Evening star., 1934-08-05

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of personal economic reward that
leads men to efflcient work.
Admittedly, there is in our economic
order a sad number OF the old, the
defective, the delinquent and the in
competent who work only for bread.
They merely prove the case. Beggars
and idlers come from those groups
which, because of handicaps Of mind
or body or racial discrimination, can
not hope for individual possessions.
The trivial tale of the colored boy
who refused to do an errand for a
quarter on the grounds that he already
had a quarter has a profound social
meaning. Peoples whose environment
offers no hope of large individual re-
ward are notoriously the poorest
workers, whether they are the Aus
tralian blacks or the mountain whites
of Kentucky.
And here we have the impregnable
barrier to revolutionary economic re-
construction. Communism has not
yet offered any efficient substitute for
the fundamental incentive Of self-ad-
yancement. Until 1t does find such
an incentive, no cooperative society
is going to work. The only motor
forces communism has provided so
far are the fear of starvation, the
whipping post and the firing squad.
No one of these will keep civilization
alive. or even society-as slavery.
peonage and convict labor have so
90 dit, da,,nnnutratad
Russian Experiment A Coup.
The Russian experiment is breaking
against this rock. 1t was not an or
derly installation of planned econ
omy. 1t was a coup d'etat, engineered
by maddened fanatics in an orgy of
blood and hate. After II years 1t Is
not a social democracy, but a social
treadmill, operated by sodden and
sullen clods, driven by a merciless
tyranny.
The high command has not been
able to find a substitute for the mo-
tive of self-interest. Even slaughter
of the peasants did not work. Lenm
and Trotzky had to reorganize the
original plan after four years. Trotzky
was driven out in another reorganiza-
ton. The dictatorship has made des-
perate efforts to build up q semi
religious frenzy for the cause, abolish
ing established religion in the process.
It has striven relentleSsly to weaken
family ties, so powerful an influence
for personal acquisition through the
ages.
Through the thick wall Of prop
aganda leak evidences Of the failure
to subdue the instinct of private
property. An almost dead agriculture
was partly revived by partial resto-
ration of private selling. 1t would
appear that such zeal and energy In
management as they have developed
have come from the small minority
doing the debating, and they appear
to enjoy such luxuries as the system
affords. 1t is not enough incentive.
The ghastly starvation of the last 10
years is apparently to come again
next Winter.
Production Falls In Communism.
When you take away the driving
force of our abused laissez-faire sys-
tenn you get an energy output pro-
portioned to the maximum possible
reward for the workers. BY the very
aim of communism this must be an
average of the total product. The
whole productive operation falls to
dull, dead level of uninspired rou-
tine work for the group. Such
system win likely produce in the end
a bare minimum of physical neces-
stiles.
One of the astonishing observations
of Plutarch, writing 1900 years ago
about a man dead 800 years before.
was that Lycurgus had in mind to
abolish luxuries, but found it unnec-
eSsary to issue any rules because lux
uries vanished with the first steps in
communism. An American shopgirl
may stint herself on lunches for days
to get silk stockings, but she gets the
stockings. It seems likely that the
Russian women doing the work of
animals all over Russia would gladly
exchange the opportunity to worship
Lenin for the chance to buy the
little fineries for their babies that
the poorest mothers can buy in any
capitalist society.
A~AAA . CAASAoA Wd6Co SSAAAAAdAA-
ism mean that the profit motive is
retained, with all the old bitter dis
tinctions. of our own system, but in
worse form. They are no longer
personal distinctions based on the
ability Of individuals to achieve none
tary success. They are class diStinc-
tions, established by arbitrary rule.
They are fiat contradiction Of eco
nomic democracy, and they cannot
be maintained except by tyranny. No
majority is going to vote for higher
pay for minority class. What infor-
nation we have about Russian wages
would indicate that human nature Is
still operating very humanity in the
determination Of differential rates.
Economic Interest Remains.
when Communism Is completely
realized we have a system in which
private rent, profit and interest are
abolished, the whole social product
going to the whole people. But that
very large part of profits that is
merely the wages of superintendence
is not abolished. And economic in
terest is not abolished. 1t cannot be.
The directing force faces the terrific
problem of determining how much OF
the social product shall go to capital
and how much to consumption. In
it's frenzied effort to show the world
a high rate of progress the Russian
dictatorship has goaded a pauper
people on the edge of starvation to
pay cost to capital never exacted by
any capitalist regime in history. 1t
can "get away" with this just so long
as the Russian masses are illiterate.
What will happen after they under
stand the situation this writer does
not know, any more than Stain
knows. But in this one problem there
lies the technical collapse Of Com
munism.
With all its faults, the competitive
system does work automatically. 1t
is self-starting, self-steering, self
operating machine. 1t responds in
stantly to new forces and new op-
portunities. A Communist economy
must be a managed economy. In
that economy invention, experiment,
change even new thought can find