A Review of the Discussions

Mr Walker believed that the principal point to emerge in the discussions is the importance of the link between wage policy and other social and economic policies. There are various elements in economic policy — monetary, investment and fiscal policies, etc. — which in centralised planning systems are thoroughly integrated, and in others (particularly where planners are operating in what is basically an unplanned economy with a large private sector) are rather loosely linked and integrated. There are at least two aspects of economic and social policy which are often left vague and shadowy: wage policy and labour policy — those measures which influence the labour market directly, not through the wage mechanism. It seems that there are certain spontaneous processes in wage determination and in the operation of the labour market (which in turn influences wages) that impede other policies, and probably the most central message of the Symposium is that the formulation and implementation of any comprehensive plan cannot ignore these processes. Clearly, these spontaneous processes are not producing the results we desire, otherwise there would be no need for a wage policy.