipation in the financing of industry without setting very muchlimitation on it. John Maynard Keynes—now Lord Keynes and amember of the Board of Governors of the Bank of England and themost distinguished English-speaking exponent of these theories—speaks of this as "a somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment."By this he means to distinguish his plan from the socializationof industry. Industry would be operated by private groupsbut the investment in industry would be socialized. "It is not theownership of the instruments of production which it is importantfor the state to assume. If the state is able to determine the aggregateamount of resources devoted to augmenting the instrumentsand the basic rate of reward to those who can own them it will haveaccomplished all that is necessary," says Lord Keynes. The governmentwill interpose itself between the corporate enterprise and theinvestor. The government will sell its securities to the investor,and as these will be guaranteed securities, the government can fixthe rate of interest and therefore the rate of reward to the investor.The government will then invest these funds in industry. The industryis "owned" by a private corporation. But the governmentowns its bonds, perhaps much of its stock. Thus Lord Keynes thinks9 Jobs for All, by Mordecai £zekiel, Knopf, New York, 1939.187