The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-02-15
The End of
Prosperity

lowest anu LndL lIl4dHC HUI Idiiey WOS
lowest where the wages of the father
were highest, the death rate of babies
falling in each higher wage level....
1t would seem as if physically as well
as financially the poor were really
poor"
Not only are the poor "really poor"
but there are millions more than is
ever indicated by the welfare work
ers. There is in the United States
no government social insurance, UNI
employment insurance, sick insur-
ance, maternity insurance, etc., whose
work compels the collection of the
mass of statistical data so necessary
for an accurate estimate of the ex-
tent of actual poverty.
Furthermore, the individualism
still rampant in the American work
ing class, the remnants of the tradi-
ton that poverty in America is the
fault of the poverty-stricken them
selves, the dominant tendency to as
sign shiftlessness and laxness as the
primary causes of poverty-a theory
carefully nurtured in the columns of
the capitalist press, the movies, the
schools, etc.-all impel the average
worker suffering from the effects of
capitalism in this respect to conceal
his misery rather than apply for and
accept charity.
The belief in the unshakable sta
bility of American capitalism, the
idea that America is still land of
boundless opportunity survival of
the free land epoch and the period of
tremendous industrial expansion-all
tend to make the poverty-stricken
masses in the United States suffer
in silence. Occasionally revolt breaks
out but it is still correct to say that
unemployment has as yet produced no
great upheavals in the United States
and Coxey's army is treated as sub
ject for ridicule. Neither has the fact
that millions of American workers
and their families are living at or be-
low the subsistence level produced
really great mass movement.
The weight of tradition is one rea-
son. Another is that among this sec
ton of the population there is the
minimum of organization.
All this must be changed. The col
lapse of the permanent prosperity
myth after so much emphasis put on
it by the paid publicists of capitalism
including the official labor leader
ship, will lay the foundations for re-
volts of this bitterly exploited section
of the masses. Unaided and without
some political clarity being infused
they will fritter out into nothingness
and leave no tradition of struggle.
Especial efforts must be made to
get out Observation-Disclosures, pamphlets,
etc.-dealing with elementary issues
and either distribute it free or at
a price within the means of the low
est paid worker. Remember that the
welfare" budgets make no provision
for reading matter of any kind.
The contract between the conditions
of the workers in the Soviet Union,
where all forms of social insurance
death, accident, sick and unemploy-
ment provisions-are taken as mat
ter of course and administered jointly
by the unions and the government,
can be drawn easily. Struggle on the
basis of remedying the miserable
conditions under which the lowest
paid workers live-struggle for high
err wages, against high rents and high
prices-can be organized.
| Demands for the establishment Of
the various forms of state social in
surance can be raised and the cam
paign for labor party as an impor-
tant medium for securing these re-
forms carried on effectively.
There is another important angle
to the work among the masses living
lat or below subsistence level: It u
that in raising the demands for GER
tain forms Of government insurance
a blow is struck at the class coopera-
ton policies of the capitalists and
their agents. The lack of existence
of these palliative measures and the
refusal of the official labor leadership
to make fight for them, allows the
capitalists, with their welfare
schemes and forms of social insur-
ance, to appear as philanthropists, as
though they were giving the workers
something and above their ac-
tual wages.
The "full dinner pail' slogan can
still be used by the capitalist politi-
cal parties and with some modifica-
lions is still used as in the days Of
Mark Hanna. 1t is our task to take
advantage of the weakening of the
permanent prosperity idea to direct
the resentment Of the poverty-strick-
en- millions towards the capitalist
class and it's government. To do this
successfully we must expose the daily
curse that capitalism is in the lives Of
the working class and show that only
by struggle can even the most fla
grant evils be eradicated. Struggle
around elementary issues of this kind
will give the most exploited workers
the training and experience for great
err and more decisive struggles