Montana labor news., 1933-01-05


n~ificant socially may be partially
grasped from the fact that since
it has come, that is in the past $50
years, the world population has in
creased from 100000 0 or there
abouts to 1,8O0,O O0, 900.
Neurological Unemployment.
Third: The Technocrats' accumu-
lation of facts ian exhaustive anal
ysis of the significant data concern
ing $50 commodities has already been
made) leads them to the conclusion
that the machines are displacing
men so rapidly that no solution of
the unemployment problem is pos
sible under what they term the
price system" By this term they
mean any commodity method of
%evaluation, so that in this respect
Russian and the United States are
alike-they are both attempting to
SSiiuuSb tiClA tSOHOAillC l1e vi TIE
price system. Indeed, in the opinion
of democracy the Soviets and Wall
Street are about equally stupid. AS
these men see it, unemployment will
increase in spite of any slight tenn
porary turns for the better. The
rate of unemployment with the ma
chine technique tends toward zero.
Technocracy visualizes an almost
completely mechanical production.
But the glorious side of it is that it
has now become possible to talk ra-
tionally about an economic Utopia;
for the first time in human history
it is within mans power to give all
an abundance. Poverty in all pre-
ceding human societies has been in
evitable. Today, Technocracy main
tains it would be perfectly possible
with the industrial plant we have to
give every family the equivalent of
$4,000 in economic goods and serv-
ices. Moreover this present indus
trial plant is so far from being ef-
ficient that it would be quite pos
sible to increase the output Of goods
so hat every nan could enjoy album
dance of economic goods such as is
now possible only to millionaires.
But-and here Technocracy gives its
solemn warning-this could never be
possible under the price system.
That system must go if we are to
avoid complete breakdown, a break
down that technocrats believe is
much closer than the American pub
lie realizes.
The Drag of Debt.
Fourth: %Technocracy looks upon
the debt claims against industry as
being nothing short of absurd. AS
some of the group put it, the five
per cent return which accrue to the
investing part of the community is
for the most part r%einyested in in
dustry. In order that industry in
turn can continue to pay the same
return on the added investment it
must expand by a similar increment
of itself per annum To continue
to satisfy these conditions it would
have to expand at a compound in
terest rate a manifest physical i'm
possibility. How absurd this is, they
say, can be seen by noting that
100000, which is equivalent to a
ball Of gold nine inches in diameter,
when invested at five per cent and
compounded annually for six hundred
years would at the end of that period
be equal to a ball of gold the size of
the earth and four times as heavy,
The technocrats believe that these
debt claims against industry are
reaching the point where they will
break its back and they adduce many
figures and charts to prove it.
Fifth: The remedy. About this
Technocracy is reticent. One can
understand this reticence now that
the attack upon these researchers is
becoming bitter. They do have solu-
lions for the problems they have
stated but, as has been pointed out,
they see no adequate solution under
the price system. They believe that
the industrial machine which has
resulted from our amazing techno-
logical advance is so ~delicately con-
structed that only highly trained
men can operate it. In a sense the
technicians are already operating the
mechanism but their efforts are OBJ
structed and production deliberately
curtailed by the business men and
financiers who now control it.
Criticism Welcomed.
Technocracy says let a man run