A very clear indication of the attitude of big investors - despite all their protestations « towards unemployment was revenled in the latest ismue of Investors Chronicle, a journal which eaters for stock exchange gamblers but which reflects the opinions of the bigger boyse The occasion for the expression of opinion was a review of the latest H obart Paper, which was written by an anonymous economist who calls himself Spartacus. Written for the Institute of Economic Affairs, the peper is entitled: "Growth through competition". The Investors! Chronicle notes that De thor is described as writing with "an authority derived from practical experience." The pamphlet does 4 debunking job on George Brown's National Plan, but the enthusiasm of of the reviewer is raised by the second part of the paper: "Spartacus goes on from his slating of the Plan to produce his own ideas, They are none of them new, but neither have any of them actually been tried. They are, unhappily, the ideas of academics rather than of practical politicians who rarely have the courage to pursue them once in offices Point one is the freeing of the poundsee.eSecondly, the Spartacus plan calls for freedom” (sic) "from the fear of unemployment »nd for better insurance paymentss The third proposal is to raise unemployment to 24% from the present li%e These two are linked; only by creating new attitudes to changing or waiting between jobs can the Government induce in the UsK. a floating reserve of employees (an economic advantage) without ‘social outcry. ~~" ~~"
"Achieving this highly desirable state of affairs, however, is easier said than done, We shall certainly have to wait either for another and stronger Governuent, or 2 period of stiff recession, before ony of his measures could even seriously be suggested by a politicianese"”
(my emphasis throughout) One is struck not only by such frank expression of opinion (even if in places it is couched in almost marxian terms}) but by the similarity. of this argument to that put forward by Ray Gunter a few weeks ago