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155 THE WORKERS COUNCIL 154 THE WORKERS COUNCIL DECEMBER 15, 1921 DECEMBER 15, 1921 Another Futile Attempt ONLY those are disappointed who really expected By NATHANIEL BUCHWALD England has plenty of factories and raw materials, but no customers, and her factories are idle and her gathering at Washington of cunning diplomats repworkers starving.
resenting rapacious imperialistic cliques.
France continues getting in small instalments her One need not be a confirmed disbeliever in salvation pound of flesh from Germany, but German gold is by star chamber diplomacy to realize a priori that the not enough to meet the expenses of collecting it, e. international highbinders who gave us the Versailles the maintenance of a vast military machine, and GerPact cannot, in their very nature, lay the foundations man coal cannot be used to advantage in bolstering of a lasting peace.
up her industries, since industrial intensification is The world has changed considerably and for the impossible amidst a devasted, despoiled Europe.
worse since the signing of the peace treaty, but the EVERYWHERE WANT AND PRIVATION imperialistic appetites of the ruling classes have not; and it is to satisfy these appetites with the minimum The pound of German flesh is producing deadly expenditure of effort that the imperialists of the great toxins in the organism of France, and her inner powers have sent their spokesmen to Washington. strength wanes as a result of this diet.
Everywhere there is want and privation, whether WORLD SAFE FOR IMPERIALISM from inability of people to buy, or of the capitalists As has been expected, the question of limitating the to sell; whether from sheer lack of means of subarmaments of the principal contenders for world do sistence, or from superfluity of marketable commodiminion is merely incidental to the main purpose of ties.
making the world safe for imperialism.
The breakdown of the system of international The very first condition for a successful imperialistic finance is but one of the symptoms of the more policy is the stabilization of the capitalist systems in disastrous breakdown of productive and distributive home countries.
mechanism of capitalist Europe, and when the allied Neither England, nor France, nor even the United statesmen speak of stabilizing the financial situation States can successfully extend their economic rule they mean salvaging the hulk of capitalist economy.
beyond their boundaries without first consolidating Only such a salvaging can stave off the complete and strengthening the capitalist structure at home. collapse of what Wells calls the white civilizaEconomic colonies, commercial spheres of influence, tion, that is, the economic order based on gain, greed new fields for investment are practically useless with and exploitation.
out an adequate system of international trade, and no WAR BURDEN TOO HEAVY international trade can be carried on without a stable system of credit and exchange. But what has all this to do with the Washington The monetary units of the international buyers and conference? you may ask.
sellers must stand for a definite quantity of gold, or Well, it has a great deal. The Washington conthey mean nothing.
ference is, in effect, an attempt on the part of interAnd since the monetary units of most of the national capitalism to save itself from itself.
European countries represent little more than so many Limitation of armaments, which is ostensibly the scraps of paper, the very bottom has been knocked main purpose of the gathering, is one of the chief out of international commerce, and consequently out needs of the governments of the world.
of capitalist production which has ever been a natural Excessive armaments and in the nature of improduction for foreign consumption, perialistic capitalism armaments cannot be anything but excessive is one of the contributary and agWIN PAUPERS AS DEBTORS gravating causes of the present paralysis of capitalism.
Traced to its initial source, the depreciation of The bullies of the world need armaments, of course, money springs from the disintegration of the pro but just at present the burden of taxation can no ductive structures of the defeated countries.
longer be borne by the beasts of burden known as the The ravages of war plus the monstrous penalties people.
imposed on them by the Treaty of Vengeance all but To increase this burden still further will break the depleted the economic life of these countries, with the back of the beast. To continue it as at present will result, that France and England and Italy have pau kill the beast thru exhaustion.
pers for debtors and starving people for customers. The burden must be lightened. The millions of unWith Germany eliminated as a factor in interna employed, the millions of starving wretches cannot pay tional commerce, with Russia placed outside the system the price of the armament race.
of export and import, with Austria turned into an When the jobless clamor for bread you cannot very almshouse, the victors have their hands full getting well feed them on higher taxes or more engines of war.
rid of the fruits of their victory.
