AMERICAN SOCIAL TRENDS IN 1932
DOUTY, H.M.
AMERICAN SOCIAL TRENDS IN 1932 The New Capitalism in Collapse Verifies Forecasts of Marx and Other Socialists By H.M. DOUTY WE ARB la tha mkUt Of ao ordinary depression. The economic and...
...Q. Q. Cabot—Oh, thank you...
...Capitalism at least instinctively recognizes Its own failure...
...It la ofttimes drained into totally false channels...
...In its simplest form, this strategy calls for the repeal of the antitrust laws...
...Marx, of course, predicted an Increasing capitalist concentration, and these newer moves are but continuations of the same tendency...
...The rise in pig-value is making itself felt In financial circles and heard in Congress...
...In New York the cows no longer give loose milk...
...A Challenge to Black Amerfca By NOAH WALTER BLACK AMERICA...
...Boms of its representatives, such as Lawrence Dennis, have mads open confessions of defeat Capitalism fears social revolution...
...Comrade Laldler has shown, In his Concentration of Control In American Industry, how little remains of the lusty, roaring individualism of the nineteenth century...
...Now he's given up the hope, because the newly-rich hog refuses to allow his slices to He between stale bread...
...A Kansas fanner explains the rise In hog-value by declaring the hog-shortage followed the recent expulsion of bulls and bears from Wall street, when the swine filled the vacant places...
...A monopoly of political power, and the crushing of all working class opposition, can come a little later...
...Tens of books and hundreds of articles proclaimed the abolition of poverty...
...There are some signs, however, of a genuine recognition of the great Issues thrown up by capitalist exploitation and made vivid by the depression...
...Do come over and see the show...
...The horses, they say, are blue-bloods...
...to all the plg-stys to read to the swine, storlei of pigs In high places who had risen to fame and fortune by plggtshnets...
...The country's complaint today is two-fold: not enough hogs and too many fools...
...I really must be going In...
...Wasn't It...
...He attended Fldo two years ago and recommended a temporary change of climate...
...The cows were also represented...
...Now, If the workers weren't compelled to eat less...
...The scourge of depression steadily encroaches...
...It must resolutely oppose Socialism to capitalism...
...The Republicans and Democrats having failed to lead us out of the depression, the business Inter- - eats of the nation are now turning with hope to the pigs...
...Van Pelt—How tragic...
...The national election approaches...
...These, I think, are the chief features of the present situation...
...You are sharing wage-cuts, loss of Jobs, hungry wives and children, home and farm evictions, Increase in poverty, persecution and prostitution...
...Oh, God —God, why are you partial...
...On the other hand, there ire Indications that the capitalist class Is preparing to resist, with all the weapons a,t Its command, the decisive economic and social changes that the proletariat must make...
...haggard me« 1 hear their tortured voices pleading for the right to live...
...We owe our misery to four years gpf Hoovertsing," declared the chairman...
...The first step calls for a more highly Integrated capitalist economic system...
...Mrs...
...McKenzle...
...The new-, est capitalist strategy operates to eliminate competition entirely...
...He explained that the goats had tried to eat coplei of the Republican platform...
...Some one read aloud an inspiring editorial from the New York Times on the opportunity open to the humblest porker to become cured Virginia ham...
...It nakedly fits the Marxian definition of "political power"—"the power of one class for oppressing "another...
...My mind pains...
...The church and charitable Institutions steadily approach Utter collapse...
...I still haven't forgotten the Dog Show of last year...
...Dogs, Horses and Unemployed Men By DOUOLA8 KRANTZOR SCENE: The lobby of the New Madison Square Garden...
...While the newspapers are growing merry over pig-stief, workmen must face the fact that a ham sandwich will soon be five-cents, more difficult to acquire...
...These are extraordinary times," said the cow-delegate...
...Who can then...
...Believe it or not, America and the world stand on the brink of chaos...
...Pigs Is Pigs" in Pigdom Even Though There Are Forgotten Pigs as Well as Blind Ones By PHILIP HOCHSTEIN NOWADAYS, you never hear a farmer saying, "Don't be a hog...
...You know they say that at the Hi vol: Nlrht Club the other night . . "." oh, I'll have to tell you some other time...
...Congress says "Don't soak the rich...
...When wiere weren't enough pigs to go to the slaughter houses, the- packers offered more money to the farmers and the farmers offered more corn to the pigs...
