Guns & Butter

In four years of Marshall Planning, Western Europe's gross national product has jumped from a sickly $133 billion in 1947 to a convalescent $164 billion in 1950. But little of this recovery Has yet benefited European workers and consumers. No sooner did shoes and bathtubs begin to flow into Europe than Soviet aggression stirred rearmament talk. Disgruntled Europeans feared that once again they would be cheated of butter to pay for guns.

ECA rejected such thinking. Last week it announced a potentially revolutionary program to provide guns as well as butter by doubling European productivity. Details : ECA, which has so far done business with governments, will start passing out "production assistance" direct to managers and workmen. Each beneficiary nation will set up regional councils of labor, management, government and ECA. Experts will explain U.S. production methods to trade unionists. Go-ahead European companies will be "adopted" by U.S. firms willing to share their knowledge.

To run the new program, ECAdministrator William Foster appointed California's millionaire shoemaker, William Joyce Jr., and as his lieutenant, Robert Oliver, head of the C.I.O. in Texas. Joyce and Oliver designed the program.

To get help, a European businessman will have to show that his management is competent, that his product will benefit Europe as a whole (example: a Dutch shipbuilder would probably qualify for aid, a French girdle maker would not), and that labor unions in his plants are not Communist-dominated. Above all, ECA insists, European employers must be willing to adopt one principle of U.S.-style capitalism: increased profits must "filter down to the worker" in better pay or lower prices.

Will this ambitious program (which ECA hopes to finance out of its regular $2 billion budget) work? ECA thinks it may, if Europeans will let it. Western Europe could raise its gross national product by $100 billion, said Foster. "Accomplished in ten years, this would be a masterful job. Done in five, it would be a near miracle--but possible, nonetheless."

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