The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-05-31

JIe agents OF Ine posses IN the ranks OF the
working CLASSIFY the efficiency unionism"
advocates of the A. F. of L.
Under capitalism production is carried on
for the market-not to fill the needs of the
masses-but for the needs of the market-for
sale, production for profit. Naturalization is
a method by which the capitalist class increases
profits at the expense of the workers. By low
ering the standard of living, by lowering the
cost of producing goods (iron, steel, textile,
food etc. through forcing workers to produce
more goods for the same wages, the capitalist
class gets greater profits and at the same time
lays the basis for forcing aUorkerS to produce
still more goods for less ao0ges
Unemployment is powerful weapon in the
hands of the capitalist class by which this
process is speeded up. Wages go down-the
the jobs paid lower wages in most in
stances. 1t was also found that trained cloth
petition for the decreasing number of jobs
What are the facts regarding the wages of
those workers fortunate enough to be "ab-S
sorbed" by other industries after being dis
placed by the naturalization process?
The Institute of Economics discovered chat
the neW Jobs paid lo,Oed wages is most in
stances. 1t was also found that trained cloth
ing cutters for example, with years of exper-
fence, had become gasoline station attendants,
watchmen in warehouses and clerks in meat
markets. Machinists were selling hosiery for
mail order houses. A significant number of
HeR after months of enforced idIeneSS admitted
frankly that they had taken to bootlegging."
; Unemployment and its twin, poverty, not
only lowers the standard of living of the work.
ing class but sets up a process of degeneration
which affects individual workers. The COM
petition for the job creates a cannibalistic
struggle between young and old, male and fe-
oil JoFi
when the praises of its marvellous machine pro-
duction methods are sung by the professors
purchased at bargain counter prices, when the
socialists, taking their cue from the ruling
class, pirate of organized capitalism" and eX-
toll its beauties and possibilities, condemns mil
lions of our class to Imprisonment in the valley
of misery and covers them with the ashes of
poverty. The poisonous dust of pauperism con-
ceals their faces and only the tears of hungry
children wash burrows through it.
Seeing them, the professional welfare work
ers, the jackets of capitalism, say: Look they
are human after all. We must do something"
So, soup kitchens are opened in the name of
the mythical Jesus to show workers that pow
erty is a blessing, that hunger prepares one for
heaven that the sanctified but scanty food of
christian charity must not be considered from
the standpoint of base materialism and the
gnawng ache of empty bellies. Did not Jesus
himself feed five thousand with five loaves
and three fishes?
Unemployment and poverty for the working
class-idleness and riches for the parasitic rul-
ing cass-this is the law of capitalism. The
robbery and misery of the workers-this is the
cement which bound together the foundation
stones of capitalism. Paul LaFargue wrote
with burning satire in 1880:
SIN the name of christian meekness priest
of the Anglican church, the Reverend Mr..
Townsend, intones Work, work, night and
day By working you make your poverty in
crease and your poverty releases US from i'm
posing work upon you by force of law. The
legal imposition of work gives too much
trouble requires too much violence and makes
too much noise. Hunger, on the contrary, is
not only a pressure which is peaceful, silent
and inceasant, but as it is the most natural
motive for work and industry, it also provokes
the most powerful efforts Work, work, pro-
letarians to increase social wealth and your
individual poverty; work, work, in order that
becoming poorer, you may have more reason
to work and become miserable. Such is the
inexortable law of capitalist production"
Because lending ear to the fallacious words
of the economists, the proletarians have given
themselves up body and soul to the vice of
work there is a plethora of merchandise and
a dearth of purchasers, the shops are closed
and hunger scourges the working peoples with
it's whip of thousand lashes" (The Right
To Be Languages 23-24-Kerr Edition..
But the cement which bound the foundation
stones of capitalism into what seemed to many
to be an unshakable structure is crumbling in
the fierce fire of the class struggle. Robbery
by the masters and misery for the workers
is no longer accepted as inevitable by the work
ing class. The million and quarter American
workers who came into the street on March 6
to demonstrate for "Work or Wages" and
against unemployment, at the call of the Com
munist Party show that even the structure
of American capitalism, considered the most
powerful in the world, is not impregnable and
that the working class, far from being starved
into submission is rallving for the assault.