...We want to bi able to feel at home when we visit the Senate and the House of Representatives," said the pigs...
...Hoover, "Engineer of Prosperity/' catches whopping trout in the Rapldan in s.veet Virglni...
...In the United States the processes of capitalist disintegration have not gone as far as inv some of the European countries...
...We were planning to enter him this year but I am somewhat worried because he hasn't been eating or sleeping properly...
...Some of our educated cows have learned to give calf's ttveh*-i¦ t~~ 9 A resolution to form a Pig Party was overwhelmingly defeated after It was pointed out that there are already two Pig Parties...
...No...
...It is expressed by the- wisecrack and the snesr...
...The • class which broke" the fetters of feudalism, which engineered a stupendous Industrial development, which created a literature and an art, stands now on the brink of destruction...
...The Republicans In the White House and the Democrats In Congress have proven that there Is no trust in their party labels...
...Mrs...
...The era of the "New CapitalIsm," 1923-29, produced a new and remarkable ideology...
...The famous Swope Plan Is an example of the more sophisticated expression of the same purpose...
...It's perfectly wicked yet utterly Interesting...
...Such movements as that represented by the Bonus Army, regardless of the specific content of their demands, •how that something fresh Is stirring...
...For the first time in goat history," be declared, "we have developed indigestion...
...The significance of such devices as the Swope Plan is that they foreshadow the rise of an American Fascism...
...While there still remain a few strong bodies and brains...
...Remember the Forgotten Pig...
...Billy painted a gloomy picture of conditions...
...Is the slogan they adopted...
...There Is discontent, a great deal of discontent, among the workers...
...Pigdom "began crawling out of the red when s pig returning from a Chicago convention warned his fellows that they must organize to meet competition...
...Van Pelt—I do hope, dear, you will find the opportunity to attend the Horse Show...
...For the years 1925-29 there were fewer strikes, relative to the Industrial wage-earning population, than for the years 1881-88, the first period for which statistics are available...
...The official labor movement went in for unionmanagement cooperation in a big way...
...For instance, the Democratic squeal for loans for private corporations and the complacent Republican grunt of refusal to let any one share with the banks and railroads...
...Capitalism has solved the problem of production...
...Have you seen Dr...
...The political bandwagon of the Democrats and Republicans no longer blinds you...
...We must stop selling American pOrtc chops short...
...Like Nero, yonr Republican, Democratic and so-called Negro leaders are fiddling on top of a mountain filled with food while in the valley the modern city of Rome—AMERICA—Is destroying thousands of little black children, women and men through unemployment, starvation, and deprivation...
...Millions of whites suffer too...
...There are signs of change...
...As our press has repeatedly reminded us, th< depression Is purely psychological...
...A Harvard professor demonstrated that, through the diffusion of stock ownership, we were all becoming capitalists...
...What shall we do...
...The tremendous success of the magazine "Ballyhoo" add its countless imitators is an example of what I mean...
...The mass meeting went on record as opposed to any radical change in the government at Washington...
...Even hene, however, symptoms of decline are not wanting, and these symptoms furnish the subjectmatter of this article...
...H. I. Harrlman, president of the New England Power Company, for Instance, recently declared that the prevailing competiton was "heartbreaking...
...And so, as in the Swops Plan, It throws a few crumbs to the workers, and plans to maintain Its own dominance...
...This means the abolition of the capitalist owners as a class, and the construction of a Socialist' state The class conflict is rapidly coming to a head...
...And they hired a press agent...
...Never has the capitalist class had fewer Intellectual defenses, never have the traditional arguments in its favor semed so ridiculous...
...I shall make every attempt to be there...
...e • * There Is the fellow who was hoping to have a ham sandwich just as soon as he could get two slices of bread...
...Thus far little has been achieved along this line...
...Workers are coming Into the Socialist Party...
...Where is the Democrats' unemployment relief...
...Where is the Republicans' prosperity...
...Roosevelt, the Democrat, goes ¦hooting possums down In dear ole Georgia...
...The contradiction between the socialized nature of production and the Individualized method Aof distribution can be resolved only by the abolition of the claims of private property owners to the products of Industry...
...ij And now the pigs are paying off the mortgages...
...Lampooned from every side, the fat and bloated body of a decaying system hangs grotesquely in mid-air...
...He asked for a "reasonable modification" of the anti-trust laws...
