The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-29
by BILL dunno.

Labor leaders, wrote at length to prove
that the class struggle was thing of past in
America Workers were becoming capitalists
through company stock-selling schemes, labor
banks, Marx, Lenin, the Communist Interna-
tional and the Communist Party of the United
States, so the savants of reaction told each
other, and the population generally, were dis
credited Not even a fleeing thought of the
social revolution could find Judgment in the
mind of the highly paid American worker"
But the unacceptable laws of capitalist de-
velopment were at work-the laws which Marx
discovered and the inevitable results of which
can be seen in operation today by the most
casual observer as millions of workers hunt
the job that is nowhere to be found and ire
mendous demonstrations for work or wages
led by the Communist Party, astound and
brighten the capitalists and their agents of
the A. F. of L and the socialist party.
MISUNDERSTANDING work with less work
ers, squeezing the last ounce of energy from the
workers, this was put forward as the guar
antee of high wages and never-ceasing en-
ployment.
At the time when American capitalism was
still in it's infancy, when the frontier still at
forded opportunity for escape from the fac
tory, Marx wrote:
"Rcardo las justly remarked that machinery
is in constant competition with labor, and can
only be introduced when the price of labor has
reached certain height, but the appliance of
machinery is but of the many methods OF
increasing the productivity of labor. This very
same development which makes common labor
relatively REDUNDANT, simplifies, on the other
hand, skilled labor, and thus depreciates it"
"The same law obtains in another form. With
the development of the productive powers of
labor the accumulation of capital will be ac-
CELEBRATED, even despite relatively high rate
of wages But simultaneously x.,: the
progress of accumulation there taxes place
progressive change in the composition o. capt.
al. That part of aggregate capital which con-
sists of fixed constantly capital, machinery,
raw materials, means of production In al pos
siLle FORMS progressively increases con-
pared with the other part Of cartsl, which is
laid out in wages or in the purchase Of labor.
:. In the pTcaress Of industry tho demand for
labor keeps, therefore, no pace Nth 'hS ae-
emulation Of capital 1t will increase, but In
crease in constantly diminishing ratio as com
pared with the increase of capital" My en-
phasis).
Marks Conclusions.
What conclusion does Marx draw from these
facts? 1t is conclusion which hundreds of
thousands of American workers, for the first
time in their lives, able to understand and
agree with as result of the mass unemploy-
ment and the brutal attacks upon them which
resistance to the dictates of the capitalist class
brings attacks in which the fascist leaders
of the ALL. like Matthew Vol provoke and
take part in and which the socialist party like
Norman Thomas justify
Tho combustion reachad hv Mary and rom
firmed by the whole experience of the work
ing class in all countries since these words
were written, is:
"These few hints will suffice to show that
the gerry Development of modern industry must
progressively turn the scale IN fdUor of the
capitalist against the aUorEing man, and that
consequently the general tendency is not to
raise, but to sink the average standard of
wages, or to push the value of labor more or
less to its minimum limit Such being the ten
dency of things in this system, is this saying
that the working class ought to renounce their
resistance against the encroachments of capt.
tai, and abandon their attempts at making the
best of the occasional chances of their tenn
porary improvement? If they did, they would
be degraded to one level mass of broken wretch
es past salvation. By co,Oordly giving
avoy in their every day conflict aUith capital,
the initiating of. any larger Increment"
VALUE, Price and Profit-Page 126. My
phasis).
Wider Revolutionary Struggle.
Marx here points out clearly the connection
of the struggle against unemployment and its
disastrous effects upon the working class with
the causes of unemployment and the necessity
for the wider revolutionary political struggle
against the system which produces jobless mil
lions part of the process by which capital
ism plumbers the workers for the profit of its
beneficiaries-the capitalist class.
Marx, in concluding this famous passage
dealt tremendous blow to the trade union
leaders, who like the bought-and- paid-for Of
ficialdom of the A. F. Of L., were interested
only in maintaining the capitalist system
Speaking directly to the working class, Marx
said Tnstead of the conservative motto, q
fair days rage for fair days aOork," they
ought to inscribe on their banner the revolu-
tionary ,catchword, abolition of the aDdge sys-
tenn"
Naturalization and OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
Lies Shattered.
In what relation does naturalization stand
to growing permanent mass unemployment and