June 7, 1930 THE MILITANT Pares Italian Fascism and the Economic Crisis In Italy nay also be achieved through standardt zation, better equipment, all sorts of economies and worsening of labor conditions.
The aim of the International monopolles is either to raise or maintain prices, since there is no scope here for the reduction of the costs of production by One can best explain the evolution of and all at the expense of the working My first day Fascism exposed its role as more efficient management and organizaclass.
the body guard of capitalism. whole the fascist movement by following the tion of production. The rise of the monopIt was from the necessity of giving a Series et neasures were adoled tha) were transformations of Italian capitalism, its oly is reflected in the changed attitude of difficulties, and its vicissitudes in the course solution to all these problems that fascism anything but what the petiy bourgeoisie had hoped from their government.
the capitalist state which is no longer of the economic crisis provoked by the war. was conceived and developed; to gag the moved by the interests of the small busworkers, to establish the absolute despot The program of financial and ecoItalian economy, despite its victory inessman. Even in the United States which In the war, has retained its inferior posi ism of the employers in the factories, ruth cmic rc. struction infolded in ac. ordanes went through a Rooseveltian spell of tion as compared with the great capitalist lessly to defend the interests of the bour with lo necessities of the defence of the trust busting legislation all kinds of bourgeoisie.
geoisie and to give it a single willed leadInstead of the return to a The reasons for this economic powers.
loop holes are now available to get round inferiority lle principally in the lack of raw ership in a word, as a special attempt of roxime cr full eronomic liberty. instead of the Sherman, Clayton and a renunciation on the part of the State other acts materials and capital, in the dependence Italian capitalism to assure its own stabilof those of its functions bearing a ROODagainst. combinations in restraint ization.
of trade. on the importation of machinery from The Crists of 1921 olist cbaracter. etc. from the day of the abroad, in the disproportion between the Socialist Ultra Imperialismº increase of population and the increase of Having overcome the crisis of demob arrival of the fascist government is power ilization (1919. the period of factitious the victory of monopolist capital spread As to the significance of the monopwealth, disproportion aggravated itsell over the whole of Italian economy. olies, there are two basically opposed inadays by the closing of the frontiers to prosperity (1920) was followed in Italy as in cther countries by a serious economic From this there followed the necessity of terpretations. The social democratic theemigration. All this lends justification to a transformation: In the mechanism of orist Kautsky wrote some years ago. the definition of Italian captalism as a depression which reached its lowest point in the years 1921 22.
production and in that of the state by From a purely economic point of view it is capitalism organically feeble but it is not 1921 was for Italian economy the most means of which the bourgeois class exer not impossible that capitalism will yet go enough to recall this definition. We must serious of all the afterwar crises. The cises its own political domination.
through a new phase, that of the extenat the same time analyze the changes which crisis was industrial, commercial and finan. The Revival of 1923 and the New Crists sion of the policy of cartels to foreign have taken place in the economic situation cial. By comparison with 1920 foreign At the end of 1922 with a general re policy, or of ultra Imperialism. And Hilof Italy.
trade was reduced almost by hall. Every vival of international economy there was a terding writes: After the War We have taken step certain expansion of production.
phase of economic activity reflected this Unemtowards a stable economie society for the The war brought with it an extension depression. The value of government bonds ployment decreased substantially. From of the basis of production and under the Arst time since the end of the war. capfell disastrously. Not only the smaller December 1922 capital investments in Joint italism has surrendered the principle bulimpulsion of finance capital, even a rebut even the more sigantic businesses stock companies acquired an intense temorganization of the forms of production.
wark it erected against socialism, the capwere hard hit. The number of failures po. Before the war stock companies numItalian economy came out of the war proItalist principle of free competition, for the reached enormous proportions. The most bered 48 with a capital of 2, 212, 000 000 lire foundly transformed. The movement of the socialist principle of production according resounding failure of this period is that of and in 1914, 8, 138 with a capital of about to plan and from this he sees but a short concentration and centralization of brug iness enterprise had received a powerful the Ilve at the beginning of 1921 bringing 5, 000, 000, 000 lire; in 1923, the number step towards organized production under in its wake the crash of the Banque of companies reached the figure of 9, 078 state control. In the monoplies, he sees impetus. During the war Italy was comd Escompte and the ruin of several thou with a capital of 28, 5000, 000, 000 lire. At pelled to depend on its own resources in an economy of conscious organzation by sand small depositors. The army of un the end of January 1930 existing companies industry no less than in agriculture and the capitalist class.