...It Is reported that farmers are cheered by the fact that hogs are eating more corn...
...They went on strike...
...it is merely a special form of capitalism...
...The recent political conventions at Chicago reflected a blind-pig leadership...
...The pigs held a mass meeting to consider their plight...
...There was a fraternal delegate present from the goats...
...Do you suffer alone...
...This negative criticism, however, must be replaced by a criticism with positive content...
...There has bran an Increase In th* price of in if.-, In the West but we are paying the greatest price In .history for those we put In office...
...Lovely vacation and when we returned, our little darling was just as happy as ever...
...Unite...
...The Socialist Party has an overwhelmingly important function in this crisis...
...Why, you know we spent a fortune of money grooming Fu Yang and we were overjoyed when he won a bhie ribbon...
...The economic and social collapse of our time seems to presage the world breakdown of capitalist civilisation...
...We're not the only thing abou' this country Unit's not kosher," declared the chairman of the resolutions committee...
...Elevator boys became financial experts, and financial experts became philosophers...
...Only the other day William Green told the Democratic platform committee .that It was "either work or unemployment Insurance...
...My heart aches...
...Well, we went to Palm Beach and stayed there for several weeks...
...I see the long, weary lines of hungry...
...The discontent la largely undirected...
...They depart...
...The mass meeting closed after the chairman ¦ read a long list of politicians w ho had been elected honorary members...
...Have YOU a program...
...They say, he's quite a physician or rather quite a vet-vet-oh, you know a doctor of animals...
...It was a happy era...
...Black America, the Socialist Party calls to all worklngmen and all other citizens of this great country to coma together under its banner — "WORK, BREAD and HAPPINESS"—and demand guarantee of the right of all men to work for ample incomes...
...The Industrial collapse, together with the terrible plight of the farmers, has thoroughly discredited the rosy promises of the "New Capitalism...
...The pigs be gan to get out from under when Secretary IIyd« of the Department of Agriculture sent his agent...
...John becomes furious when I keep him waiting...
...Fascism is not, as some would argue, a new way of life...
...Why don't you consult him ? Really, he's quite charming...
...And this positive criticism must have organized expression...
...Which disproves the statement that this Work) Isn't a fit place for pigs to IIv in...
...They won't pay...
...I am sure he will be well...
...Coming from William Green, this Is little short of revolutionary...
...It was simply gorgeous...
...it has not, and cannot, solve the problem of distribution...
...Company unions, group Insurance, old-age pensions, and other devices of the company welfare movement became wide-spread...
...1 know you'll love It...
...Black America, before the burden of unemployment, degeneration, prejudice, segregation, lynching, and non-representation will disappear, we must unite...
...They can make more money by giving bottled milk only...
...But don't worry...
...The immediate, popular reaction has been curious, and, from a social point of view, negstive In character...
...The sheer force of objective events Is forcing some of the old-line unions to re-examfhe their narrow and outmoded philosophy...
...We cannot afford to remain contented any longer, Out In the East, the cows have come up to the occasion...
...I stand there hud-, died...
...A wide path of unemployment, misery, and starvation runs through the economic life of all capitalist countries, showing more clearly than any Socialist textbook the rottenness of the system...
...In these magazines, and in other magazines anJ newspapers of less boisterous appeal, capitalism has been laughed out of court...
...The pigs don't owe their fortune to either the Democrats or Republicans, The pigs Just stopped being Digs for a while...
...Throughout Europe Fascism is emerging as the last, despairing political gesture of a dying system...
...These joyous years ended with a crash...
...With some subtlety it has moved to consolidate its position...
...As the party of the working class, it must reach the workers and direct their struggle against the capitalist system...
...They really refer to It as the most elaborate ever planned...
...And American capitalism, the most powerful capitalism in the world, has itself been shaken to the roots.* Indeed, the capitalist class seems far more aware of the nature of the present depression than the working class...
...The genuine and widespread discontent with the present system has not been harnessed to a' conscious movement for the abolition of capitalism...
...The Prosperity myth of "Big Business" has emptied the garage, the beds, tables, and homes...
...It must be depressing...
...Millions of voices cry for food and shelter...
...While we are still prowling back alleys searching through swill for food...
...in the United States...
...I think of the millions ol unemployed...
...Mrs...
...In these days of great and sudden changes, It must furnish the dynamics of a new life...
Vol. 14 • July 1932 • No. 3
