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he avoids statism or government ownership of industry. What isperfectly obvious, however, is that in one form or another thesemen are attempting to fabricate a system that will not be communisticand will not involve state ownership but will put in thehands of the all-powerful state not only through institutions ofpublic regulation but through financial investment complete controlof the economic system, while at the same time running upvast debts against the government and utilizing the public creditto create employment.Of course this is fascism. For this principle of the Dual ConsumptiveEconomy, as Dr. Hansen calls it, or the principle of plannedconsumption, as the fascists call it, by whatever name it is called isin fact one of the ingredients of the fascist or national socialistsystem. And if we will add to it the other ingredients of fascism ornational socialism, we will then have that baleful order in America.Whether this is a sound system or not is a matter for discussion.Out sound or not, as Mr. Dal Hitchcock points out, it is the Nazisystem. Whether we shall adopt it or not is hardly any longer aquestion. We have adopted it. The question is, can we get rid of it,and how? And if we are to continue it, the next question is howcan we do so while at the same time continuing to operate oursociety in accordance with the democratic processes? This point weshall consider later.America has now stumbled through the same marshes as Italyand Germany—and most European countries. Her leaders had proclaimedtheir undying belief in sound finance and balanced budgetswhile they teetered timidly on unbalanced ones. The public clamorfor benefits, the cries of insistent minorities for relief and work, theimperious demand of all for action, action in some direction againstthe pressure of the pitiless laws of nature—all this was far morepotent in shaping the course of the administration's fiscal policythan any fixed convictions based on principle. An unbalancedbudget, after all, is a more or less impersonal evil, not easily graspedby the masses; but an army of unemployed men and the painfullyconspicuous spectacle of shrinking purchasing power are thingsthat strike down sharply on their consciousness. It is not easy, perhaps,to eat one's words about balancing the budget. But it is easier188