Saturday June 21, 1930 THE MILITANT The Hawley Smoot Tariff and American Imperialism By MAURICE SPECTOR the competitition to bear on the workers in the Amid the gathering uproar of protest form of wide spread wage reductions, The at home and threats of reprisals from general crisis of capitalism will be inworld market. This is the significance of abroad, the Hawley Smoot Tarifi Bill has the poverty and inability of the masses in tensified.
the tarif.
received legislative enactment and preai society to buy back is one of the most The plans of American imperialism are dential sanction. It cannot be passed over important elements in this crisis of disThe number of mergers and consolidatitanic in their consequences and must finas of no concern to the workers. Its improportion. Goods accumulate in the fac tions increased until the Unith States ally crash on the rock of their inner conplications for the development of the class tories but they cannot and the monetary was dominated by gigantic industrial corportradictions struggle in the United States and the strug form for ther release. The industrial crisis ations. The policy of these gigantic consolPinancial Yoke gle of the imperialists for the world marof over production results. Ito storm signals idations is to maintain a complete monopket are far too significant have been manifest Wbile seeking to throttle Europe inin the econ. oly of the home market and to bid for The Hawley Smoot Tarif increases the om te situation of the United States for a dustrially in the world market, American the world dominion in the foreign market.
considerable period, direct taxes on imports to 630, 000, 000 a But it imperialism simultaneously tightens the finwas reThe crisis will accelerate the ruin of The foreign loans of the ancial noose.
year or about 20 per cent above the pre strain from full expression by the great the small businessman and small manusend rate. This is a direct gift by the im credit structure built up on easy rates of United States now total some 26, 000, 000, facturer. The wages of the American workinterest brokers perialist government of the United States and 000. Capitalist Europe is one of her heav10 ans, ers will be deflated. The cost of living will tbe bull market, that kept the manufactur.
fest debtors.
increase.
to the monopolies. The masses will bear How will Europe liquidatie the burden of these direct taxes on food Attack on the her debts wbile ber markets are conquered ing and construction Industries and the Yorld Market installent plan going.
clothing, housing and other necessities of by American imperialism? How will she The European competitors of American be able to expand while being drained both life.
The Workers Position capitalism profess to be deeply shocked by ways? American imperialism lands in the Class Legislation the cynieism of this tariff, a declaration of But more concretely, technological unDet of this quandary. Capitalist Europe must The tarify which is held up as u naeconomic warfare of ever there was one, employment the industrial reserve army either sell goods or default. It is warfare coming on the very heels of the London National policy was always one of the most. was increasing The workers paid for val Disarmament Conference.
obvious and flagrant instances of class lein either case. The record of the United Undoubtedthe higher organic composition of capital States for armed intervention to collect gislation.
ly the economic policy implicit in the tariff The manufacturers appealed. technical progress. With the penalty of debts is a very active one.
for the support of the workers on the is the reality behind the illusions intended rationalizatton and displacement by the maThe pressure on the workers of Europe ground that protectionism would fill their to be fostered by the Disarmament Concbine. In 1929 production was 42 per cent ference.
must become unbearable and create new The war that resulted from the dinner pails and the relatively higher greater than in 1919 but the number of revolutionary crises.
economic rivalries of Great Britain and The American Recwages were pointed to in substantiation workers actually decreased in that interval tion of the German annuities plan, 98, Germany will be a mere sketch compared Put the wage levels of the workers in this by 585, 000. The Bureau of Labor Statistics 250, 000 was recently floated quickly by to the forces of death and destruction that country were due not to the tarif protecestimated the minimum health and decency elevon of the most powerful financial houses will be released in consequence of the detion but to a combination of circumstances, budget of a working class family of five in the country headed by Morgan and the great natural resources. the bigher cision of American imperialism to put Eurto be an annual income of 2, 262. The averCompany. These bondy are an integral part ope on a decreasing ration and to throttle productivity of labor and its greater intenage yearly earnings of a worker family of of the Young Plan and an unconditional city due to superior technical equipment, her. Protected by the monopolist tariftin the this kind was 1, 280. Five millions of such obligation of the German Government The the inflow of capital, etc. The powerful home market, United States mass producfamilies lived below this ininimum stanAmerican experts congratulate themselves protection for the United States Steel Cortion will resort to the policy of large scale dard, millions barely reach it. The on having thus taken the reparationy ques.
