DUNLOP'S COUNSEL

To the Editors of The Crimson:

Two years ago, during the CFIA flap, I was amused when Dean Dunlop denied a promised audience with PL (or whatever), protesting in a high voice that he would not speak with their recording device turned on in his office. Now I see in Tuesday's Crimson that the Dean is once more refusing comment--in this instance on Nixon's Phase III--and it disturbs me.

Why must we be ignorant of the counsel Dean Dunlop is going to give his new master? Is this Council of experts going to be so important? Why is it that we still feel that matters of money are too complicated for us, that they must be entrusted to bureaucrats in Washington and their professional minions?

Their silly attempts to fix prices and wages (merely symptomatic treatment for inflation, at best) or to control them with noble-sounding voluntary guidelines will make good copy but, predictably, will fail as before. But we are to be awe-struck at the prestige that sponsors such efforts.

True, most of us in this community will not suffer appreciably from continued inflation. Nonetheless, for many it will be tragic.

The truth is that the government is responsible for inflation. We are not to blame for offering our goods or labor services at a higher price, especially if the inflation is expected to continue or worsen. It is the same government that grants privileges to oil companies forcing the needless fuel shortages in this area. Again, it is government-granted privilege to large interests that keeps the prices of medical care, most food, union labor, postal service, transportation, etc., and inf., higher than they would otherwise be in a competitive situation. These interests and the state thrive on theft and find the unlobbied public to be easy prey. How one can expect the state under Nixon's care to be any gentler is beyond me.

This is why, I suspect, the Dean and the high councils of government prefer to remain quiet and to appear too important to let the public know the truth about money matters. As one previous Harvard dean, and numerous teachers. Professor Dunlop runs off to join "the brightest and the best" to serve the state and attempt to run our lives. I for one am not the least comforted by the prospect. Respectfully.   Jon von Briesen '71