MORE GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS
Laidler, Harry W.
MORE GOVERNMENT IN BUSINESS Socialization Necessary to Meet Needs of Modern Society -Present Advances in This Direction Not Enough - by Harry W. Laidler (/"rem o recent address before i ifr....
...and to increase the total of productive forces as rapidly as possible...
...whilst the gain in being sure that there will be neither adulteration nor short weight, neither cheating nor taking advantage of the necessities of the more ignorant or weaker buyers, or of periods of scarcity, is, in some departments, beyond all computation...
...K the past, we in America have • had a bias again.*: the entrance of government into the jojd of biis'ne-s...
...And the leas he waa informed as regards what occurred about Mm, the more extravagant were the speculations he indulged in...
...It does not involve the public in the valuation nightmare...
...During war time there is P**«y a great temporary developPP of collective action as a .J*** of winning the war...
...The rubber for our auto tires has been brought from the Dutch East Indies or from Brazil...
...Despite our philosoph> of individualism, however, we have made considerable strides in the direction of public owner-hip f/e have developed the most ex(jassive public school system of any aasatry in the world...
...in the various industries, society /must strive to work out a combination of centralized and decentralized control calculated to yield the maximum social results...
...All this illustrates the economic interdependence of the world on which modern well-being is based...
...And there is that most Important problem of the relation -ef the industrial structure of tha country to the governmental machinery, and of the type of political structure best adjusted to the cooperative society...
...Consequently his intellectual growth consists, la some measure at least, in a process of disillusionment.—Joseph E. Cohen...
...The following quotations from the Manifesto are central ideas of its philosophy : "All previous historical movements were movements of minorities,or in the interest of minorities...
...It transcends the barriers of race, climate and creeds to lead the way to conscious cooperation among all sections of the workers of the world...
...that the administration of industry shall be democratic in its nature, and that its aim shall be not the aggrandizement of one privileged group, but the welfare and happiness of all...
...How can we eliminate the bureaucracy of management found7 in so many of our great monopolized and semi-monopolised /eon* cerns...
...Today, under the MRA, ¦kit proportion is of course very Hsiderabty higher, lawtives for Public O* nership I In other nations, the movement toward public ownership has proBejsed much farther than in the Baited States...
...It must develop a proper coordination among allied industries and among the industries of the nation as a whole...
...Cheerio, Swaff...
...In shoot eighteen hundred munici•ajities the electric lighung system hpubiiely owned...
...whereas under private control, the debt structure is...
...Chaplin on the movies is not regarded as a mere Englishman ; his appeal is universal...
...bat the regulated capitalism of the...
...So confident were the enemies of Socialism that the party was finished that they then had the term lengthened to four years, but Hoan defeated the combined forces of the old parties in 1920, and again in 1924, 1928 and 1932...
...They maintain that public ownership of specific utilities provides certain definite advantages over private control...
...Aad increasing stability of production within one industry, such as steel, may waa...
...The NRA has brought with it, it is true, a certain amount of planning, but planning for profit within an industry—not planning for service on a national and international scale...
...if, by means of a revolution, it makes staatf the ruing class, aad...
...Bci*1 outlay, the risk in2*?°' th« small potential profits, J*he length of time elapsing be• expected returns...
...The spirit of May Day is common sense...
...At the moment of writing (April 15) the United Press broadcasts the story that the continental and richly endowed United States lack at least 25 of the naw materials necessary in modern war and lists tin, chromium, iodine, manganese, mica and rubber as samples of the things which have to be obtained from overseas...
...And it takes away from city officials the corrupting influence of great private mondpolies intent on special privileges, and from the autocratic influence of private monopoly...
...Advocates of Socialized Order Increasingly, both here and also abroad, millions of men and women are not only advocating the community ownership of particular utilities, but are condemning the whole system of private monopoly and private ownership of the basic industries of the country and are demanding that civilization advance to a cooperative social order...
...The tendency in governmental industry is to pay off these bonds as the years go by, and thus continuously to reduce the capital indebtedness...
...to win the battle for democracy...
...American work: era who think of the services of Marx and Gompers, to mention only two Jews, cannot rationally be anti-Semitic...
