Nationalism and Culture (95 page)

personality. Man was sacrificed without compunction to technique, degraded into a machine, changed into a nonentity, a "productive force" deprived of all human traits, in order that the productive process might function with the least possible friction and without internal obstruction.

Yet it is shown today ever more clearly that this road leads to no better future for man, that the "rationalization" always results in the failure of all its advance estimates. Professor Felix Krueger, director of the Institute for Psychology in Leipzig, declared some years ago that the much lauded Taylor system and the rationalization of industry emanated from a labor^ly^psychology, the economic failures of which are becoming constantly more apparent. By all experience it is now proved the natural motion sustained by the implicit rhythm of work is less tiring than a forcibly imposed taskj for man's action has its origin in the soul, which cannot be chained to any definite scheme or schedule. This has been confirmed over and over again} but for all that it is still believed that the crisis can be overcome in the field of production. The newly arisen "Technocratic School" in America has, with the support of exhaustively inclusive data based on strict scientific observation, proved that our ability to produce is in fact almost unlimited, and that even the great productive capacity of modern industry is in no way proportionate to our technical ability, since a complete application of all our technical achievements would immediately result in a catastrophe.*

That by a considerable reduction of the working time a means could be found of limiting the present economic crisis and even of guiding industry back into comparatively normal courses has already been stated, but it would be self-deception to believe that thereby the great problem of the age would be solved. The modern economic problem is less a matter of production than of consumption. It was this fact which Robert Owen adduced in refutation oLAdam-Smitkj and in it the whole economic significance of socialism exhausts itself. That the men of science and technology have opened limitless possibilities to production is not disputed by anyone and needs no special proof. But under our present system every achievement of technology becomes a weapon of capitalism against the people and results in the very opposite of that which it was intended to accomplish. Every technical advance has made men's work heavier and more oppressive and has more and more undermined their economic security. The most important problem of modern economics is not continually to increase production and make it more profitable by new inventions and "better working methods," but to see to it that the achieve-

* Howard Scott and his 350 scientific collaborators are therefore of the opinion that this imminent catastrophe can only be averted by entrusting the technical men with the direction of industry and radically cutting the hours of work to sixteen per week.

merits of technical ability and the fruits of labor are made equally available to all members of society.

Under the present system, which has made the profit of individuals and not the satisfaction of the needs of all the cardinal points of economics, this is completely excluded. The development of private economy into monopoly economy has made this task still more difficult, for it has put into the hands of single economic organizations a power far transcending the limits of economics and has delivered society completely to the power-lust and ruthless exploitation of modern trustocracy.^ What influence the kings of high finance and the great industrial concerns have on the politics of the state is too well known to need further elucidation.®

Nor does state capitalism, so much discussed today, offer a way out from the spiritual and material distress of the age. On the contrary, it would change the world more completely into a penitentiary and smother any feeling of freedom at its birth, as it is now doing in Russia. If, in spite of this, there are "socialists" who today think they see in state

^ Coined word: German, Trustokratie — Translator.

' With what hair-raising callousness we are everywhere ready today to sacrifice the lives of millions of men to the economic interests of small minorities is proved by the cable message which the former ambassador in London, Mr. Walter Hines Page, sent on March 5, 1917, to President Wilson (which was followed a month later by America's declaration of war against Germany).

After Page had explained to the President the critical financial status of France and England and had pointed out that this must result in a complete cessation of transatlantic trade, he goes on to say:

"The result of such a stoppage would be a panic in the United States. . . . The world will therefore be divided into two hemispheres, one of them, our own, will have the gold and the commodities: the other, Great Britain and Europe, will need these commodities, but it will have no money with which to pay for them. Moreover, it will have practically no commodities of its own to exchange for them. The financial and commercial result will be almost as bad for the U.S. as for Europe. We shall soon reach this condition unless we take quick action to prevent it. Great Britain and France must have a credit in the U.S. which will be large enough to prevent the collapse of world trade and the whole financial structure of Europe. If the U.S. declares war agamst Germany, the greatest help which we could give Britain and its allies would be such credit. If we should adopt this policy, an excellent plan would be for our government to make a large investment in a Franco-British loan. Another plan would be to guarantee such a loan. A great advantage would be that all the money would be kept in the United States. We could keep on with our trade and increase it, till the war ends, and after the war Europe would purchase food and enormous supplies of materials with which to reequip her peace industries. We would thus reap the profit of an uninterrupted and perhaps an enlarging trade over a number of years, and we should hold their securities in payment. On the other hand, if we keep nearly all the gold and Europe cannot pay for reestablishing its economic life, there may be a worldwide panic for an indefinite period. Of course we cannot extend such a credit unless we go to war with Germany." (Burton J. Hendrick: The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, p. 270.)

capitalism a higher type of economy than we now have, this only proves that they have no clear conception of the essence of either socialism or economics. Capitalistically considered, that is, regarding man as existing for production and not production for man, state capitalism may indeed represent a "higher form of economics" j socialistically considered, such a conception is the cruelest sacrilege against the spirit of socialism and of freedom. But even viewed from a purely economic standpoint, every increase of compulsion on man's industrial activity—and this lies at the foundation of state capitalism—is tantamount to a reduction of his productive ability. Slave labor has never furthered economy, for compulsion robs labor of its psychic incentive and its consciousness of creative action. When slavery was most prevalent in Rome the productivity of the soil constantly decreased, leading finally to a general catastrophe. The same thing was experienced in the time of the feudal system. The more unbearable the forms of serfdom became in European countries, the more meager were the results of labor, the more impoverished the land became. We need to free labor from the fetters of dependence, not to forge the fetters more firmly.

