The Northwest worker. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1915-1917, 1916-03-23
THE SUICIDE
OF CAPITAL"
CFrom the N. Y. CaID

| DuIutl pl INC war Is IdlliuB vi JHe
capitalist classes. On the one hand,
they find their spendable income is
diminished by taxes, and, on the other
they are giving up their poverty for
bits of government paper. Then, aft
er the war is over, it will be found
that the class to whom the debt is
owed are the taxpayers; what they
get back they will previously have
contributed. What comes back into
one pocket will have gone out of the
other. 1t is not possible to reduce
labor's compensation below living
costs, and if the new tax burdens can
not be laid on labor, they must rest on
land and capital.
'The war is by the poor at the ex-
pense of the rich. The capitalism of
the various countries is surrendering
bit by bit the paper titles to future
service that it has held. 1t is getting
paper promises of governments to pay
equivalent amounts. But these sums
are only payable provided the capital
lists themselves furnish the money.
The capitalism of Europe, so far as
present possessors are concerned, is
in the way of committing suicide"
No, reader, the above is not from
The Call, though it sounds exactly like
what The Call has been saying with
infinite repetition in these columns for
the last twelve months. The two par
agraphs above reproduced are from
an editorial of yesterday in the New
York Globe, one of the papers that is
read by the masses. What it says
here has been said before in many of
the financial organs that the masses
Of the people never see, as well as by
The Call.
The editorial points out that the
debts contracted by the war cannot
possibly be paid; that three years of
war for Germany means a per capita
debt of 81 ,666 for every German fam
lily, in addition to the original debt;
and the same proportion exists for all
the others; that the estimate of Won
Hellferich that the war is now costing
$75,000,000 daily, or thirty billions an
nually, is about correct. And, of
course, that means that three years of
war will cost $9O,00O,OO0 (ninety bill
lion dollars) in loans alone. The orig
inal combined national debt of the
warning nations before the war was
about twenty-five billion dollars If
the war lasts only three years-and it
has lasted more than half that time
now, with not the slightest prospect
Of peace in sight-these debts will ap-
proach one hundred and twenty billion
dollars. 1t may last even longer, but,
if so, it would not make the condition
any more hopeless as regards capital
ism.
Tweve months from now the Globe
and many other of our editorial con-
temporaries will arrive at the conclus-
ion that European capitalism is not
only gin the way of committing sui
eide" but that it has actually per-
formed its hari-kari.
And twelve months later still they
will be specializing on how it's Siamese
twin brother, American capitalism, is
to survive. Lincoln said that no coun-
try could exist half slave and half
free, and the anology holds good for
the capitalist mode of production in
turn. American capitalism is not go
ing to survive chained to the corpse of
its European confrere. 1t will mex
orably sicken and die also.
The diagnosis of the Globe is not
couched in terms of Socialism, as the
analyses of the Call have been. New
ertheless, they are identically the
same and mean precisely the same
thing.
The irony of the situation is that
hundreds of thousands of Socialists do
not, and apparently cannot, see what
the Globe sees, and are piffling about
preparedness and unpreparedness,
militarism and ti-militarism, while
the capitalist world is being shattered
to fragments around them, and is even
now irretrievably beyond repair. They
would rejoice in the Suicide of Capt.
taP'-Which is the title of the Globes
editorial-if they could only believe
1T, but it seems too good to be true.
The Globe, at any rate, is not dismay-
ed by the consideration that it is too
bad to be true. 1t courageously de-
clares that it is true. But, at that, it
is only saying now what thousands of
the ablest financial experts have seen
more or less clearly for the last six
months, though the news has been
carefully sidestepped for fear of dis
turbing that innocent infant, public
confidence. But, in the very nature
of things, matter of this kind can
not be indefinitely concealed; it must
come to light some time.