Toledo union journal. [volume] (Toledo, Ohio) 1942-current, 1945-03-09
The
Beam
By
Clayton w.
Fountain

ing put forward on behalf of
foreign trade as a sure cure
for unemployment in the post
war period.
Somehow or other, out of
my eight years in the labor
movement, I picked up the
notion that it is the capitals
tic habit of boarding huge re-
serves of profits that causes
unemployment and depres-
sion. l read couple of books,
and l heard several learned
economists expound a thesis
or two-and it seemed to me
that our major economic prob
lem was one of preventing the
few rich from hogging the
purchasing power.
Somewhere along the line l
heard it explained, too, that
when a capitalist system gets
clogged up and slowed down
with undigested idle profits,
the capitalists then turn to
foreign trade as an outlet for
their surplus capital.
They seek new markets, and
they try to dominate the ma
tions or colonies to which they
export their excess capital in
the form of foreign trade
and, the first thing you know,
a shooting war breaks out.
BOTTLENECKs OF PROFIT
l have come to believe,
therefore, that labor's first job
in attacking unemployment
and depression, is to try to
break up the bottlenecks of
private profit which withhold
purchasing power from the
great mass of working con-
sumers.
There are several ways to
attack these bottlenecks of
profit. One way is to raise
wages through the economic
action of free, democratic
trade unions. But this method
in itself is not adequate, if we
leave the price-making power
in the hands of those from
whom we buy.
Real wages are measured in
the amount of goods you can
buy with your income, and
price increases can wipe out
monetary wage raises.
TAXATION
Idle profits may also be re-
duced through taxation-that
is, if the government is pro-
gressive enough to push
through a taxation program
designed to separate the rich
from the excess dough that
they cannot, will not and do
not use.
The government can then
take the cash it gets in taxes
from the rich and finance
projects planned to raise the
living standard of the poor.
But these two actions, COL
lective bargaining for wage
increases and taxation of the
rich, do not get at the feature
of capitalism which permits
capitalists to accumulate ex-
cessive a m cunts of idle
wealth.
1t is the ownership of eco
nomic resources = the power
to do as they will with factor
les, fields, mines, banks, ETC.
that enables the capitalists to
feather their nests so richly
that they rob the consuming
public of the dollars needed to
keep the system going.
THE DANGER
Thus, if we ignore the prob
lem of ownership, and accept
foreign trade as a sure cure
for our economic troubles, we
are simply postponing the
t-.sk of breaking up the bot
tlenecks of private profit.
There is a real danger for
democracy in the bland accep-
tance of foreign trade as an
economic cure-all. Expansion
of foreign trade under the
continued control of the car
tells and corporations that
dominate American commerce
today will serve only to
strengthen these un-demo-
cratic monopolies.
Certainly there is a need
for foreign trade after the
war. But the conduct of global
commerce must go hand in
hand with the democratic bat
tie to break the power of big
CooperativeS and
public corporations, which
unearned income
and so reduce the bottlenecks
o. profit, must be used to de-
the ownership of
asic monopolies.
Otherwise, foreign trade