doh Ll ell il lil BRITISH COLUMBIA Economic crisis bears out Marx’ theory, labor conference affirms ‘By HAL GRIFFIN The economic crisis gripping all except the Socialist countries and its consequences to working people dominated discussions at a weekend conference commemorating the centenary of Karl Marx’ death held March 18-19 at Capilano College. Organized by the Labor Studies Program under the title ‘Marx and the Trade Unions,” the conference keynote was struck by labor €conomist Emil Bjarnason before some 200 Participants. The present crisis, he said, ‘‘will be the longest and deepest since the thirties and will Probably not be halted unless and until a ge- nuine disarmament program reduces the fierce Pressure of the military budget on prices and in- terest rates.’ Presenting a.paper on the economic crisis, Which he described as a combination of long term trends and cyclical movements bearing out Marx’ analysis in Capital of the laws governing Capitalist production, Bjarnason made these Points: ae a ® The share of profits accruing to banks and other financial institutions has been growing steadily. Corporation interest payments have risen from 7.5 percent of pre-tax profits in 1945’ to 23 percent in 1975 and 91 percent in 1982. “In the inflationary conditions of the eighties, usury has become more profitable than productive €nterprise,’”’ Bjarnason observed. ® The percentage of unemployment in boom years has risen in the post-war period until now tis higher at the prosperity top of the economic cycle than it was at the recessionary bottom — for example, 6.2 percent in 1971, a-crisis year, and 7.5 percent in 1980, a boom year. “Even a century after his death, Marx’ Prediction of the increasing concentration of Capital and the reasons for it continue to be Strikingly evident,’’ Bjarnason concluded. “Thus, from 1977 to 1981, the share in total Corporate sales of Canadian corporations with Over $10 million assets rose from 57 to 62.5 per- Cent...those for companies with less than $10 million ranged from 5.2 to 6.1 percent. “Even in the prosperity phase, the profit ad- vantage of the monopolies was rapidly increas- Ig their specific weight in the economy. In the “isis phase, this tendency accelerates. ‘The efforts of the state to cope with the Periodic crisis generated by these tendencies has €d to the anomaly of capitalist states in which me half the gross national product is disbursed Y Sovernment,”” he emphasized. With each successive cycle the government intervention required becomes more massive and more difficult to justify politically.” Nigel Amon, Labor Studies Program instuc- tor, in discussing Bjarnason’s presentation, poisited out that all the factors for increased ex- ploitation cited by Marx — wage cuts, speedup, layoffs, dismissals — made it easier for cor- porations to recover a measure of profitability and so reduce production costs by investment in new technology, leading to a new upward cycle and a new, deeper economic crisis in future. He supported Bjarnason’s contention that arms spending was the most devastating infla- tionary factor, after Bjarnason pointed out the absurdity, ‘‘in face of the trillion dollar scale of arms spending,” of the argument advanced by some economists that government recover in taxes the money spent on arms production. Prof. Charles Tolman of Victoria Universi- ty, whose paper on the principles of Marx’ philosophy drew prolonged applause, gave as an instance of current anti-materialist ideas - assertions that ‘‘depression is a state of mind, unemployment a matter of will.”” Such statements were heard in the Hungry Thirties when it was often said that people thought themselves into a depression and anyone who wanted work could find it. “