Adieu, Private Enterprise?

FRANCE Adieu, Private Enterprise

Robert Lacoste, veteran trade unionist and Minister of Industrial Production in General de Gaulle's Government, expounded a revolutionary dogma for France's economy:

"It would be illusory to depend on private initiative for the resumption of economic activity in France. Only the State has the necessary means."

On this dogma, said Minister Lacoste, a new system was being built. Deep-rooted French individual enterprise would be largely uprooted. All branches of industrial and food production--coal, steel, textiles, etc.--would operate under the Government's "provisional commissioners." "Sixty such officials, responsible to the Ministry of Production and appointed with the advice of the trade unions, were already at work. The state would decide what to produce, how to allocate materials and manpower. The commissioners would have advisory councils ("professional offices") composed equally of workers and employers.

"This," said Minister Lacoste, "is real industrial democracy." He also observed: the new system "will be much like Russian institutions, except that we will retain the foundation of private enterprises."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.