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Full resolution (TIFF) - On this page / på denna sida - IV. Economics - 12. New Blows to Southern Agriculture During the ’Thirties: Trends and Policies - 9. Economic Evaluation of the A.A.A
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266 An American Dilemma
mendable. In fact, economic progress means that we become able to produce
our foodstuffs and agricultural raw materials with less of our available
labor.
But there is one important consequence of such a policy which must be
taken into account if it is to be deemed rational: Employment must be
found for the agricultural labor dismissed as a consequence of trends or of
policy. Theoretically, there is plenty of place for labor in American indus-
try: the masses of people are in need of many more industrial products.
Houses need to be rebuilt j
people need more and better furniture and
other household gadgets; large sectors of the American population do not
enjoy health and educational facilities to an optimal degree. An obvious
complement to an agricultural policy of the A.A.A. type would be, there-
fore, a large-scale effort to move a part of the agricultural population to
industry. It is an equally obvious inference that this effort should be
concentrated upon the younger generation, in which should be invested a
vocational training making them fit for industrial work. In regard to Negro
education in the South, this policy will require a complete reform of the
educational system and, particularly, a reformulation of the aims of voca-
tional education.®
Unfortunately it happened that this agricultural policy had to be carried
out during an unprecedentedly deep and protracted depression. Unfortu-
nately, too, the New Deal was a conspicuous failure in its attempt to turn
the depression into economic prosperity.** A general defeatism became wide-
spread in regard to the continuation of the trend toward more and more
industrialization. Even among experts there was defeatism. This explains
both why this rational complement to the policy of agricultural contraction
was never undertaken in any wholehearted fashion and why it was not
more generally pointed out to the public by informed persons. In the
^thirties, apparently, Americans doubted if there would ever be any place
for more workers in American industry. This was, of course, a delusion.
The present shortage of labor, and particularly skilled labor, for war
production throws light on this mistake in American depression policy;
but any improvement of business conditions would have done it, though
not so dramatically.
From the point of view of economic rationality a second main short-
coming of the American agricultural policy is closely bound up with the
one mentioned. The tremendous scope of the A.A.A. intervention in regard
to cotton and other Southern cash crops alone makes it clear from the outset
•See Chapter 17, Section 5.
It is the author’s considered opinion that this failure was not necessary but was due
to specific faults in the economic theory and the coordination of practical policies of the
American expansion program. As a discussion of this point would carry us too far and as
it is not implied as a premise in our argument, we leave it with this note.
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