Business: Boom, Shortages, Taxes, War

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The question answered itself. Henry Ford in effect said to Washington: "You can take me over for taxes, and in a perfectly legal way if you just wait long enough. But do you want to? Can you run this business more efficiently than I can?" Ford's defense record in 1941 made the answer self-evident. The most useful things he did were not those OPM did for him, but those he did by himself.

1941 was the year in which Business began to learn that it was incompetent to run Government, and in which Government began to learn that it was incompetent to run Business. Each job was too technical for the other to handle. Business' job was not social service but making money out of taking orders. Government's job was not handing out subsidies, but giving clear policy directives to the economy and seeing that all its resources —including the profit motive—are fully used. By the end of 1941 the U.S. had had a bellyful of Business posing as Government, and Government hiding behind Business. In 1942 the U.S. would need both Government and Business, and it would need each functioning on its own side of the fence.