The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-06-02

cades ago. that it had no mass of peasantry
which it could drive from the land into the
industries, that rising capitalism, as compared
with the European capitalisms which arose
on the ruins of the feudal system of society
with its millions of serfs, was faced until re-
Gently Tin the historical sense) with q con-
tinual shortage of labor.
The so-called american standard of living"
the special features of capitalist democracy,
ETC., are the result of these factors. (Among
others WHICH we cannot go into here).
Marx pointed this out with the utmost clear,
ness. Writing of conditions in the United
States in the early period of capitalist devel-
opment he said:
"In colonial countries MARX here refers to
new countries like the United States and Cam
ada where there was no mass native popula-
ton to be exploted) the law of supply and de-
mand faVors the working man. Hence the
relatively high standard of wages IN the United
States Capital may there try its utmost. IL
cannot prevent the labor market from beng
continuously emptied by the continuous con-
version of wage laborers into independent self
sustaining peasants. The position of wage Ia
borers is for very large part OF the Amer
lean people but probational state, which they
are sure to leave for longer or shorter term
The exhaustion of free land closed the ave-
into the industries with no other means of
livelihood except that of selling themselves to
the capitalists, between seven and eight nil
lions of WORKERS are now driven out Of the IN
dustries by naturalization and the inevitable
cycical crisis of capitalism
The capitalists see in permanent mass I'M
employment factor which, coupled with every
available means of suppression (mass arrests
of striking workers, fascist terrorism, lnJunc-
tions, long prison sentences for Communists,
deportation of foreign-born workers, lynching
of Negroes. against whom special methods OF
torture and terror are used, and upon whom
the misery of unemployment and low wages
bears heaviest, etc. will enable them to put
across their slave program for the working
class.
Enlisting the services of the fascist leaders
and upper stratum of the A f. of L., finding
in the socialist party an agency whose his
torical role is to confuse and betray workers
into the camp of their class enemies the CAPT
talst class and its government are trying to
turn American workers into a slave class.
cowed, submissive, disorganized, chained to the
machines of the imperialist order, driven into
the slaughter of new war for the destruc-
ton of the Soviet Union and the conquest of
the entire globe for American imperialism.
American imperialism can live only by the
lowering Of the social, economic and political
standards of the working class to the slave
level
Without the destruction of the historical part
of the value of the labor power of American
workers, which will allow the still more drastic
lowering of the physical factor to the point
where workers exist below even the present
subsistence level, all advantages obtained so far
from naturalization by the ruling class will
be lost.
American imperialism will be driven from
all the world markets except those it can hold
by military force.
Says Marx: "The value of laboring power
is formed by two eements-the one merely
physical, the other historical or social. It's ul-
innate limit is determined by the phyisacl ele-
ment, that is to say, to maintain and reproduce
itself, the working class must receive the neces-
saries absolutely indispensable for living and
multiplying. -.
Besides this more physical clement the
value of labor is in every country determined
by traditional standard of life It is not mere
physical life, but it is the salts faction of cer-
tam 1oants springing from the social condi.
tions in (which people are placed and reared up
The English standard of life may be reduced
to the Irish standard; the standard of life of
German peasant to that of Lvonin peas
ant" Value, Price and Profit)
American Imperialism is trying to destroy
entirely that portion of the value of American
labor power which has its origin in special
conditions of American capitalist development.
1t is this fact which the A. F. of L. fascists..
and the socialists, carefully try to conceal from
the working class.
1t IS quite clear that the stratcgv and tao
tics Of the 1Oorking class must be of q much
higher order-open political struagle of the
most 1n1htdnt characteristic combat copitol-
'st offensive of the character ne hare 1,rored
1t to be, than If ace faced merely one Of the
many open shop" drives of the previous period
1t is precisely in their attempt to conceal
the class character of the struggle and the
sweeping detectives set for itself by the CAPT
talist class, in conformity with its desperate
needs, to confine the struggle to the mere oues
ton of wages and hours, to try to conceal the
extent and imminence of the danger facing the
working class, to delude the workers with the
theory that the election of friends of labor
OF the parties of the class enemies of the work
ers, VIII change the course of events. as the
A. +. OF H. does, or to spread the still more
dangerous delusion that legislation secured bv
the election of candidates on a reformist pro.
gram will change the capitalist system, as the
socialist party does, that the treacherv of these
fascist and social-fascist betravers of the macs
es consists
(To be continued)