The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-07-20
JUSTIFICATION
SHOWN ASTREND
/ IN INDUSTRIES
Giant Monopolies Are
Capitalist Ideal
By LELND OLDS
Federated Press)

The age of competitive industry
Is drawing to a close. 1t will be fol-
lowed by an era of giant monopolies
operating under government fran
chise and supervision. This is the
view of Prof. Schalenbach of the
University of Cologne, termed by
the New York Times zone of the
greatest authorities on Industrial
economies" He forecasts an entirely
different industrial world from that
in which the present labor move
ment developed its tactics.
AVast classification
Most observers are concerned with
the spread of industrial and financial
mergers in the United States and
of international cartels in Europe.
But Schmalenbach sees mergers and
cartels as a transition to state
classification, while profits will still
go to the owning class.
In competitive industry wages
and raw material costs are i'm
portant, compared with overhead
and administration expenses which
do not fluctuate with the ups and
downs of plant operation. The ma
chine has signed the death warrant
of this era, according to Schmalen-
bach.
Recently the U. S. department of
commerce issued a survey showing
the increasing role played by inter-
national cartels in Europe's eco
nomic and political life. 1t points
out that carefully organized national
cartels, called trusts in America, play
a leading part in this development.
In the United States the year so
far has seen an unprecedented sue
cession of industrial mergers. Oil.
steel, automobile, building material,
coal, food, drugs, amusements, pub
lie utilities, banking, in all these
fields financiers have been working
toward control of competition.
Standard Oil.
The great Standard Oil units are
revamping their structure in order
to control petroleum from the well
until it is delivered to the consumer
The. Texas Corporation and the Cali
fornia Petroleum Corporation COM
bined to form a unit with assets OF
about $380,000,000. Republic Iron
and Steel merged with Trumbull
Steel. The Chrysler-Dodge merger
is still in the air when the Stude :
baker Pierce-Arrow combination is
announced. Certain-teed Products
takes over the Beaver Board CON-
panies. Continental Can and U. S.
Can combine. The smokeless coal
producers of West Virginia work
out the details of the first large con-
solidation in the bituninous in
dustry.
United Drug merges with Sterling
Products. The Keith companies
Join the Orpheum Circuit. The Pos
tai Telegraph Commercial Gables
companies combine with Interna-
tional Telephone and Telegraph
American Power and Light and
Montana Power form a new giant
power combine and other great
power holding companies continue to
absorb utilities. The Washburn-
Crosby Company, the Red Star Mill
ing Company and other flour mills, at
the direction of National City Bank
interests, join to form the General
Mills, Inc, becoming the largest
unit in the field. These are but a
few of the mergers since January.
Bankers and industrialists predict
that the marger movement will con-
tinue with increasing velocity.
Trade Associations.
Trade associations are becoming
an important factor in consolidating
industries and limiting competition
Oil, cotton, wool, steel, jute, all these
and others have developed alliances
to protect profiteers against the in
dustrial chaos threatened by the
growth of productive power in every
field beyond all possible sales.
Throughout the capitalist world
this change in the industrial order
is proceeding rapidly. In England
as in America echoes the refrain
that "free competition is everywhere
tending to end in forms of mon
opoly." Everywhere there is in
creasing pressure for changes in a
legal system which was developed to
protect the individuahst business
against contracts, conspiracies or
what not in restraint of trade. The
financiers want to remove legal re-
straints on price, production and
market control.
If labor merely acquiesces in the
legal changes advocated by organ
lied capital, its fate in the new era
of state-franchised monopolies will
not differ materially from that of