Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1942-08-10
Can Capitalism Survive
BY MERRYLE STANLEY RUKEYSER

discussion ~
1t to that is the wrong approach: 1t seems
to that concede too much when we discuss this
subject exclusively in enemy language
In this question of capitalism and the survival OF
capitalism don't want to discuss it in the framework
of conditions of many years ago. but look at it candidy
in the light of wartime conditions in 1912 .,
That means must examine not only the theoretical
arguments of Karl Marx but look at the stresses and
strains imposed system by wartime and other
political policies and trends and must look at these
problems dspassionately because in making Judgment
it is like making credit rating The facts should glye
its definition
We should not go into it with bias.
Poor Karl Marx writing, thinking and developing
theories at time when economic development was
much primitive than it is today.
was before the great power age, before the age Of
electricity before the period OF supPementng the human
muscle with horse power which enabled men to turn cut
more goods and hence to earn more.
II ARL MARX sitting in a British university work.
II ing without benefits of modern accounting tech
niques which would enable him to make Xray of the
economic system and really determine how the wheels go
round So he formulating his views at time when
we were primitive and backward in the matter OF cost
accounting.
For example it was still customary in the middle of
the last century for lump together profit
overhead ct cetera there awful lot of detail
and great amount of social significance in that little
word, "et cetera."
1t was misconceptions an error, to lump overhead
with profit AS result of that msconcepon Marx had
tremendously exaggerated notion of the extent OF the
profit.
Out of that msconcepton he evolved his elaborate
theory of surplus value the surplus value going to the
Somehow in a mysterious and metaphysical way, he
assumed that the owner the profit taker took those
profits and stuck them under the mattress assumed they
went out of the economic system and that they didn't
flow back and result in new purchasing power and new
employment opportunities.
He thought because of that the system would in
evaby break down. because you taking out OF the
selling price of goods substantial amount that d.
verted to the capitalist and did not into purchasing
power.
THE time is limited to indicate in than head
pa+ Ofb cbolIip
just few to you,
In the first place modern cost accounting does not
lump overhead ct cetera with profit AS matter of
fact the most modern accounting the most moderate cor
porate accounting properly shows the so-caed profit
a cost of business, a cost Of capital
Beyond that, when the capitalist stock
holder gets the profit the dividend he doesn't put in
and take it out of the economic stream and
create situation whereby the wheels industry
stop turning because Of inequality between the
intake and the ougo
The capitalist the owner the stakeholder is just one
of US; there upwards of 12000,000 stockholders OF
American corporations. II YOU going to describe
capitalist would also have to include the 65OO0OOO
life insurance policy the 4500O00 depositors Of
savings accounts.
But these capitalists redsribute their interest and
dividends income into the of business i'm precisely
the same manner that the working man redstrbutes his
wages.
If the owner has large income an income beyond
his consumable needs he still doesn't put it under the
Mattress he still doesn't put it in vacuum.
If he foregoes the right to use up or consume all
that income and goes through what the economist calls
the pains of abstinence he makes available to 30 100000
gainfuly employed persons tools power equipment, in
dustral facilities which are provided out of his savings
Nov out of his errors, Karl Marx made definite fore
casts He stuck his neck out, and it is possible,
facualy in blueprint To compare his prognosti
cations with the subsequent trend of events.
If we were holding clinic on this subject and de-
voting year to it could have interesting time in
that detailed analysis of the of Karl Marx. will
point out just a few Of the high spots to you
He said that the condition of the workers of the
world bad That true, because tools still
primitive. The world hadn't yet achieved modern power
technology or the technique of mass production.
But he drew unwarranted conclusions from his
premise He said for example that the condition of the
masses would get progressively worse.
We'll in that 20 years that have elapsed since that
forecast in the United States for example, which the
flower of modern industrasm, instead of conditions of
the working man getting progressively decade by
decade, have provided the worker with and
better goods than he enjoyed before.
(TO BE COntinued)