Point Four

Abstract

The basic problem of the American economy, the problem which increasingly dominates our whole domestic and international policy, is how to get rid of what may be called "the surplus." The size of the surplus in "normal" times may be anywhere from, say, $10 billion to $30 billion. It is surplus in the sense that the mass of working-class and middle-class consumers cannot afford to buy it in the form of finished goods and services, and capitalists cannot make profitable use of it in the form of additional plant, equipment, etc.

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