WHAT PEACE CAN MEAN TO AMERICAN FARMERS 



the depth of the depression, the total value of the gross national 

 product had fallen to less than 55 billion dollars, when expenditures 

 of consumers, or private individuals accounted for 77 percent of the 

 total, those of business for 6 percent, and those of Government for 

 about 17 percent. In 1943, with the war in full swing, the total value 

 of the gross national product had risen to 187.8 billion dollars. Only 

 48.4 percent of this amount was produced to meet the demand of 

 individual consumers, only 1.1 percent was for business, and the 

 remaining 50.5 percent was for Government, mostly the Federal Gov- 

 ernment. Production for consumers and business rose from 88 billions 

 in 1929 to 93 billions in 1943; production for governments, from 11 

 billions to 95 billions. 



Table 2. 



-Gross national product, distributed according to source of demand, 

 United States, selected years 1 



Source of demand 



1929 



1933 



1937 



1940 



1943 



Individuals 2 



Business 3 



Government 4 



Billion 



dollars 



70.8 



17.6 



11.0 



Per- 

 cent 

 71.2 

 17.7 

 11.1 



Billion 



dollars 



42.4 



3.3 



9.1 



Per- 

 cent 

 77.4 

 6.0 

 16.6 



Billion 



dollars 



62.5 



11.6 



13.6 



Per- 

 cent 

 71.2 

 13.2 

 15.6 



Billion 



dollars 



65.7 



14.8 



16.7 



Per- 

 cent 

 67.6 

 15.2 

 17.2 



Billion 

 dollars 



90.9 

 2.1 



94.8 



Per- 

 cent 



48.4 

 1.1 



50.5 



All sources (total 

 product) 



99.4 



100.0 



54.8 



100.0 



87.7 



100.0 



97.1 



100.0 



187.8 



100.0 



1 Based on estimates published by the Department of Commerce in Survey of Current 

 Business. 



2 Includes services as well as durable and nondurable goods. 



3 Includes machinery and equipment, private construction (including residential), net 

 change in business inventories, net exports, and domestic output of monetary gold and 

 silver. 



4 Includes commodities and services, and public construction of local, State, and Federal 

 Governments, and war outlays of the Federal Government. 



In the astounding difference between the situation in 1929, when 

 Government expenditures accounted for only 11 percent of the total 

 national product, and the situation in 1943, when such expenditures 

 supported over half of the entire economy — in this difference is to 

 be found some measure of the post-war employment problem. Natur- 

 ally Government expenditures will not continue at current high levels 

 after the war is won. If full employment supported mainly by private 

 spending is to be maintained after the war, however, the great ques- 

 tion that emerges is : What can and should Government do to make 

 sure that private individuals and business firms will increase their 

 expenditures so as to offset in large measure the decline in Govern- 

 ment expenditures expected to result from the reconversion of the 

 economy from a wartime to a peacetime basis ? The backlog of con- 

 sumer demand, supported by accumulated wartime savings, gives 

 some assurance that such expenditures will increase for a time at least 

 during the post-war years, but it is still a question whether they will 

 increase sufficiently to sustain a high level of economic activity in 

 the face of a normal peacetime rate of Government spending. 



To maintain full employment is to eliminate alternate periods of 

 u boom and bust," or largely to eliminate the wide swings of the busi- 

 ness cycle — the greatest of which ever experienced in peacetime was 

 the collapse from 1929 to 1933. Lesser ups and downs have been 

 experienced before, and are regarded by some as a necessary evil and 

 an essential characteristic of a private-enterprise economy. Certainly 

 the country never had full employment at any time during the inter- 



