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We have left the period of extreme individualism and are living in a periodin which the national economy must be recognized as a controlling factor. 4Of course the NRA proved to be a colossal failure. The reasonwas obvious. The innumerable regulations adopted were designed todictate the behavior of men in the operation of their factories andstores where they had always enjoyed the fullest freedom. Howeverthe country may have approved the experiment in theory, inpractice enterprisers found themselves subjected suddenly to directivesendless in number and complexity, to espionage, and finally tocoercions against which they rebelled. Nothing could make thiswork save the iron hand of a dictatorial and ruthless governmentthat could exist without the approval at the polls of these enterprisers.A dictator in Germany and Italy, answerable to no one savehis own mailed fist and with his storm troopers to enforce compliancewith his decrees, may, perhaps, operate such a system. But ina democracy it is impossible. Long before the Supreme Court, by aunanimous decision, declared the NRA unconstitutional, it wasfalling apart for lack of effective compliance machinery.Thus we saw this experiment in corporativism, planning, andautarchy upon the same general model and for the same reasons asin Germany and Italy. The first condition of a planned economy isthat it shall be a closed economy. The perfect example of autarchywould be a nation with an impenetrable wall around it, keeping outeverybody and every kind of goods and striving for a complete selfsufficiency.Of course this is not practicable anywhere. Despite ourgreat resources there are essential materials, such as rubber, tin,tungsten, quinine, etc., we do not possess. We must buy them fromother nations and in turn sell things to them. But there is a theorythat nations should develop their own resources to be self-sufficientas far as humanly possible. The tariff has been used in some measuretoward this end, but in a very modified form. However, when plannersset out to manage the society, not for self-sufficiency primarilybut in order to speed up the economy, it is inevitable that they movetoward autarchy. If you seek to plan your economy you must lay*Reþort of the Committee on Continuity of Business and Employment, H. I. Harriman,chairman. U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Washington, D.C., 1931.199