A Page of Study for Socialism

SCIENCE OF SOCIETY

What Is Socialism?

Vil.

From Boom To Crash

Are we headéd for another economic crisis?

This question is on the minds of millions of Canadians.
Memories of the 1930’s are all too vivid; the hopeless hunt
for a job, the endless insecurity, the. evictions and fore-
closures, the sickness and hunger—all in a country filled
with goods and the means of producing more...

The crisis of the

730’s was the tenth in a series that

started in 1825, one following the other like clockwork,
at intervals of ten years or so.

These capitalist crises are crises of * ‘“over- production.”
Earlier societies had suffered from famines, every so often;
but it remained for capitalism to produce crises caused by

‘too much food,’
thing.

‘too much machinery,’

‘too much’ of every-

In an economy where goods are produced for the
market, blindly and haphazardly, there’s always a possi-
bility that more of a certain commodity will be produced
that there are purchasers for it at the time. But capitalism
made crises of over-producion an inevitable occurrence, in-
separably part of the nature of the economy itself.

Wer s this so?

(1) Capitalist production is
carried on for profit, and it
constantly expands the produc-
tive forces of big industry, re-
gardless of

(2) the fact that the market
based on the purchasing power
of the working people is all the
time being strangled by the
noose of restricted income, low
wages, general poverty, arising
from the conditions of capitalist
exploitation.

The very existence of capi-
talism is based on the contra-
diction between growing pro-
ductive forces that have more
and more social character, and
property relations of private
ownership of the means of
production.

This contradiction shows it-
self in different ways:

@ in the conflict between pri-
vate capital and social labor.

@ in the contradiction be-
tween the planned character of
production as it takes place
within the ever larger enter-
prises — and the anarchy that
reigns in the competitive mar-
ket.

@ and in the periodic -out-
break of crises of overprdoduc-
tion . . . Crises which aren’t
a.“sickness” of. capitalism, but

its norma] form of movement.

<<: “Gigantic crashes have be-
come possible and inevitable,
only because powerful social
:productive forces have become
subordinated to. a gang of rich
men, whose only concern is to
make profits.”—Lenin.

It is the drive for profit that
determines the conduct of the
capitalist lords of industry; and
-~when “too much?’ machinery
and consumers’ goods have been
“produced for them to serve as
-@ means of extracting a certain
rate of profit, the. capitalists
close down their plants. Profit,
and not social needs, governs
_ capitalist production. .

As capital accumulates, the
rate of profit tends to decline
(we'll discuss the reason. for
this next week)—and this is a
further factor in the capital-
ists’ “need” to produce a stop-
page, destroy quantities of
“surplus goods,” and “clear the
ground” for a new dash to pro-
fitable prosperity. The new re-
vival generally starts with a
renewal of capital plant and
machinery, providing the start-
ing point for a new cycle, from
depression to boom to crash, all
over again.

In the last analysis, it is the
underlying contradiction be
tween social production and
private appropriation that
erupts with increasing violence
in capitalist crises.

“The last cause of all real
crises always remains the pov-
erty and restricted consump-
tion of the masses, as compared
with the impulse of capitalist
production to develop the pro-
ductive forces as if only the ab-
solute power of consumption of
society were their limit” —
Marx.

Capitalist economists under-
take to “explain” capitalism as
a smoothly-working system of
“free enterprise’? and they usu-
ally take the “example” of
Robinson Crusoe on a desert is-

land to illustrate their “explan-
ation.” But as for crises, they
either ignore their existence, or

try to explain them away as |

mere unfortunate “accidents,”
exceptions to the “rule.”

Nothing shows up more clear-
ly the bankruptey of their
“theories.”

Marx’s economic theory does
explain — fully — how crises
arise, and proves that they’re an
essential feature of capitalism
itself. And the seven crises that
have broken out since his death
have only added further, crush-
ing evidence of the unanswer-
able soundness of his theory.

PACIEIC: ADVOCATE _ PAGE 24

@ National Educational Di

Conducted by

STANLEY B. RYERSON

READING:

Communist Manifeste, pp. 13-
5.

Engels, Socialism, Utopian &
Scientific, pp. 60-65.

~~

QUESTIONS:

1. Why are crises of “over-
production” imevitable under
capitalism?

2. What are the contradictions
within capitalism that manifest
themselves in the cyclical crisis?

Leader

stressed that if President.

- Truman is not prepared to

demand that industry place
the interests of the people
before profit, the CIO will

earry on the fight on every
street-corner in the nation.

After interviewing Reid Rob-
inson, I was convinced that as
long as veterans of lIabor’s
struggles like this leader of the
hardrock-miners of Canada and
the United States are shaping
the policies of organized iabor,
the attempts of big business to
undermine and destroy organ-
ized labor will be forestalled
And in the growing battles
ahead ,with the trade union
movement of the two great
countries ‘steeling themselves
for the fight, the miners, under
the leadership of their un-
flinching and realistic leader,
will take their place in the
front ranks of labor’s march
forward.

SS SESS SE EE RES ERY LEU II IE BIR IEE CEI I EPIC IE IE IE IE TITS

CRISES |

Modern bourgeois society with its relations of prodt,
exchange and of property, a society that has conjured ;
gigantic means of production and exchange, is like the |
who is no longer able to control the powers of the netl.
whom he has called up by his spells. ie

For many a decade past the history of industry ¢
merce is but the history of the revolt of modern product:
against modern conditions of production, against th
relations that are the conditions for the existence of t
sie and of its rule.

It is enough to mention the commercial crises tha};
periodical return put the existence of the entire bourge
on -its trial, each time more threateningly. '

In these crises a great part not only of the existing
but also of the previously created productive forces are
cally destroyed. In these crises there breaks. out an epide |
in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdif
epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds j i
back into a state of monetary barbarism; it appease
famine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the;
every means of subsistence; andustry, and commerce se
destroyed. . 4

And why? Because there is too much. éivilization,
means of subsistence, too much industry, too much comr ~
productive forces at the disposal of society no longe
further the development of the conditions of bourgeois |
on the contrary, they have become too powerful for thi. |
tions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they
these fetters, they bring disorder into. the whole, of |

a

society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property.
ditions of bourgéois society are too narrow to comprise 1’
ereated by them.

q

- And how does the bourgeoisie get over these .crise |
one hand, by enforced destruction of a mass of producti |
on the other, by the conquest of new markets and by |
thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to Say, |
the way for more extensive and more destructive cris
diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. :

;

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