Volume 1, Number 8 · December 12, 1963
In the French Style
By Robert L. Heilbroner
Economic Planning in France
by John Hackett, by Anne-Marie Hackett
Harvard, 481 pp., $7.00
This is a book of the utmost importance for the United States—a book whose relevance and potential educational influence can hardly be overstressed. On the face of it a scholarly analysis of the French planning system, the Hacketts' book is, in fact, a treatise on the compatibility of planning and capitalism. The book is reticent about drawing conclusions from the French experience and applying them to other nations, yet one conclusion forces itself irresistibly on this reader: that the experience of the French economy makes it no longer possible for the government of the United States, or for the spokesmen of American business, to excuse the increasing malfunction of this economy on the grounds of the incompatibility between planning and 'free enterprise.' On the contrary it is now possible to state on the evidence presented in this book what could before only be advanced on faith—that a conservative nation dominated by large corporate enterprises can plan with reasonable effectiveness, and that the failure to do so is a national disgrace.
Review, 2270 words
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