The Waterbury Democrat., 1932-09-12

capitalism, with its crazy com
 bination of mergers and continual
 governmental interference with a
 laissez faire 2 philosophy" is
 doomed, Norman Thomas, socialist
 nominee for president states ina1 a
 symposium entitled Socialist
 Planning and aSSocialist Program"
 published by the Falcon Press,
 New York, to-day. ''e The book
 is edited by Dr Harry w. Laidler
 for the League of Industrial De-
 mocracy of which he is chairman.
 The book contains plans and views
 contributed by Stuart Chase, Nor
 ris Hillquit, Daniel w. Hoan, so-
 cialist mayor of Milwaukee. and 25
 other high in the ranks of the -so-
 cialist movement in the United
 States.
 Continuing his condemnation of
 capitalism Norman Thomas de-
 clares in the book that plan can
 not be plastered on capitalism and
 have it recover the gamblers orgy
 of unsound prosperity which the Coolidge era was. land here speak for most socialists-would go a step farther. You cannot creep up on capitalism and pain lcSSly luJeCI SAAS PAeeAA.~~eo into 1t so that, by it's own technical processes, it will tend unconscious | ly to socialize itself. Conceivably some planning devices might be
 employed by capitalism which would be useful for achieving real socialization; practically the kind of planning capitalism will give us, and the only kind,. will be fascist with all that the word implies of threat to liberty, to peace, arid even to real prosperity. Any hope for us must lie in the socialist de- cision by workers with hand and brain that planning must be for their use, for. the establishment that is, of a federation of cooper ative commonwealths, if it is to be worthwhile
 Five Year Plan
 elf had to choose," Thomas continues, between generalized five year plan for present day America and five year plan for building a strong socialist party, the latter would seem to me the more important and the more like ly to pave the way for success with the former. In this connection there is a tendency among certain of our intellectuals to which hope this book may be a moderate cor rective, One can scarcely tell- they hardly can themselves-whe- ther they are new capitalists or near communists, fearful only of openly submitting to the rigors of communist discipline, They often criticise socialism and socialists like men persuaded of the general soundness of the communist postu- late Of inevitable violent revolution
 and then, support 9 Smith in 1928 or even-perhaps.-a oRosevelt in 1892, This indecision enable them
 to support no logical line for. the
 redemption of political action at a time when faith in it. as Americans have commonly understood it, grows less and less" 'Ts: Sees Fascism in the United States k According to Thomas 'the Unit ed States has all the elements of a very strong fascist movement ex- cept the particular leader or dem- agogue who can emulate a Musso- lini or Hitler by appealing to all
 sorts of prejudices and to the. sup posed economic interest of little
 men while still keeping the, sup port of big industrialists-. who sec
 their only salvation in some fascist
 society. The breakdown of our old
 parties in program and purpose i and the growing contempt for
 them are part of the pictures that here must be taken into account.
 Fascism is only the last stage of capitalism. It's extraordinary em- phasis on nationalism makes it peculiarly dangerous to peace." Conclusion
 In his concluding chapter Dr
 Laidler summarizes the points and problems upon which the other
 contributors to the book are in ac-
 cord. He says that "the contribu- tors to this volume do not see eye
 to eye on all problems of socialist
 planning and socialist tactics. They
 are agreed, however. on certain vi-
 tai conclusions. These are:-
 "1. In America at the present
 .time we have natural, technical
 and human resources sufficient to feed, clothe and shelter every man,
 woman and child in the United -