dumping campaigns in South America, Asia, poration has never benefited its industrial magses were heavily exploited. Prosperity tion out of politics. But they reckon and elsewhere.
slaves. The very people who fiercely rewas only for the labor aristocracy.
without their host the German proletaria.
sisted trade unionism and proposais for 90That the other capitalist powers will Do the Amercan cnpitalists believe that the cial insurance on the ground that these This is the situation which the capit counter attack is plain. lip to the present German massey will recognize as their obwere class legislation and an interference alist class of the United States faces today. American Imperialism has been able to diJigation the payment of the two billion The aim of capitalist production is with economic laws of supply and dethe vide them by demanding the favored nation marks annually for 58 years? As little as realization of profit. Capital accumulates mand, were the interests who continually callse for itsell. It has wielded its tre tho October revolution recognized the but the rate of profit at home declines.
usod their political power to interfere with mendous financial power to force conces French loans to the Czar for the suppreseconomic laws of the international division The domestic market alone becomes too sions. Europe barred from access to the sion of the 1905 revolution!
of labor and to secure ever mounting sub narrow a base for the productive powers of great American market will not parsive The tarist is another step on the road sidies from the government treasury And American capitalism. Plant facilities are ly accept its fate without a struggle. The that American Imperialism has already in huge excess of domestic requirepped out ths was as it should be. The democratic German industrialists have announced a monts. Finished for itself to unqualified world power. Firsi, state is the political representation of the manufactured goods new drive on the world market to release through neutrality and then intervention in amount to one half of the entire foreign Interests of private property and not of the heavy stocks accumulating in the Ruhr the World War, through abstention from the the working class. The fact alone that sales. Between 1919 and 1928 American and the drive will open with a ten per cent chaos of the Versailles Conference, through exports totalled 53 billion furnishing a surthe British workers enjoyed a relatively wage cut for hundreds of thousands of Ger the stabilizing intervention of the Dawes plus over imports of 14 billion dollars.
higher standard of living than the root of man workers. To mee this challenge the Plan in 1924 and more recently, the Young the European continent during the Victor American capitalism must gird for a Titish and American caritalists must in Plan.
grand offensive on the workers and the Jan period of indiluici free trale is enough turn bring the pressure of international Towards Proletarian Rorolution to prove that the tariff was not responLa Liberte, a Parisian bourgeois paper sible for the higher living standards in asks: Is we capitalistic world doomed to the United States.
die through excess of producidon siniply The Economie Crisis because those who direct it are incapable The Hawley Smoot Tariff is the proThe Communist League (Opposition) is beginning to take roots in of organizing it right? The Communists the duct of a deepening economic crisis, which labor and trade union movement, and is making marked advances in the organanswer is directly in the affirmative.
ocnicided with the advent of the enginization of its fractions to carry through its policies in the left wing and working The basic tendencies of world econwering genius and Business Administramases benerally. Through the Weekly Militant we can better voice our views and omy are for international unification. The tien of Herbert Hoover, Its sponsors present concrete prograins of activity as a guide to the workers.
economic crisis, the imperialist wars, the advance the stock argument that it will revolutionary struggles are fundamentally Assure the return of prosperity and keep New Forces from Party and the Youth expressions of the fact that the protective diccreetly silent on the reasons (or the forces cannot be contained within the toss of prosperity in the first place. That In the official Communist Party and the Young Conimunist League of the frontiers of the national state nor the fet this argument is fraudulent demagogy United States there is a growing resentment and distrust in the ranks, even though ters of private property.
