CHARLES WALTERS ON PARITY

The person who's most advanced the parity concept in current times is Charles Walters, of Raytown, Missouri. In 1971, after writing for the National Farmers Organization (known for its "holding actions"), he founded the monthly newspaper, Acres, U.S.A., to inform readers both of New Deal parity pricing and of alternatives to chemical-based farming.

Walters is now elderly and suffers failing eyesight, but is able, thankfully, to continue his writing. Some of his words:

"The Romans could not understand that free men produced best. They did not understand that slaves could not consume the production their particular division of labor had accounted for.

"Listen to this: 'Civilization is what happens in cities, and the city is dependent on there being a surplus from the food producer and on some existing organization which can take it away from him. With this food surplus, the political organization feeds kings, priests, armies, architects and builders, and the city comes into being. Political science in its earliest form is the knowledge of how to take food surplus away from the producer without giving him very much in return.'

"This was the thinking of the princes and kings and the early states of Europe. Simple minded? Of course! Yet this quotation by Kenneth E. Boulding, one of America's great gut-agriculture seers, has been and continues to be public policy. It matches the total unreason that causes governments to take freedom from a people simply to enlarge the market for government services... "This public policy has a sorrowful history. The idea that government can take away the benefits of a par economy with impunity has run the length of our 200 year history. Only rarely have we seen flashes of brilliance. 'If we buy the rails from England,' Lincoln told his advisors, 'we will have the rails, but England will have our money. If we make the rails here, we will have both the rails and the money.'

"The powers that be - the international business houses - have always believed low raw material costs in one land and high markets in another constituted the royal road to greatest profits. These same houses have always relied on a great spread between costs and sales domestically. Few have realized that business principles are not the same as principles governing the economy, and fewer still now realize that principles governing an economy ultimately govern business. In the U.S., business tried to circumvent the par economy with cheap labor from Europe and the Orient... International business tried to circumvent the American cost level with cheap imports...

"...agricultural production must exchange on par with the rest of the economy."

Writings by Charles Walters, Jr. include numerous books and articles, including the book: "A Life In The Day Of An Editor." Acres, U.S.A., (the voice for eco-agriculture) can be subscribed to at 512 892-4400; fax 512 892-4488.