BOOKS IN BRIEF
Riseman, Harry
BOOKS IN BRIbF CAN CAPITALISM RECOVER? By Harry Rbeman pAPITALISM U lick. ProflU are ^ disappearing and bankruptcies are increasing. What hope is there for the average capitalist or...
...The contract which expired Oct...
...Attention: "All of you, whether you be R< publican or Democrat, must know that in the adherence to the fundamental principles of American government there is no distinction whatsoever between the two great parties...
...The liberal is always discontented...
...Planned production is looked upon now as a means of preventing revolution ) If, on the other hand, their experiment fails, well, it will not be the first experiment to fail...
...Of course they suffer, they starve, they live under a dictatorship, bet, they are not used to anything better...
...A. Hallgren (masked as a book review), as well as an editorial advising the voters of New York State that they will have "an excellent chance this fall to reward an admirable public officer, if the Democratic Party is wise enough to nominate Herbert H. Lehman...
...What hope is there for the average capitalist or investor if you please T Of late many of the orthodox economists have been predicting that there is no hope at all...
...One wonders if Sir Arthur wrote this book with his tongue in his cheek...
...Of course, they do not agree with "everything," but, it is a "noble experiment...
...This issue ia no different from other issues...
...However, we must make a few changes and here they are: 1. Declaration of a moratorium on reparations and war debts for several years...
...But as he is a tolerant man, he well understands that one must not be a fanatic...
...If other eomn.unists have learned to laugh at the bungling bureaucracy, ths red tape and official incompetency in the land of the Soviets, as readily as they do at the survivals of Philistinism, it means that the new order Is getting on better than economic reports indicate...
...People of both parties believe in the American system, if by that system is meant the principles established by the framers of the Constitution, and fought for by succeeding generations...
...It is quite apparent that our learned knight is much concerned about the problem of recovery for that small group enjoying the prosperity of the Coolidge decade...
...In short, It is a choice between the chaos of capitalism and the orderly and rational processes of Socialism...
...How that can take place only an economist of the Oxford School can tell...
...To learn what liberalism really is one will have to begin with a definition, not of liberalism but of liberals...
...True, Socialists are really fine people...
...Ho is even ready to fight in a "nice" and civilized way, of course, for their enforcement...
...A Word for Bolshevism There is even something good in Communism...
...An armistice to the doctor is a peace pact...
...They go too far, and they do not give credit to "fine men" in other parties...
...TUGBOAT MEN IN WAGE AGREEMENT A new wage agreement for the 4,000 men employed by tugboat lines operating in New York Harbor was signed Monday by representatives of the men and the owners...
...The "Nation" is admirably edited as a liberal magazine...
...Let us take the issue of August 24, 1932...
...This is liberalism, in its age of decline...
...Their tour consists of a aeries of screamingly funny adventures, adventures that give the reader a better picture of present day Russia than a whole armful of serious works on the subject...
...The jacket by Stelg adda ¦> the reader's enjoyment of The Little Golden Calf...
...for in practice we shall have something of all three and that we must do our best to eliminate the third, and make the best mixture we can of the first two...
...Recovery" has been praised highly by drawing room pacifists and amateur economists, but like all such prophecies it sounds nice and means nothing...
...a bitter, unfair and untrue attack on the Socialist movement by Mam it...
...Peace was thus assured for six months after a series of conferences held in the last four weeks at which threats of a strike to tie up harbor traffic were conveyed to the employers...
...for the exploiter and exploited, for the ruler and ruled...
...The existing capitalist political parties are bud, but they do include some fine people, and fine people deserve praise and a vote...
...They certainly deserve some praise...
...Poor souls...
...there is really a lot of good in their program, but they are fanatics...
...namely, the lack of co-ordination between social consumption and production resulting from the exploitation of the great mass of people by a small privileged group...
...The rank and file of both parties have unbounded faith in America and its future...
...The employers demanded originally that the licensed employers be reduced |20 a month and the unlicensed men $10 a month and that the working day, which has been 7 A. M. to 5 P. M. be changed to 5 A. M. to 7 P. M. This would not have meant an extension of the number of hours of work, but Would have limited the time during which employes would have had an opportunity to receive overtime wages, which are 50 per cent higher than the regular wages...
...Can there be any peace under Capitalism...
...ONE WAY OUT LOS ANGELES.—"Well...
...They are performing a great service to civilization...
...2. Governmental guaranty of foreign loans...
...However, he does admit on page 239 that "we have before us the alternative of collective leadership, collective control or chaos—not, indeed quite mutually exclusive...
...Sir Arthur Salter, a leading English economist (Recovery—the Second Effort, The Century Co, New York, $3.00) although somewhat pessimistic still believes that the good ship is just floundering a little, but will reach port safely...
...He wants to be fair to everybody...
...At times the book indicates that the author is familiar with Marx and his schocl, yet no mention is made of the clasa struggle or the real cause of this depression...
...for, liberalism nowadays is above all, a state of mind...
...He wants justice and fairness...
...First they are charged with dumping wood pulp on these shores so that production costs of Snappy and Romance magazines may be lowered, and now they send over a book of humor that makes most of the domestic output in that line read like an age-stained almanac...
...Maybe that will bring the sensible people of the capitalist world to their senses...
...It could not be different...
...We find in it a defense of Soviet Russia by Louis Fischer...
...Bender and three other shady characters start out in a dilapidated flivver, the Antelope, to do Russia, their objective being the blackmailing of a grafting official...
...The Little Golden Calf by Ilya llf and Eugene Petrov (Farrar and Rinehart), is described as a Russian Wallingford, but the American gyp artist of that name was a sappy adventurer compared to Ostap Bender, the "hero" of the Little Golden Calf...