...who would have industry conducted not for profit foot for the service of the community...
...New Deal as.a whole is a far cry from that society of equality of opportunity, plenty, democracy and security which an\ever larger percentage of humanity are beginning ever more eagerly to keek...
...The Minnesota Farmer-Labor Party has recently come out _with a pronouncement for a collectivized social order, while labor bodies, churches, educators, technicians, and other groups are increasingly demanding that the community— not a small section of society— become the owners of the natural resources and the machinery of production...
...Patriotism in its modern meaning signifies a hatred of other countries...
...What was known as "Communism" at that period was, in the words of Engels, "a crude, roughhewn, purely instinctive sort of Communism" but it had the merit of being more working class than j the "Socialist" sects...
...and launTh rough such organizations as Part of New York Authority, par atates build and operate bridges, tunnels, warehouses and laajiinsh According to the recent astray of the President's Comaiatss aa Social Trends, the cost aj state and city ventures in the laU ef public services increased to 145 per cent in terms of 1915 fafay from 1915 to 1929...
...It must work out plans for the gradual development of international economic organizations...
...while 9mk^°^i °^ depression such as »through which we are passing, f**"»«ent is forced increasingly U#* into business to provide work and financial aid to those whom capitalist industry has left high aad dry...
...or of promoting trade *»4 commerce, as in the construc¦a of public roads and the extension of postal facilities...
...la the past, in many of these attions, the movement toward ware government in business could ait be traced to any one driving ssaa...
...The KP^jHIB patrioteer, F on the contrary, I dare not face facts or his 4JPfc- r« myths of na*3 tionalist superir °rity...
...aa each, «weeps away by fore* the aid eaajditions of production, then H wifi, along with these conditions have —apt away the conditio** tat the existence of class antagonise- aej ef cImiwj generally, and »-HI theroity have abolished <tdjPP atsjarrmwew M « class...
...The Meaning of Words Socialism and Communism U/ITH the publication of the 1848 Karl Marx and Frederick Etbgcls gave th^ working class of the world a brilliant short statement of Siwialist philosophy and principles...
...Even the paper pulp for the newspaper of such patriotic morons as Mr...
...What the Socialists are trying to do, of course, is to build a new Leeds...
...Under community control it is not necessady to pay large dividends, often on watered stock...
...Such a sentiment is as dangerous as it is outworn...
...by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which, in the course of the movement, outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order and are unavoidable as a means of entirelyrevolutionizing the mode of production...
...Four years later he was reelected, although the two old parties had effected a fusion in the interim...
...tions placed upon them by the j vested interests...
...We know that sort of thing in America, too...
...May Dayshould reminoj us of the red blood that flows in the veins of us all...
...aa association m whicp -i* tee developMany who, a year ago) wwim convinced that the NRA provided a road to socialization, are seeing that it has, at least thus far, provided an additional opening for the suspension of the Sherman Anti-Trust Law, a high aad inflexible price structure, and tha cutting down of production quota...
...This menace can be righted by trade union action and not by tariffs...
...Just what permanent social implication the Tennessee Valley Authority and the proposed enlarged public-works program will have, it is too early to state...
...They contend with Joseph B. Eastman, Federal Coordinator of Transportation, that regulation of private plants has proved utterly ineffective in protecting the consumer and the worker, and that public ownership provides the only sensible alternative...
...Over seven thouaaad cities, towns and villages a*n their own water works...
...Our morning coffee is a product of Brazil and if we change to tea we draw upon Ceylon or China...
...Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized powc...
...Hoan is one Socialist who has never been defeated in an election...
...How can we provide for a functional control of the public industry so that all groups at interest may be adequately represented...
...And when we come to the Nattrggsj Government we find it a aja**tic builder of roads...
...In 192« it was estitgbd that the local, state, and fwjaral governments employed parly 2,700,000 full-paid workers Mm nearly a million on part time |l«beut one out of every eleven ¦tnfully employed in the United Bates...
...The American Socialist Party ! pledges itself "to the attainment of a cooperative" commonwealth, a i Socialist society, wherein the basic j industries and services of the nation will be publicly owned and I democratically managed for the | common good...
