My Life

My Life - Oswald Mosleyof money ... the rate of exchange can move freely—look after itself—provided theeconomy is protected by complete import control'. A floating exchange rate canautomatically check excessive imports, as I argued in my speech recommending theBirmingham proposals, and this could render import controls redundant. Yet, todevelop the full efficacy of the policy I would prefer to combine a floating exchangerate with carefully selective import controls.Present parties have not even reached the point of fully implementing the principles ofKeynes, and are therefore remote from even confronting the further question: isKeynes enough? My own answer is that the problem of the thirties will not be finallyovercome until we deal with its fundamental conditions; this has certainly not yetbeen done, and even Keynesian principles are inadequate to this eventual task.Cyclical fluctuations can be and have been ironed out by the Keynesian monetary andfiscal methods. Yet the permanent tendency to crisis of the present system has notbeen averted but only postponed by temporary and entirely artificial measures whichcannot be permanently employed. In addition to the Keynesian technique the Westernworld in recent years has experienced two minor wars, the armament race and thespace race to absorb production surplus to normal market demand, and even atemporary check to the progress of these amenities has been hailed with Pressheadlines, 'Peace scare on Wall Street'.Nothing has been done to meet the permanent drive of the system toward crisis; thegeneral tendency of Western capitalism under the urge of continual scientific andtechnical invention to produce far more than the purchasing power or even thevolition of the people can consume, and the particular tendency of Britain's top-heavyisland economy to find difficulty in exporting over thirty per cent of its totalproduction to world markets in conditions of intensive and increasing competition.When the highly paid technocrats of America in the twenties explained to me in detailthe productive potential of America even in that period, it became clear that in thelong run something more would be needed to utilise that vast power than normalmarket arrangements, even with the addition of Keynesian monetary techniques. Whathas occurred since has not diminished but greatly increased the necessity for farreachingpolicies, but the gravity of the need has been masked and therefore in the endaggravated by the altogether abnormal demand caused by the unparalleled destructionof the Second World War and its continuing aftermath in minor wars and armamentrivalries, which any relaxation of world tension can at any time bring to an end; theeconomic deluge will descend when the war clouds are dissipated.When things are going well it is a human tendency to believe that no change will evercome. 'Nothing can happen' becomes the fixed belief of a prosperous complacency,but all history is a record of the contrary; things happen, and often the least expected.This time there is little excuse for such myopia, because the symptoms are becomingincreasingly plain. Despite large armaments and small wars the tendency to overproducein relation to normal market demand becomes more and more apparent inAmerica, and the distortion of the natural mechanism of production and market bymeasures necessary to maintain the artificial situation of cold or warm war tendsfinally to aggravate the disequilibrium. Britain in particular reels from minor crisis tocrisis because we find difficulty in selling abroad a larger proportion of our totalproduction than any other Western country, and the genius of British managers andtechnicians will labour increasingly under the overwhelming handicap of having to409 of 424