The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1924-10-08
They Paw Him For This!

HG 0y k4uH VI HISS
The manufacturing capacity of our country is
now highly developed and is far ahead Of
ability to distribute effectively and economically
The problem Of American business then, is the
problem Of distribution and venture to say that
during the next forty years the keenest minds In
our business world will be working IT, The
great Inventions" will be in connection with new
methods Of distribution rather than with
methods of manufacturing.
In fact it has become far than mechanical
or economic problem. It is rapidly becoming a
cal-amost spiritual probIem-whlch only
be solved when everyone involved in it realizes
his position and his responsibility and undertakes
VeritabIe crusade to cut sales costs and reduce
selling expense-Roser w. 5abson.
The gentleman whose name is signed to the above
undoubtedly rejects the matekalistic conception
of history-if he knows what it is-and would
resent any insinuation that his effusion (part of
his latest bulletin to business mem was motivated
by the present serious crisis facing American in
dustry and is therefore an example of the method
by which the aforementioned theory explains
history.
Babson is sort of oracle for American business
He is paid large amount of money for telling his
clients why business is good bad, but his real
calber is indicated by his proposed solution Of the
problem of Oyerproduction l. e. "to cut sales cost
and reduce selling EXPENSE
In the Babsonian world there is no room for the
theory of surplus value Every gets what he is
worth and cheap production is the panacea for all
ills 1t never occurs to him that cheap production
replacing workers with machinery, which is what
cheap production means-is only another way of
reducing the consuming capacity of the workers
and adding to the general misery among the masses
and chaos in industry.
In America, where cheap standardized produc-
ton has developed the most efficient industry in the
world and where distribution is organized until it
works with machine-like smoothness, we face a
crisis growing out of the simple fact that the mar
kets are glutted.
The day of the BabsOns is drawing to close.
American industry faces an impasse. There is not
enough consuming power granted the workers
under the wage system to absorb the flood of pro
ducts that they turn out with the specialized ma
chinery owned by their rulers. All Of the adyer-
Using and special selling campaigns that the rest
of the world gazes at with amazement, fail to ex-
tend the limits of the domestic market The limit
has been reached. Foreign markets? War must be
waged for them and if he was honest Babson would
say so.
Fortunately for the working class, the law of
capitalism compels the industrial and financial
lords to struggle always for cheaper production
to wage war the living standards of the workers
and force them to fight back "Saes cost" and ''sell
ing expense" cannot be reduced without reducing
the number of workers and thereby curtailing
markets. SO what Babson's advice amounts to
is just the old slogan of the capitalists
of wages"-the sovereign remedy of the parasites
for all economic ills
1t sure requires intelligence of high order to
be an advisor to the American businessman.
Communist advice to the exploited victims of
Babson's clientele required more intelligence tt
but it is simple enough to be easily un
derstood: "All Power to the Workers."