employed reached the figure of 463, 000 in number 16, 278 with a total capital of commerce to provide the naterials which it Sharpened Contradictions July 1921. The one profiteer from the 49, 842, 500 000 lire. has been accustomed to receive from In contradistinction to this view is crisis was Anance which extended its work All the figures of economic activity abroad and especially from Germany. Parthe revolutionary conclusion of Lenin that of conquest.
during 1923 show the same revival, Mon there can be no doubt that developinent ticularly active in the course of the war We have already said that Italian cap ey is cheap and its abundance engendered is tending towards the formation of a and consequently afterwards, were the mining, the machine, chemical and textile in italism came out of the war completely by the inflation still pushes to the devel single all embracing world trust which will transformed and that the organizing activ opment of enterprise and the increase of dustries. Shipbuilding also experienced a include all undertakings and all states ity of the banks assumed at this time a productive capacity, especially in specific without exception. This development, howbig expansion.
role of great importance. After the war, industrial groups As a whole Italian economy came out (hydro electric, ship ever is proceeding at such a rate, in such finance ca ital, its power reinforced by the building, chemical industry, artificial silk, of the war considerably transformed and circumstances, with such contradictions, etc. war, developed its plan of conquest and But already towards the end of developed.
conflicts and upheavals not only economDut agriculture on the other domination of Italian economy at an ac 1923 there are many signs of weakness.
hand had suffered enormously. The charic but also political, national, etc. that acter of the soil was unfavorable to the celerated pace and parallel with it the great discontent prevails among the even before we arrive at an ultra imperialplan of subjecting to its control the whole working classes as a result of the constant change in the forms of cultivation required ist alliance of national finance capital, Imby the situation. In addition there was a state machine. This plan which went on wage reductions and the continuous rise perialism will inevitably collapse and capscarcity of agricultural workers (the rur the rocks during the democratic govin the cost of living. In 1924 unemploy italism will turn into its opposite.
ernment of Nitti (against which both the ment again begins to rise; the situation al male population had been reduced by The New Industrial Revolution canproletarian masses, on the one hand, rose sharpens. In the meantime, the working successive mobilizations from to milnot strengthen the profit system but inlions. class has regained vigor and wants to There was a lack of fertizer.
and the ruined petty bourgeoisie on the creases its difficulties and sharpens its other) was completely realized by the gov fight. In this year therre are 163, 000 unThere was a dearth of cattle. Consequently contradictions. The application of the there was a reduction in the area sown.
ernment of Mussolini.
employed in comparision with the 66, 000 newer industrial technique and the speedBut despite all these negative features, for The big bourgeoisie (bankers, indus of the year before. The petty bourgeois ing up of labor, both raising the level of the peasantry the war was source of trialists, landed proprietors) utilized the masses, thwarted by Fascism, crushed human productivity to unheard of levels enrichment thanks to the rise in prices.
fascist movement to destroy the proletar under the weight of the cost of living and will further aggravate the market problem With the ending of hostilities, Italy enjan organizations (trade unions, coopera taxation are in their turn in an agitated of capitalist production, and the general tiered on the period of economic crisis in tives, etc. but once in power, Mussolini state.
crisis of the whole system. The growing which she still finds herself. In the official could find no other solution for the de That is the situation in which the Mat productivity of labor results in lessening mands of the petty bourgeoiste who had teoti crime supervenes with its enormous organs of the Italian Communist Party, this the opportunities for employment, This crisis is habitually characterized as an orbeen motilized against the workers than repercussions throughout die country.
can only mean a contraction of the home ganic and progressive crisis. AKROS In reality that ordered by Big Business. rom the market, and in view of the greater industhis feature of the crisis is not peculiar to trial competition in the world, a more desItaly alone; it is what distinguishes in perate struggle for the foreign market with this period the quality of the world econthe certain perspective of the appeal to omic crisis of capitalism as a whole. It is arus as the final argument.
not enough to say that we are in the Rationalization is the current term for or the Sherman anti trust legislation. The The solution of the social crisis lles midst of an organic and progressive cri a three fold process (a) the introduction only question is: will the mergers stabilize in the hands of the working class. Its sis. one must study the origins of the of newer industrial methods and more capitalism or willi they sharpen its dilrevolutionary political and industrial orcrisis and the rhythm of its development. scientific organization to which no one but emma?