...We see {t si the developer of inland water ways and hydroelectric lighting pUntn It controls railroads in Alaska aad Panama, manages steamship lines and radio stations, •was and operates innumerable peblic buildings, has charge of the largest printing plant in the world, •was a vast amount of land, and esaducts a large and growing ¦ajai-f business...
...i Real Protection Let not the readers think, how- t ever, that we ignore the menace of the sweatshops of Japan to workers' standards of life in other countries...
...Henceforth if mankind is to survive it has to be recognized that civilization is the result of collective action and its perpetuation is a communal responsibility of men to whom nationality is of secondary importance...
...Methods of Socioliiotion Advocates of socialization of industry must face the prohleihi of the speed with which inddstry should be socialized when the opportunity for socialization arrives, and the logical order of socialization of the nation's banks, natural resources, public utilities, and other basie industries...
...Just now, for example, there are loud protests against Japanese dumping when the figures show that the United States sells to Japan nearly twice as much as she buys...
...We ought not to wail until the rats have bared the skeletons of American, German, French and British workers in the wartime trenches to realize the biological unity of the human race...
...Public versus Social Ownership Most types of public ownership in the world today should not be confused with social ownership...
...Just now with egotistical nationalism running riot and .menacing us with the disease, death and darkness of the Middle Ages we must (to paraphrase Kipling) fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds' worth of distance run toward the goal of internationalism away from the madness of nationalism...
...A strict interpretation of the word "Communisnt" means common ownership of all wealth while Socialism means common j ownership only of the means of1 production and distribution...
...It does not pay for financial and engineering services two or three times over, as does private industry when entangled in a complicated holding-company structure...
...In the second place are the collectivists, the Socialists, the Communists, and other groups who would make a complete shift of the basic industries of the country from a private to a social basis...
...Until now cooperation among various sections of the human race has been haphazard...
...The Common Council, in which the Socialists have a large minority delegation, unanimously felicited the Mayor in an affectionate resolution, and Hoan replied in a stirring speech in which he declared that it was" the ideal of Socialism that sustained him during that long and trying period...
...la their exhaustive, survey of State and Municipal Enterprise made many years ago, Sidney and Beatrice Webb maintained that the products supplied by public agencies "are more certainly reliable in quality, more certainly continuous in supply, and, on the whole, though this naturally varies from trade to trade, more economical in cost and cbeaper in price than those supplied by capitalism...
...A believer in a socialised—*, Socialist—organization of society does not, in the nature of the Mm.' look upon that society as a static organization*, but as a living, dynamic industrial structure, in which there is constant experimentation, constant evolution toward higher forms...
...At "arr times its advocates urged it •» a means of reducing living '•art*, of improving quality, of •lengthening the nation's defense, railing labor standards, of de*Jn*sing crime, of preventing the **oti uttion of a natural resource, of obtaining governmental revenue, 1 discouraging the use of certain I •namodities, such as liquor, or of ¦aonraging the use of certain such as water, and of U"a*>ting, in various other ways, ;••public welfare...
...The public does not pay huge salaries, as do many private corporations...
...Spirit of May Day Already in art and science and | medicine the national frontiers J have been ignored...
...of the immense majority...
...Sometimes the extension of • public service was advocated as • Beans of providing for improved awamunity health or safety, as in •a case of our water supply, hosIwais, and public fire departments...
...American Academy of Political 0ti Social Sciences...
...Supplement to "The New Statesman," May 8, 1916, p. 31...
...And the silk in our ties and handkerchiefs tame from far-away Japan...
...At a later | period when these sects had dis- I appeared, the words Socialist and Socialism became more expressive of the principles and aims of the movement...
...In 1916 he was elected Mayor for a two-year term, and despite the terror he was reelected in 1918...
...It does not intrust hundreds of millions of dollars of the hard-earned savings of private investors to irresponsible speculators...
...The extent ,af our health, recreational, mail, '•r* protection, and other services _ WoO known...
...Of course, no form of public ownership will automatically run itself...
