The producers news. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1918-1937, 1927-04-22
ELEMENTS OF POLITICAL EDU-
CATION
Continued from last week.

Inc financial ana credit panic in America call
ed forth an extraordinary demand for gold in Eur
ope.
AS a result OF the American crisis, many big
firms in Europe went bankrupt particularly in
Germany
In England, where for number of years the
interest on capital deposited in banks had been
comparatively low, a sharp rise took place at the
end OF l9OI with the aim of bringing capital into
the banks-Dut without result. The gold reserves
OF the banks were getting exhausted. but no gold
came IN AS result, there followed deep-seat
ed arrangement Of the whole of industry and
commerce, and great slump along the whole
economic front continuing through the whole 1908.
In England IN 1908 imports fell $40 and exports
ll'416-partlcularly exports to America, Germa-
ny and Japan-the countries which had suffered
most heavily from the world crisis of 19O7-19O8.
The prices of commodities also fell from 2.6O1
IN May 1907 to 2.197 in Dec 1908 Index figures
of the English "Economist'')
Still greater was the fall in wages Whereas
IN the year 19O6-19O7 wages had risen rather no.
ticeably, in 1908 they fell by one-tbira.
This fall in wages called forth the most stub
born and lasting strikes. The total number of
days lost due to strikes increased from 2,162O 900
IN 1907 to 1O,783,OOO in 1908 in England alone.
In 1909, the situation of the commodity and
money market improves considerably. the crisis
is abating and tendency to rise is already no.
ticed. But the labor market remains in depress-
ed condition and unemployment continues very
great throughout 1909.
In times of crises, capitalism chokes off the
enormous quantity of commodities which find no
sale, the failure of demand for them, the mass of
bankruptcies which begin in the various depart
ments of capitalist economy. Crises strike CAPT.
tallsm all the harder from the fact that they are
preceded by longer or shorter streaks of prosper
ty' booms and opening-out of industry and COM
merce.
Capitalism fights crises, on the one hand. by
capturing new markets and lowering prices by
means OF strengthening exploitation and engineer
ing; and on the other hand by means of tremend-
Gus curtailment of production and voluntary de-
struction of masses of products and productive
forces
In crises, in focus, the internal contradictions
Of the capitalist system are concentrated and
reach their greatest tension utter need and ruin
IN the midst of tremendous abundance; the most
embittered struggle of the capitalists among
themselves; the ruin of the small and weak enter
prses; the sharpening struggle of capital and la
Dor as result of the increasing unemployment
and the worsening of the conditions of labor and
existence of the working class
Crises fall with all their weight harder than all
upon the working class, revoutionize its mind. and
render more acute the struggle of the proletariat
with the bourgeoise. On the other hand, crises
show that the productive forces meet more and
more obstacles to their development under the
domination of capital, and require new social re-
lationships
The. causes of crises is the anarchy inherent in
the capitalist system. Each capitalist enterprise
works for an unknown market, all by itself, and
at its own risk, and it is quite natural that sooner
or later such working in the dark without anv
general plan or any sort of mutual concordance
must lead to the so-called over-production with
which every crisis begins
IL. WHAT EFFECT HAS THE DEVELOP
MENT OF CAPITALISM ON UNEMPLOY-
MENT?
Periodical crises, streaks of stagnation and
slump in industry are the inevitable concomitants
of the capitalist system
On the labor market they are reflected by the
powerful increase of unemployment and the re-
serve army of capitalism.
oOS-S SS0@0A9SAOo hSCp uO account OF unem-
ployment and to accurately determine its dimen-
sons and forms is impossible.
According to the figures of certain local CEN
suses in industrial centers, the number of unem-
ployed men workers reaches 17-2O96 lin London
1S87-1894).
In various branches of labor the percent of un-
employed was particularly high: among the dock
workers $3.50; shipbuilders, 4496; carpenters and
bricklayers 37@o; painters 1870. Of the mechan-
les, 2O@o, tobacco workers 2786, etc.
Besides unemployment in the form of the con-
slant reserve army and its growth in times Of
crisis and stagnation under the conditions of mod
en capitalism there develops and become pandem-
lc another kind of unemployment resulting from
the premature and early degeneration of the phys
lscal powers of the workers; capital throws them
out as useless, substituting them by younger
forces.
In many branches of industry, by the facts Civ
en- even by bourgeoise scholars, in the mining in
dustry for example, among the sailor, metal work
ers, and mechanical workers, ETC.. for man Of
40 II Is already practically impossible to find any
secure work; his skill and experience cannot save
MN from the competition of the younger genera
uon' outstripping him in speed of work and mus
cular energy
Under these conditions the early and enforced