...The Golden Calf Clever, those Russians...
...The liberal is a "fine" man, usually well educated, well mannered, and well dressed...
...They would not want to repeat this "noble experiment" in their own country, God forbidl But it ia good that there Is a country like Russia, with Millions of Moujiks, wh> were not used to ths good things of life, sad are therefore amenable te experiment...
...Salter naively believes in a Capitalist League of Nations and Kellogg pacts...
...The One year's strike of the street railway men in Santiago over a wage dispute was settled by an agreement which provides for payment to platform men of one-third of the gross receipts obtained from a two and one half cent fare...
...Not a new kind of justice...
...The very fact that the recovery of Capitalism ia no dependent upon foreign markets makes war not only inevitable but necessary...
...he wants to be fair...
...Our "principles" as they now are, If only enforced are all right, he believes...
...Under the new contract the licensed employes, including captains, pilots and chief engineers, accepted a reduction of $10 a month and the unlicensed employes, including deckhands, cooks and other workers, were reduced f6 a month, The allowance of 80 cents a day for food for the men fin the boats was reduced ten cents a day...
...Capitalism, as it appeared to them, was doomed and like Nero of old, we should fiddle while the world was burning...
...some of them even deserve a vote, but generally they are too fanatic...
...Consequently Mince Capitalism functions well when It is most wasteful, we can again expect to see billions of dollars worth of commodities dumped all < rer the world by American capitalists and an Insistence on their part to acquaint the African aborigine and Chines* coolie with products of •Ivllli.tion Wo can again loan billion* of dollars to these peopls In order that they may be able to pay us for these goods...
...A moratorium declared on the payment of all foreign loans, be they war debts, reparations or private loans, will help the situation considerably...
...No one, not even the liberals themselves, can define liberalism...
...If their experiment will be successful "we" will Uka over some of its good points, and may be thus prevent a revolution in our own country...
...It will mean that no longer will it be necessary for these who have incurred these obUgations to pay them In the form of goods...
...Captain William A. Maher of the Associated Marine Workers and Joseph 3. Moran, president of the Moran Towing and Transportation Company, acted for the employers and owners, respectively, during the negotiations...
...Salter prescribes for his »ick patient...
...4. Assured world peace through the enactment of more peace pacta...
...Efforts of the company to operate with other employes produced many clashes with the strikers during the many months of the strike...
...WHBN YOU SAY TO TUB ADVIRTIHRR "I SAW TOUR AD IN I'll It NKW LIADIV YOU ARB ¦OOOTIIfQ TO UK PA rug By Haim KantorovHch A NOTE ON LIBERALISM LIBERALISM, osee a well-defined "system of thought," as well as a mighty, organized political movement, today is on the decline...
...Government guaranty of these loans will not make it possible for these debts to be p; i in any other manner but goods of which we have always a surplus...
...What then is a liberal...
...The translation by Charles Malamuth is in good "American...
...8. Rationalization of industry and governmental guaranty of bank deposits...
...said Wallace Emmons, 60, after he had been taken to the hospital suffering from ptomaine poisoning, "it's against the law to starve yourself to death on purpose...
...Despite the fact that the book has an introduction by the Soviet Commissioner of Education, it has not been permitted to circulate in Russia...
...He wants justice for everybody...
...a good word for Communism in Russia, for the Russian, a bit of propaganda for the "fine man" in the Democratic Party, and in order not to appear partial, also a halfhearted recommendation to vote for Louis Waldman, Socialist candidate for governor...
...fair to the workers, and fair to the bosses...
...that there is more than one side to a medal...
...He is indulgent...
...It is quite true thst Capitalism Is not collapsing yet We will, in all probability, manage to get out of this depression, and those who have praised this book so highly Will experience again the delightful sensation of accumulating great profits at the expense of the sufferings of the working classBut we cannot end these re occurring depressions with the pills Dt...
...Here we have liberalism in a nutshell 1 Some radical phrases, some communist lies (the Social Democrats killed Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Mr...
...As s political movement it is practically extinct...
...Hallgren "informs" his readers...
...The Nation The "Nation" is doubtless one of the outstanding and one of the best representatives of American liberalism...
...A fine liberal could not of course get up in Union Square and yell for the revolution, but it is a good thing that there are sans-evlottes who do...
...Most liberals are very dear friends of Soviet Russia...
...B. B. Cuban Street Railway Men End Long Wage-Cut Strike SANTIAGO, Cuba...
...If one wants to learn of the Inconsistencies of an orthodox economist, a perusal of this much exaggerated tome will be of great vine...
...it is simply a typical one...
...If it were different it would cease to be liberal...
...and tolerance is his God...
...That pie in the garbage can looked (jke good food" After All Let's Have Faith in Two Parties Even If There Is No Difference 'tween 'em r*OLONEL LEHMAN, Demo^ cratic candidate for Governor of New York State, in la»t broadcast before the voting...
...1 will be retained with them exceptions...
...And obviouttly the security of America is not dependent upon the Republican party remaining in power...
...He finds that the principles of justice, freedom and a "square deal" for all are not as zealously enforced as they should be...
...but the liberal is quite ready to sacrifice to this experiment the last drop of Russian blood...
...But again the time must come when the bubble will burst and the paper profits end...
...In a later section he has a lapse of memory and talks about finding a new way of faahioning a system in which competition and individual enterprise on the one hand, and regulation and general planning on the other, will be so adjusted that the abuaea of each will be avoided and the...
...And all in one issue...
...It has all the faults and all the virtues of the "state of mind" of the liberal...
...If one were to blame the "Nation's" editor he would be wrong...
...benefits of each retained...
...The platforms and* leaders of both parties favor sound government and sound finance...
Vol. 14 • November 1932 • No. 20