Basically Curshould be patent to every worker.
largely suppressed by the bureaucracy, with the policy of the official Communist opean economy cries out for the abolition Prosperity had come to be regarded ite movement. Amber of them have however openly voiced their protest and deof tariff barriers, the whole world for the Special divine dispensation to clared their adherence with the views of the Left Opposition. The Weekly Militant international division of labor, and the free the United States, an eternal institution. makes it possible to work more actively than ever to win the worker Commuuists movement of goods. But the resolutions Publicists and professory wrote treatisen to the program of the Left Opposition.
of the World Economic Conference, the to prove the bankruptcy of Marxism in The Militant and the Economic Crisis Bankers Manifesto of a few years ago, the the light of American experience of the International Chamber of Commerce, the wide diffusion of wealth making blonted The fate of the militant as a WEEKLY still bangs in the balance.
various proposals for a customs union can The P! lgrims stock owners of the workers.
11110 anl supporters of the Communist League of America (Opposition) are have but little effect. So far from the capfrom the European social democracy Jour beginning to rally around the Militant. Two issues of the Weekly Mulitant have apitalists being prepared to unify world ecReyed over to marvel at the wonders of peared since our appeal. But a greater response is still needed if the Militant is to onomy, and utilize its technical resources Fordism and the economy of high wages.
continue as a Weekly, and particularly to survive during the difficult summer period.
for international cooperation, the HawThe bubble burst. The stock market This is the critical time. We are confident that if the supporters of the Left Oppoley Smoot tariff demonstrates yet again, began its dizzy dance of calamity. The sition will contribute financially to pass through the dog days. the muture will that imperialist monopolies based on the army of unemployed swelled to five milbring ripe fruit to the Opposition.
exploitation of labor and motivated by the Hons. Grain prices fell. Cotton slumped.
realization of capital, can only increase the Commodity prices declined. Onlput deThe Militant as a Pivot for Communist Growth antagonisms, the misory of the workers, creased. Exports fell off. American capand bring greater military conflicts.
italism revela all the frailities of anarcic The possibilities for the growth of Communism, of the Left Opposition in Only the revolutionary action of the the United States are good.
production for profit. To propose higher The Militant in the pivot around which the activities proletariat for the socialization of produce tarit as the solution for this crisis is of our movement revolve. On the assumption of the continued existence of the tion can cut the Gordian knot and free the Militant as a Weekly, the Communist League (Opposition) has laid plans for increased sheer demagogy.
forces of production for a unified world The esgence of the economic crisis is activity among the workers. At present, Max Sbacbtman of the National Committee economy and socialist freedom of trade.
is touring nationally for the Communist League.
the cleavage between the power of producOther organizational and propa The European bourgeoisie is helpless tion and the capacity for consumption. efganda tours are planned for the fall period by other members of the Communist to stem the tide of the American imperialLeague.
fective demand. on the basis, of course, of ist advance; it can only prepare for war.
the relations of distribution that obtain in We need 2, 000. 00, over and above our regular income of subscriptions, Despite the talk of reprisals the American capitalist society. The masses cannot buy bundle payments, etc. to fosure our existence, as a Weekly publication for the next tariff will only provisionally here and there back the amount that is produced, The six onths.
bring common action anong the European anarchy of capitalist production for profit states.
In the end the struggle for marmanifests itself in the recurrent tieproSEND YOUR CONTRIBUTION AT ONCE TO THE MILITANT, 25 Third Ave, kots will intensity their mutual hostilities.
portionality between the various branches New York, The action of American imperialism will of production and the Ineffective demand accelerate the development of the proletarian revolution, THE MILITANT, Vol. III, No. 24, June 21, 1930 Published weekly by the Communist League of America (Opposition) at 25 Third Avenue, New York, Sub.
eription rate: 12. 00 per year; foreign 50. Five cents per copy. Bundle rates, centa per copy. Editorial Board: Martin Abern, James Cannon, Max Sbachtman, MauIce Spector, Arne Swabeck. Entered feromod class wall matte anvember 28. 1928. at the Post Ofice at New York, under the act of March 3, 1879. Total No. 49)
our Share!