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    "label": "Correspondence Between Myron Taylor and President Harry S. Truman, with Attachment",
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    "title": "Correspondence Between Myron Taylor and President Harry S. Truman, with Attachment",
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    "ocrText": "-2-\nAs regards the economic situation my views also remain\nunaltered. I do not believe that it is possible to resuscitate\nthe Nineteenth Century economic world based on the complete, or\nalmost complete, divorce between governmental activities and in-\ndividual freedom of trade and investment, the whole held together\nby a monetary system based on a metallic substance of intrinsic\nvalue. whether trade and investment are in future going to be\ncarried on by individuals or by State agencies will be according to the\nstructure and outlook of different countries. In either case, however,\nthey will be directed by national policy from the point of view of\nstability of employment and volume of domestic production, and indi-\nvidual initiative will only be allowed free play in so far as it does\nnot cut across national policy. In other words trade and investment\nin future will be essentially interwnational and between countries as\nsuch and not as between individuals regardless of national interests.\nSimilarly, monetary policy will also be national policy based in the\nmain on maintaining the stability of the internal price level, with\nexchange parity as a secondary consideration. gold will for long\ncontinue to be a useful medium for settling international balances at\na value varying with what each country cares to pay for it. But it\nwill not be a basis for currency\nAll this will I know be a great shock to Mr. Hull and many of\nyour friends at home. The trouble is, to put it quite frankly, that\nthe United States, having lived for the last century to some extent\ninsulated from external economics and concentrating on the wonderful\ndevelopment of its own resources, does still tend to think as we\nthought in 1845. The difference is that to a large extent the whole\nworld thought with us in 1845, while I fear very few parts of the\nworld think like that today, whatever they may say at international\nconferences where it is thought agreeable and a sign of international\ngood will to repeat the assertions of a by-gone era.\nSERVICE\nis"
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