ganization to take power into its own hands If it is true that for capitalism to Gandhi can take objection in themselves, Available statistics testify to the great as the force most necessary for producpostpone its difficulties does not mean to (b) the speeding up and intenser exploit merger impetus of the past few years, tion, would cut the Gordian knot. The way surmount them, it is no less true that so ation of the workers which they must re The Federal Trade Commission hay reout Hes in the abolition of production for long as these difficulties can be evaded, sist furiously. This phase of the process ported for the United States that a haifprivate profit, and in the rational socialthey can be momentarily overcome.
is accompanied on occasion by a nominally dozen companies control one third of Amerist organization and distribution of the country economically feeble, Italy higher wage, an illusion since it leads ican water power, four companies control world resources. The New Chemistry thus experienced in the most direct and to greater output by fewer workers, to one half of the copper deposits, cigbo and Giant Power must be harnessed to the profound fashion the effects of the war more frequent intervals of unemployment companies control three quarter of the service of a society of producers. The crisis. As for other countries so for Italy and to premature exhaustion. The Amer Iluminous depos!! 3, etc. In Germany, the horde of parasitical coupon clippers must also it was a crisis of raw materials, of ican be abolished, and no less the standing engineer, Taylor, formulated the Chemical Trust conto. Is practically the en.
lack of equipment, of capital markets, underlying theory of the speed up some 15 tire output dyes, fertilizers, drugs, exarmy of the unemployed, transport, etc. This raised the following years ago in his Principles of Scientific plosives, etc. It represente a merger of problem: what class would be compelled to Management. and Ford proved their most numbers of separnte companies previously shoulder the expenses of the war?
Free March 6th Jailed In successful practical exponent. third operating under a wide range of cartel and other words, would it be at the expense phase of rationalization is the weeding out other agreements. Tu Canada the group of wages or of capitalist profits that the of the smaller and less efficient enter abciit Sir Henry Holt brings into one vaso (Continued from Page 1)
problems of prices (the very crux of the prises through the medium of the merger con:hiration the Ro? Bank, British Emwill educate the workers on the kind of present economic crisis) would be resol movement in the direction of more com pire Steel, Pulp and Paper, and electric Justice that capitalism dispenses to the ved? The significance of the violent strugplete monopoly.
power. In addition to the national there workers. Maneuvres, dickers with politigles waged in the post war period, before Before the war bourgeois economists have been a number of international conclans behind the scenes, failure to rally and after the advent of Fascism is ren tried to minimize the possible extent of binations like the European Steel Cartel, and to count upon a mass movement of the dered clear by this sharp contrast between trustification, arguing for example, its al Franco German Potash, the European workers to free the class war prisoners, the level of wager and capitalist profits. leged failure to make headway in retail Chemical Trust, International Copper Synare methods wrong both from a practical in industry as well as in agriculture distribution. The chain store came to give dicate, etc.
and working class policy. Such ways the ost of production is very high, a fact these economists (always a few laps behind International Monopolies smack of the methods of petty bourgeois which does not facilitate sales. Given the facts of social evolution) something to The monopolies have mostly been formpoliticiandom so vigorously condemned by specific character of Italian capitalism, it explain anew. The marginal utility the ed in the branches of production producing and, apparently, so easily adopted in its the official Communist Party in theory must solve the problem of net costs by ory of value scarcely proved less unreal operating principally on wages, by increasraw materials or semi finished products, than their hopes for the individual entreppractices.
commodities capable of mass production ing the length of the working day, intens eneur. the individual business organizer and easily subject to standardization. The ployed victims. Build a broad united front Revive the campaign to free the unemifying production, by raising tariffs reduc who was supposed to represent the spirit ing the cost of maritime and domestic national monoplies are the basis of the of competition. The merger movement International movement on behalf of Foster, Amter, Mintransportation, settling the problem of mon proved to be more powerful than the cobThe purpose of getting together is to increase profits, but not neor and Raymond. Rank and file Communetary circulation, balancing the budget, etc. webs of the pleayure and pain psychology ists! Demand that the Party leadership cessarily through a rise in prices That Rationalization and Capitalist Monopoly