A fundamental change of the present economic system which shall have in view a genuine solution of the problem can be achieved only by abolition of all the monopolies and economic privileges which today profit only small minorities in society and enable those elect ones to impose their brutal interest-economics on the great masses of the people. Only by a fundamental reorganization of labor on the basis of fellowship, serving no other purpose than the satisfaction of the needs of all instead of increasing the profits of individuals as today, can the present economic crisis be overcome and the way cleared for a higher social culture. It is needful to free man from exploitation by man and to secure to him the fruits of his labor. Only thus will it be possible to make each new achievement of technology serviceable to all and prevent that which should be a blessing to all from becoming a curse to most.

Just as minorities within a real folk community cannot be permitted to monopolize vitally important raw materials or means of production for their special interests, so likewise a people, or a nation as a whole, cannot be allowed to create monopolies at the expense of other human groups and subject these to economic^exploitation. The whole tendency of capitalism, especially since it entered upon the imperialistic phase of its evolution, is so hopelessly antagonistic to the people and so exceedingly destructive of social welfare because its supporters strive by every means to bring all natural wealth under the control of their monopolies, and to forge on men the fetters of economic dependence. This is always done in the name of the nation, and every party justifies its highwayman

policies by appealing to the "national interests," thus concealing their real purposes.

What we seek is not world exploitation but a world economy in which every group of people shall find its natural place and enjoy equal rights with all others. Hence, internationalization of natural resources and territory affording raw materials is one of the most important prerequisites for the existence of a socialistic order of society based on libertarian principles. By mutual treaties and reciprocal covenants the use of all natural treasures must be made available to all human groups if new monopolies are not to arise in the social body, and consequently a new division into classes and a new economic enslavement. We need to call into being a. new human community having its roots in equality of economic conditions and uniting all members of the great cultural community by new ties of mutual interest, disregarding the frontiers of the present states. On the basis of the present social system there is no redemption from the slavery of our age, but only a deeper submersion into a state of gruesome misery and horrors without end. Human society must overthrow capitalism unless it wants to perish.

Just as capitalism became more and more dangerous in proportion as economic forces became more strongly concentrated in the hands of its leaders, giving them a power which makes them masters over the life and death of whole peoples, so also the frightful evils of modern state organization become more and more clearly apparent with the growth of the state and the constant enlargement of its powers. The modern Giant State, which has developed pari -passu with the capitalistic economic system, has today grown into a constant menace to the very existence of society. Not only has this monstrous machine become the greatest obstacle to men's struggle for freedom, forcing with its arms of steel all social life into the prescribed patterns j the maintenance of the machine itself consumes by far the largest part of the state's revenues and deprives intellectual culture more and more of the material basis for its further development.

National defense alone, meaning the standing armies, the armament expenditures and whatever else comes under the head of war and militarism, today consumes in every state 50 to 70 percent of its revenues, which must be raised by taxes and tariffs. In an excellent little essay based on reliable sources and exact calculations Lehmann-Russbiildt, one of the most outspoken opponents of modern investment in armament, says:

If wc figure an approximate yearly fifty thousand million marks for the war budget, one half is on account of the consequences of the World War and the other half for preparation for a new war. This amounts to about one hundred and forty million marks daily. That is the annual budget of a

great city which is daily swallowed by the militaristic Moloch without any productive return. Even in little neutral Switzerland, not involved in the World War, the war budget amounts to jO percent of the state's income. In the Soviet Union the margin is below 50 percent principally only because the war debts were repudiated. But even in the Soviet Union the war budget is larger than the expenditures for education and culture. This is practically the case in all countries—only not, for example, in Andorra, Costa Rica, and Iceland.'^

Russbuldt calculated that the cost of educating a man up to his sixteenth year, that is, to the time when his productive ability begins, runs from at least eight thousand reichsmarks up to about fifteen thousand, depending on whether are added the expenditures by the community and the state to the cost of food and clothing in the parental home. But it cost one hundred thousand marks to kill a man in war, of which one-half went to the armament industry j a clear profit to them of fifty thousand reichsmarks.

The material losses of the World War are so fantastic that the totals no longer mean anything to the human mind. We realize that these astronomical figures mean something extraordinary, but that it about allj for there is finally a limit to human comprehension. An understanding of the monstrous sum which these dead figures represent can be given to men only by a sort of graphic presentation.* ^

Whoever, in view of this enormous mass of factual material, still believes that the state, with its hosts armed to the teeth, its armies of bureaucrats, its secret diplomacy and its countless institutions designed to cripple the human spirit, serves to protect humanity is beyond help. In

^ Otto Lehmann-Russbiildt, Der Krieg als Geschdft ("War as a Business"). Berlin, 1933. These data have been materially changed since then, for the armament race has made the ratios still more unfavorable and surrendered to militarism a yet larger share of the state's income. The Soviet Union now spends yearly for military purposes $12,000,000,000. {The Nation, N. Y., Feb. 27, 1937.)

® This task was undertaken by a member of the U.S. Congress, Victor L. Berger, five years after the war. The task was fairly easy for him, as he had at his disposal in Washington a great mass of material for his calculations. Berger showed that with the fabulous sums the war had swallowed, every family in the United States, in Canada, Australia, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Germany and Russia could have been given a house worth twenty-five hundred dollars with furnishings worth a thousand dollars, and with each such house five acres of land at one hundred dollars an acre, and at that the sum was by no means exhausted: Enough was left to furnish each town of more than twenty thousand inhabitants in the countries mentioned with a public library and a hospital of the value of five million dollars, and besides that a university worth ten millions. But even then this enormous capital had not been fully used up. The rest of the sum invested at 5 percent would have paid the wages of an army of one hundred and twenty-five thousand teachers and one hundred and twenty-five thousand nurses, and still enough would have remained to buy all the physical property in France and Belgium.