...They point to numerous successful public ventures in the field of power, as in Ontario, Canada, where domestic consumers pay for electric light far less than do consumers of power from private plants...
...Comparing 1933 with 1934, Japanese imports fell by nine million dollars down to $119,000,000, while United States exports to Japan increased by sixty-seven million dollars up to j $210,000,000...
...m-~ many instances the public has eg...
...The gum we chew comes from Nicaragua...
...The whole spirit of May Day has been scoffed at as Utopian and hopelessly idealistic with no appeal to the hard-headed workers of the United States...
...In most countries the major part of the public utilities are under public control, while W Russia the overwhelming portfea of the industrial life is run fcy the community...
...4 developing better educational, ¦hural and recreational facilities % the masses, as in the movejSwst for "public schools, playfStands, museums, libraries, or •¦certs...
...kven during the boom days of Btt-1926, the business of governlapt was "the third largest busisssi in the United States, exceeded k Its annual turnover only by the atsjtufacturing industry and agriesltere.'' (National Industrial Conassiik Board, "Cost of QovernBwM lb the U. S., 1925JB6," p. 5. id sheCarroll H. Woody in "Rejm«MtW Trends," Ch...
...That was considered wise economy...
...The first group consists of those who have formulated no definite social philosophy regarding the extent or the limits of public ownership, but who, considering each case on its own merits, advocate transfers from private to government ownership and administration in particular industries, such as some of our public utilities...
...Social ownership implies not only that the title to industry shall be in the bands of the government, but that the government itself shall be controlled by the masses of the people...
...They should formulate those types, of compensation to the present owners of industry which would best serve the interest of the present and future generations...
...Today in the United States and elsewhere, two groups of men and women are in general urging further government experimentation in the field of industry...
...Of course, in the beginning this cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production...
...This Is Called Running a Big City Hannen Swaffer, distinguished British journalist, writes in the London Herald, "Tories at Leeds are shouting about the way the Labor party is wasting public money...
...Adherents of the first school of thought take such an industry as that of electricity...
...They should grapple with the important problem of the extent to which tha process of socialization should be carried, if we are to avoid the tragic waste, planlessness, insecurity and exploitation of our present industrial organisation...
...It corresponds to the facts and needs of modern life...
...Hoan was then a young Socialist lawyer of 29 and he says he was indaced to accept the nomination only because he was told there was no chance of his election...
...The very people who in textiles have received the greatest protection by American tariffs have never hesitated to pay miserably low wages themselves...
...mean increasing instability in other industries, such as tha automobile and construction industries...
...When in the course of development class distinctions have disappeared and all production has...
...again announced its* determination to advance from mere i social reform to Socialism, the party's Executive Board declaring: "Economic reorganization and ' control will take many forms, but public ownership of the primary j industries and services is the essential'foundation step and on no otfier terms can such activities be freed from the fatal restric...
...of oaa class tat oppressing aii.»(-K-r It the proletariat dar ag its ronteat with the' bourgeoisie is corn pel led...
...The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie...
...isolation a»~ jH and s e 1 f-suffi* H ciency would fcf^ Mmjk quickly be dis^m\m\\ s ° 1 v e d like ^ .^^H morning mists —'Smmm^ by the May Day Mark Starr ^nseine...
...induced to enter a field of Pyfo hecause private capital •aud not be persuaded to do so, •" oecount of the magnitude of 5f...
...Twenty-five year's continuous public service to Milwaukee by Mayor . Daubel afkj Hoan has been celebrated this week by the entire city...
...Under it, it is hoped, the common man, for the first time in civilization, will be able to live the good life, But under it, there will be eternal struggle for the attainment at something finer and nobler as the years go on...
...What place should be reserved for cooperatives of production and consumption, and for private industry under a cooperative ordert Most social iters would lesetf* a certain sphere for voluntary cooperative enterprises in our ctritural life, in agriculture, aad in several other spheres of industry, while jn new industries, in handicraft ""industries, and so forth, a place would be left for the individually run concern...
...to centralize all instruments of production in the hands of the state, i. e., by the proletariat organized as the ruling class...
...In place at t> id bourgeois society with its c t t aad class antagonisme «4w f" si...
