In no
other way can the American economic system retain that flexibility with
which its past efficiency has been associated. In no other way can the
policy of these corporations continue to be, as it has so often been in
the past, in an economic sense genuinely constructive. This flexibility
frequently requires readjustments in the conditions of local industry
which cause grave losses to individuals or even communities; but it is
just such readjustments which are necessary to continued economic
efficiency; and it is just such readjustments which would tend to be
prevented by an official rate-making authority. An official rate-making
power would necessarily prefer certain rigid rules, favorable to the
existing distribution of population and business. Every tendency to a
new and more efficient distribution of trade would be checked, because
of its unfairness to those who suffer from it. Thus the American
industrial system would gradually become petrified, and the national
organization of American industry would be sacrificed for the benefit of
an indiscriminate collection of local interests.
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