The Right Road to Socialism
The Right Road to Socialism Party Summons the Workers to Use Their Power To Emancipate Their Class From Capitalism THE uncompromising Populists in 1896 coined a 1 phrase to express their...
...Hoover's sense of the word...
...We will keep in the middle of the road...
...is this that guides all our political action...
...It is of little concern whether the masses are ridden by the upper plutocracy alone or whether middle groups share with the plutocracy the privilege of riding...
...and second, Just because they are non-productive, In Mr...
...It is not merely a desire to get a mass of individuals into a political movement to obtain office...
...Capitalism itself must be conquered by the working masses in general...
...There is no underlying philosjDphy in the survey...
...Capitalism has conquered agriculture and the old aim Is impossible of realization...
...And we demand it, not as an emergency measure only, but as a permanent policy—as a method which, while relieving distress within the capitalist system, can also be made a means of transition to tbe new social order, in which human welfare Instead of private profit will be the guiding purpose of industry...
...To summon a decaying class to this job is to try to roll back the wheel of history...
...It includes references to progressives and liberals, Socialists and Communists, the Liberty Party jand other groupings...
...Many of them hope for- the revival of small enterprise...
...To bis thoroughly capitalistic mind the very thought of such expenditure seems irrational, immoral, and almost sacrilegious...
...What shocks President Hoover in the public works proposal is the notion of so-called non-productive expenditure — and he makes It clear that by non-productive enterprises he means such as do not "provide a return on the Investment...
...That reason is that the capitalists object to both, and that the masses of the people are not yet alert enough, well enough Informed, self reliant enough, to overrule the capitalists' objection...
...They want capitalism Jrithout its evils...
...Forward in this political struggle for a huge vote for Thomas and Maurer, the standard bearers of the Socialist Parly, and for an earnest struggle to win the very soul of the ivorking class...
...So, in the ordinary course of capitalist business, we are in a blind alley...
...Both methods are good, from -the point of view of Labor's interest and the welfare of the great majority .of the people...
...The Right Road to Socialism Party Summons the Workers to Use Their Power To Emancipate Their Class From Capitalism THE uncompromising Populists in 1896 coined a 1 phrase to express their opposition to surrender of (anything to the politics of capitalism...
...Socialists are frankly opposed to this view...
...Many of them seek the "good man" in capitalist politics...
...We have seen a report of the League for Independent Political Action that surveys various political trends...
...Industry and Agriculture Chit of this decaying order of- capitalism have come Various dissenting political groups...
...With it Socialism has* made progress all over the world...
...The offices are only important to us when jfcey are used to serve our aim...
...President Hoover's Tricky Epigram "Neither Song Nor Sermon" President Hoover's {tricky Epigram nrvRESIDENT HOOVER'S soJTcalled epigram (that's rather too fine a name for it) that "We cannot squander ourselves Into prosperity" la as true and BJ false as such smart sayings (Usually are—that Is, while formally true, it is substantially false...
...Moreover, it is a mistake to talk of a third party...
...The mass of the people would gladly buy, but they have not the wherewithal to pay...
...It occurs when the whole pressure of the depression tends to bring the workers into the field as a fighting force for their class...
...It is this that makes us a party of Labor...
...Many yearn to check the onward march pf the capitalist dinosaurs that are eating up small capitalists and business men...
...We can escape from the dilemma only if organised society takes the matter out of the course at business sad deals with it on social lines...
...But it would be more correct to say that the two ruling parties are really one, two sections of one party owned by the capitalist and banking plutocracy...
...It caused so much indignant laughter that the President himself has dropped it...
...The fundamental point of the Socialist aim is to see to it that the working masses shall cease to be packhorses for anybody...
...W* cannot make a profit by purchasing goods for use...
...That is, make the packhorse contented so that he will not object to being ridden...
...We shall go to the masses of the disinherited, to the millions who have every interest in destroying capitalism and no reason for preserving it...
...They urged theic following to stay in the "Middle of the Road...
...Socialism without this basic conception is a fraud...
...So we Socialists will march straight ahead...
...That aim Is to use tvery measure of power we win to strengthen the Working class and to prepare ourselves for the task fif ushering in a Socialist commonwealth...
...They constitute the army of occupation, the army that must occupy the scats of power now held by the police and the retainers of capitalism...
...To be sure, he says that Individually we ought to buy more food, more clothing, more furniture, more automobiles and radio sets...
...The pity is that thousands of persons who ought to know better allow 'ttiemselvea to be Imposed upon by this cheap verbal trick...
...If large sections of the workers break with the parties of capitalism, if the labor unions and organizations of working farmers so break, that will be a different matter...