...I agree with these advocates of a new social order...
...In many B* Pnblic ownership has been J*****ted for the purpose of 2**aig the evils of private mo¦Wy...
...1 "The first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class...
...Thus, the powerful British Labor Party, at its South port conference in 1934...
...The Common Sense of May Day By Mark Starr JN the American trade union movement there has been a tendency in the past to regard the internationalist as the fool with his eyes on the ends of the earth...
...been concentrated in the hands or a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lame its political character...
...How can we develop the best type of partnership between local, state, regional, and national industries or sections, of industries —partnerships such/as that existing between the/ Hydro-Electric Power Commission of Ontario, which contiols the generating plants and the transmission lines of the province .and the several hundred municipalities which distribute electricity to the ultimate consumer...
...Under public ownership, bonds may usually be issued at a lower interest rate than under private control...
...Banking and credit, transport, electricity, water, i iron, steel, coal, gas, agriculture, textiles, shipbuilding, engineering —in all these the times has come for drastic reorganization, and for 4 the most part nothing short of immediate public ownership and j control will be effective...
...Hearst to boast of America's self-sufficiency has to be imported from Canada, along with the metal in the nickel which we hand to the newsboy...
...Even participants in May Day . do not know fully how many facts | and how much common sense is on _ their side...
...The proletarian movement is the [ self-conscious, independent move- 1 ment of the immense majority, in the intercut...
...constantly rising...
...Under public ownership, the overhead expenses are less...
...The skins for our hot dogs and the stiff bristles for our brushes are also imported from foreign lands...
...No Socialist can be a nationalist aiming at isolation and self-sufficiency for some particular portion of the world in which the accident oi birth plated him...
...At times the ^?*n** of collective action had, fflNortunately, as its prime aim "* giving of increased power to •y^ratic groups in control of ••Toriunent...
...These conditions are fully present in none of the publicly owned industries in the world today...
...Evfe before the present depresmk, government was also the asBftst single employer of labor in tat* sountry...
...Because of the many Utopian sects of that period that were known a° 'Socialist," the authors avoided the use of this word, but the word "Communist" was also not satisfactory, as Engels explains in his preface, although it was less objectionable then than "Socialist...
...In 1914," he adds, "when the Tories ruled the city, 4,000 municipal workers went on strike because many of them had to keep families on from 26s to 29s a week —some got only 19s...
...And to be of maximum success, public industry should be administered by officials thoroughly interested in its efficient and honest administration...
...by the force of eirfumawancaa, ws organise itself as a .lass...
...It is to this truer form of protection of workers' standards of life by trade union solidarity on an international scale that May Day is devoted...
...The early leaders of the American Federation of Labor realized that international unity was necessary to win the eight-hour day and such unity is still more necessary today...
...Matty other problem* must needs be faced...
...His .six years as City Attorney were characterized by brilliant work...
...I believe that i as the system of slavery gave way ] to feudalism in many parts of the j world, as feudalism outgrew what- i ever usefulness it may have had | and gave way to the present j system known as capitalism, and i as cepitalism has developed from j its primitive agricultural stage to that of the trust and combine, so j the logical next step in industrial development is a step from private , to public monopoly and democratic 1 control of the nation's industrial i life...
...Then the city council stopped the strike, not by paying the workers a little more but by spending ?30,000 ($150,000) on special police and blackleg (scab) labor...
...Ho an Completes Quarter Century in Public Office . • : ¦ - mr.-^- . . MILWAUKEE...
...From the earliest times what nan lacked in knowledge he made ap in imagination...
...There are in tjm country more than a hundred ¦ajnlriaol gas plants, and many ¦jaaicipal markets, beaches, piers /JtofOrts, golf courses, fuel yards, fcajHnf plants, ice plants, milk jtatrtbtuir.g agencie...
...He began his career in public office when he was ejected City Attorney in the bi^ sweep of 1910 when Emil Seidel was elected first Socialist mayor /Of the city, carrying a full city administration with him...
...It does not spend millions of dollars in fighting against the reduction of rates, or in general propaganda...
Vol. 18 • April 1935 • No. 17
