The daily worker., 1930-05-23
On the Agricultural Draft
Program

farmers without such machinery must lower
yet further their standard of living in order
to compete. The fact that the vast majority
of farmers have no other alternative as capi-
talist producers, because of their inability to
make the investment necessary to acquire such
machinery-that is the 'stagnation in tech
MICS" The Draft Program (p 1869 implies
this. Further mechanization, then, while
maintaining the capitalist system of property
relations in which the benefits of increased
mechanization goes to an exMoting class,
would (our emphass-E.B0 merely worsen
conditions of the majority of the farm popu-
lation, of farm wage labor and the poor and
middle farmer, tending to reduce their stand
ards to the starvation level of the pauperizei
peasartIy of China and India, since a major
ty could not share in better mechanization or
would be affected adversely by it." 1t is our
opinion that in view of the increase in the
'se of agricultural machinery the verb used
hould be will and not would
The foregoing excerpt is part of comment
the Draft Program on the bourgeois "solu-
on" of the agricultural crsis-"more me-
danization." The Draft Program states,
iiOre mechanization, if it could be realized,
ur emphass.-E.B.) would solve nothing for
jhe United States farm masses. =" Up. 1867
More mechanization" is being realized we be-
lieve and is not only solving nothing for the
farm masses but is degrading their condition
still further.
What is the special significance of increased
investment in agricultural machinery for the
middle farmers. "It is pleasant bourgeois
fiction that mortgages are obtained by farm
ers to better their conditions by thus securing
capital. They doubtless have this intention,
but the above figures show that, with the eX-
Of Of no ma
jority fall still more into the hands of finance
capital; i. e., by securing" capital, capital
secures" them as its bond slaves" (The
Communist February, p. 114)
These farmers either increase their mort
gage debt if they can to buy the agricultural
implements, the use of which they hope will
better their conditions, or they buy them on
the installment plan. In either case they fall
to an increased degree under the domination
of finance capital. A small minority may by
the use of such machinery rise into the class
of rich farmers, the majority of these middle
farmers, however, will find that they have
added one more burden to that which they al
ready BEAR one further means by which fl
nance capital exploits them.
The Draft Program quotes Comrade Rich
man to the effect that gin fifteen mid-western
states, from January, 1920, to March, 1928,
22.51 per cent of owners and 35.O7 per cent OF
/ tenants became bankrupt. OF these, it is
noted, that 14.40 per cent Of owners and 2054
per cent of tenants retained their property
(the tenants obviously only the Of their
appropriated equipment machines, animals,
etc." The Draft Program points out that this
leniency makes peon of the bankrupt debtor
who must raise the crop he is told to raise;
he cannot, if a tenant, take his equipment
elsewhere; he must accept without argument
prices offered by crop buyers, who often are
the same as or in league with the creditor
Up. 114) Comrade 0. Preedin (cited by Com
rade Richman, The Communist, Jan. Feb, 1929
p. S9) has suggested the cause of this
"leniency" the inability Of bankers to sell the
farms they might acquire through foreclosure
Permanent leniency is common phenomenon
under present conditions. But this leniency
suddenly comes to an end as soon as a good
buyer appears for the farm" There seems
to be one other circumstance rising which
would make an abrupt end to even this "len
iency' of peonage. Good buyers have not ap.
| peared to take the lands off of the hands Of
+ those who have acquired them. In conse.
quence Mortgage companies, banks, and in
dividual investors possessing lands taken un
/ der foreclosure are exchanging the realty fol
/ the cempanys (farm corporations) stock, pre-
ferring to take chance at profit to waiting
/ for real estate price revival" &C. M. Har
ger, Annalst, Feb. ID, 1880, p. 404) Hargel
! points out that these farm corporations have