THE PLANNED SOCIETY
During the nineteenth and the first years of the twentieth
century economic exchanges between the nations were
carried on with remarkable smoothness. National econo-
mies were everywhere unplanned. The individuals who
carried on international trade were forced in their own
interest to conform to the rules of the game, as developed
in the City of London. If they failed to conformf they
were ruined and that was an end of it. Here we have
the converse of the paradox formulated above. National
planlessness in economic matters results in international
economic co-ordination.
We are on the horns of a dilemma. In every country
large numbers of people are suffering privations owing to
defects,in the economic machine. These people must be
helped, and if they are to be helped effectively and per-
manently, the economic machine must be re-planned. But
economic planning undertaken by a national government
for the benefit of its own people inevitably disturbs that
international economic harmony which is the result of
national planlessness. In the process of planning for the
benefit of their respective peoples, national governments
impede the flow of international trade, enter into new
forms of international rivalry and create fresh sources of
international discord. During the last few years most of
the governments of the world have had to choose between
two almost equal evils. Either they could abandon the
victims of economic maladjustment to their fate; but such
a course was shocking to decent sentiment and, since the
sufferers might vote against the government or even break
out into violent revolt, politically dangerous. Or else they
might help the sufferers by imposing a governmental
plan upon the economic activity of their respective coun-
tries; but in this case they reduced the system of inter-
national exchanges to chaos and increased the probability
of general war.
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