Even France finds it increasingly hard to go on The very basis of international commerce has been arming, tho jingoism and hate are still in vogue with destroyed, the smaller countries move in erratic ec her people. War taxes, which represent nine tenths onomic orbits, like so many wandering meteors in the of all taxes, are paid by the masses, by the toiling miltrackless spaces of economic chaos.
lions, and if the toiling millions are starving you just can get any taxes out of them, no more than you Nationalism, the national state, is but a form of can get them out of the less numerous middle class, group imperialism. There can be no more peace and who suffer in their own way from the bad times. international solidarity between the imperialists of the And the rich wouldn finance their wars. That world than there was between feudal monarchs.
would hardly pay. Wars are very expensive.
Imperialist crews will make alliances, they will band CUT OVERHEAD EXPENSES together to make war upon another imperialist band, but to conclude a lasting peace all around would mean The diplomatists, therefore, may have been inspired to give up the business of imperialism, which is war by a sincere desire to attempt a reduction of armaments for the sake of booty, and this no imperialist will peras a measure of reducing the overhead expenses of mit.
imperialism.
BASIC TRUTHS EMPHASIZED But no sooner had they met, than it once more beThe Washington conference has merely emphasized came apparent that the scheme would not work.
Neither of the contenders for dominion in the far these truths. It has once more merely demonstrated East would relinquish the advantages gained during the utter impossibility of attaining anything like a truce between the warring imperialist groups.
the war, or the ambitions aroused by victory.
France is more than ever bent on dominating wishers of the white civilization, that international It has impressed it even upon the minds of the well Europe, and England will just as leave have it out with her dear ally as with any power that threatens imperialism cannot act in concert even when threatened by common destruction.
her mastery of the world.
Japan feels strong enough, and her apetite is keen It has taught masses of workers not to put their faith in princes of the imperialist world, not to hope enough to gobble up China, and the United States infor salvation by international agreements among brisists on getting no smaller a chunk than Japan. reduction of armaments cannot be agreed upon gands.
The conference has been a farce, a burlesque and when everyone is everyone else potential enemy.
a tragedy, but there is a moral to it, and it is in its DO NOT TALK ANTI WAR moral that its value lies.
Not even a suggestion has been made at the conference to disarm morally, to substitute some other HARDING AND TAFT scheme than war for the settlement of the imperialist ambitions of the several powers.
President Harding, following up the recent anti Security and protection and safety are, as picket decision of the United States Supreme Court, ever, measured in terms of warships and armies and headed by Chief Justice Bill the Fat, also known airships.
as William Howard Taft, has sent another reactionThe institution of war is still being taken for granted ary message to Congress, this time as a Christmas be every imperialist group, and such being the case, gift to the workers.
it is obviously to the advantage of each group to be Industrial courts, vested with full legal authority to stronger than the other.
forbid strikes and punish strikers, and a body of law There is nothing ludicrous in the sight of disarm based upon the theory that labor organizations should ament delegations haggling for more armaments on be closely regulated and supervised lest they take acbehalf of their respective countries.
tion that shall inconvenience the general public, were The rule of the jungle is still the rule of imperialism, among some of his stone age suggestions.
and he would be a fool who would permit his fangs Taft recent contribution the class struggle was to be dulled or his claws to be clipped.
the declaration that strikers may have only one picket KEY TO CAPITALIST IMPERIALISM on duty. Bill the Fat must have a poor opinion of the aggressive qualities of the hundreds of heavily This is indeed the key to the situation, the key to armed thugs and cutthroats hired by the employers the history of capitalist imperialism.
during every strike.
Every attempt of the national imperialist groups to get together is frustrated by the innate antagonisms of these groups.
Those who fail to see this genetic enmity between GO TO THE MASSES!
one national imperialism and another will go on forIn response to the great demand, we have ever talking pacifism or a league of nations, or world issued in pamphlet form the Manifesto of the concord, and forever bewail the lack of harmony on Executive Committee of the Communist Internaearth.
tional to the workers of all countries. This is the Capitalism as a mode of production may be an inproclamation of the Third Congress on the world situation.
ternational institution; imperialism as the highest stage This pamphlet also contains the historic withof capitalism may be international in its charcteristics, drawal statement of the Committee for the Third but capitalism and imperialism in operation cannot by International of the Socialist Party, in which the their very nature be international.
comrades now active in the WORKERS COUNThe greed for profit of the individual capitalist, CIL tell why they left the Socialist Party.
multiplied by the number of capitalists of a given The price of this pamphlet is 10c, per copy; six cents per copy in lots of 10 or more. Send all country, equals the national greed of that country orders to the WORKERS COUNCIL, 80 imperialism, and each national imperialism moves and 11th St. New York City.
acts as a unit.