The Consumer Under the National Recovery Administration

I HAVE been reminded by some of the delightful skeptics who enliven the work of the Consumers' Advisory Board that the title of my paper, The Consumer Under the National Recovery suggests that the NRA is just one more of those insupportable burdens which are constantly being heaped upon that long-suffering subject of economic abuse-the consumer. In selecting the title I assure them I had no such inference in mind. If I had attached any significance to the word under beyond that suggested by the patent fact that consumption is much affected by the dispensations of the National Recovery Administration, it would have been that the consumer provides a most vital underpinning for the entire project, and that he is to be guarded and cherished accordingly. To many people, of course, the idea that the NRA is a sort of steam roller designed to flatten the consumer still further seems entirely valid. They note that it calls for increases in costs, and hence, in many cases, increases in prices. Reasoning, in accordance with a quite general practice, that low prices are good for consumers, and high prices bad, they conclude that consumers are bound to be adversely affected by the NRA, regardless of special arrangements thoughtfully made to safeguard their interests. However, in opposition to this view, I submit that a plausible case can be made that the promotion and protection of the consumers' interest is logically consistent with the NRA project (is, indeed, the most vital element in its success), and that this interest, properly safeguarded, stands to gain greatly in the long-time developments of which we are probably witnessing only the initial steps. To make such a case it is necessary to consider the consumers' interest as the interest of the community at large in consuming a larger volume of goods and services, rather than the interest of any particular group in that regard. If any defense of this definition of the consumer and his or her or its interest is required (and I shall have occasion subsequently to use the term consumer as synonymous with purchaser), I can only say that the consumer, like Mrs. Malaprop's conception of Caesar's wife, is all things to all men, and accordingly subject to grave vicissitudes of definition

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