...We are able to produce more foods than can be *>ld at a profit...
...Their interests correlate with our aims...
...That Is toe important thing from their point of view, and from the viewpoint of their spokesman in the White House...
...That is to say, let the lesser capitalists lead the workers to the political sliambles rather than the great plutocracy...
...Where Socialists Differ These considerations constitute the fundamental difference between Socialists and all vague third party strivings...
...The rich are buying as much as they desire, and they are not going to buy more Just for the sake of spending...
...Another one will be a fourth party and nothing else if we accept the existing party labels as expressing reality...
...Both are in themselves practicable...
...The Socialist movement is based upon the claims and inter2 jests of the toilers in industry and agriculture...
...Everyone must know how silly that appeal was...
...and by doing this they disemploy "labor and cause widespread misery...
...We are in the midst of a crisis of overproduction — or call It a crisis of underconsumption, if you *1U...
...The L. I. P. A. wants a third party and wants some combination of these elements to effect it...
...Important sections of the professional and middle classes are being plunged into the ranks of the workers below...
...They want to end their own troubles, Pot to end all exploitation...
...The purpose of all economic activities, to his way of thinking, is not tbe satisfaction of human wants, but the realization of profit...
...They want a permanent t'uhc in the robber's burg and fear that the dinosaurs fuill root them out...
...And this occurs when the ranks of the workers are being recruited by the decay of capitalism itself...
...There are also the liberal and "progressive" groups, Jnost of them of middle class views...
...They seek to cushion the yoke of capitalism, not to , remove it...
...Ah, but the capitalists can and do make a profit by selling them to us...
...we shall not be lured into any middle class third party swamp...
...To squander is to spend aimlessly and foolishly...
...The workers are growing^, increasing in numbers, and are being hammered into a solidarity of life and interests...
...Or it could maintain production at a high level, without glutting the market, by taxing away a sufficient part of the capitalist's profits and using this revenue to employ labor in enterprises that will not throw goods into the market...
...We have an aim...
...So they and their spokesmen cry out that the only solution is for the public to buy more goods, .President Hoover has Joined In this outcry, accusing the people of hoarding their money and calling on them to spend it...
...It means to distrust the working class and attempt to use it as a pawn in the political struggle for middle class aims...
...e » • So what he objects to is not non-productive expenditure in itself, but expenditure of public moneys upon enterprises which, -- i ———P| no matter how useful to the people, would not be profitable to the capitalists...
...As one L. I. P. A. speaker put it in Minnesota a few months ago, small business men and capitalists are asked to form a "third party" because their prosperity depends upon the prosperity of the workers...
...They disappear in the general mass misery at the base of society and out of which comes the revolutionary class that will eventually end capitalism itself...
...And it could do this in either or both of two ways...
...The two sections are kept by funds that fall like manna from the hands of the plutocracy...
...The two expressions come to the same thing...
...It these middle groups turn to the working masses for help it is not with the view of levelling the fortress of capitalism and releasing all who are in bondage...
...That, they rightly say, would be squandering their money...
...They are the class that must take the leadership in the struggle with capitalism...
...To make the masses understand this is essential to any sound educational work...
...Dying Class " At the very time when capitalism is sinking lo lower depths of prostration, when middle class property crumbles before the heavy artillery of the greater capitalism, we are asked to yoke the Socialist Party with middle class groups...
...By using this word la his discussion of the proposed policy of increased expenditure on public works as a method of combatting unemployment, the President quietly Blips in the conclusion that such expenditure would he reckless and unwise, and So condemns it without proof...
...is to ask the workers to help save others from extinction, not to struggle for their own emancipation...
...For the capital*»ts, who control Industry and f*o«e sole purpose Is to get profits, there is but one way to meet this difficulty — that is, to cut down production to the point where there will be no glutting of the market...
...We shall turn into no liberal or progressive by-paths...
...Indeed, one L. I. P. A.'er pleads that the working masses be recruited under the guidance of middle class leaders fcr a "broad" program of reforms suitable to these leaders...
...And that Is just what we demand, for a double reason -first, because they are socially useful...
...They would rather produce more, if they could sell more at a profit...
...It could restrict production without causing unemployment and misery, by drastically shortening the work-week and thus distributing among all the workers the amount of employment that Is available...
...A. L...
...There is only one reason why either or both of them should not be, followed...
...But would this not be nonproductive expenditure T For the purchasers, yes...
...The middle classes are dying classes...
...With them we can cooperate...
...Some hark back fo the Populism which sought to give agriculture a place of equality by the side of capitalist enterprise...
Vol. 13 • June 1932 • No. 23
