The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1932-04-04

cant get planning unless you elm
mate profits" and added that while
under capitalism the fundamental
element Of the system was profit
Bolshevism has eliminated it.
In the Soviet Union, 1t is stated,
labor was consequently in a position
to buy back the products Of its labor
and there can be no over produc-
ton and depressions, while here and
in Europe, wages don't keep pace
with production and depression fol-
low"
In replying to a question, How
many times will the Five Year Plan
be repeated before there is one auto
mobile to every six persons nj Russia,
as there is here" MIR. Fisher stated
that every citizen in the Soviet Re-
public will have a job before there
is one automobile in SIX" which was
greeted whit prolonged applause.
Notwithstanding an honest attempt
on the part of the Nations cores
pondent to show the workings of the
Soviet system which made planning
successful, Fisher failed to clearly
bring out that planning was a poll
teal question, which requires the
abolishing of the present social sys-
tenn based upon class exploitation by
the capitalist state.
He failed to point out that it was
the abolition of this state and the
transfer of state power from the
capitalists to the working class which
constitutes the revolution. Nor did
Mr. Fisher state that the point of
view which he represents, as far as
he went, did not correspondent to the
point of view Of the Nation, which
has been advocating economic plan
ming without revolution, and which
in the years before the present crisis,
extolled the new capitalism" which
another speaker at the discussion put
forward as a solution for the econ
onic crisis.
Edward M. Filene, introduced as a
merchant and economist from Bos-
ton, favored the new capitalism"
by which he meant national planning
upon a non-political and non-class
basis" He babbled about the "in-
crease Of the purchasing power of
the masses as fast as the volume of
production grows" and spoke of a
system which would raise the living
standards of the masses in order to
make business profitable.
Mr.. Filene ignored in his argument
the fact that business makes its prof
its by exploiting the workers. That
a rise of wages can be gained only
at the expense of profits.
Filene was stumped in his position
when Fisher asked him where has
your new capitalism been since
1922"
George Soule, an editor OF the New
Republic was the third speaker in
the discussion. He pleaded for plan
ming without revolution, claiming
that capitalism could be transformed
so as to serve collective uses.
With the characteristic blindness
of the bourgeois reformists, Mr..
Soule did not analyze the causes of
the capitalist collapse, since a scien-
tific analysis which could be carried
through only by the application of
Marxism which Soule opposes, would
show that it is the inherent law of
capitalism to produce for profits and
not for use and that it is the opera
ton of this law which is at the bot
tom of the present crisis. Soule's
argument showed the fear of the re-
formists and reactionaries in the la
Dor movement of the growing revo-
lutionary upsurge, which they are
trying to suppress by radical phrases
about Soviet control and economic
planning"
In substance, the position of George
Soule, who claims to be a progress
sive, did not differ from F1lene, the
open capitalist spokesman in the dis
ciIssion