anarchy archives

An Online Research Center on the History and Theory of Anarchism

Home

Search

About Us

Contact Us

Other Links

Critics Corner

   
 

The Cynosure

  Michael Bakunin
  William Godwin
  Emma Goldman
  Peter Kropotkin
  Errico Malatesta
  Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
  Max Stirner
  Murray Bookchin
  Noam Chomsky
  Bright but Lesser Lights
   
  Cold Off The Presses
  Pamphlets
  Periodicals
   
  Anarchist History
  Worldwide Movements
  First International
  Paris Commune
  Haymarket Massacre
  Spanish Civil War
  Bibliography
   
   
   


<--Previous  Up  Next-->

pll

economy", based on a calculation of purchasing power, as well as upon a "rationalization of production." However, the inner contradictions of capitalism could not be removed in this way. On the contrary, they have tended to grow and to become increasingly more acute. The "planned economy" if imperialism, with its "rationalized" production, founded on the pinnacle of private property whose driving force is personal interest and the thirst for unlimited gain at the expense of the toiling masses, is itself becoming the source of the decline of the capitalist system, Its calculations are based not upon the real needs of the people, but upon their purchasing power. In accordance with the fluctuations of this purchasing power the production of goods is expanded or curtailed. But, keeping in mind the fact that financial dictatorship implies the ruin of numberless small and medium-sized proprietors and enterprisers, and the creation of millions of unemployed among workers who had formerly been serving those masters who are not destitute, one can rightly expect that a heavy curtailment of production must naturally take place. The making of goods is cut in proportion to the reduced purchasing power, and accordingly the army of the unemployed increases, while at the same time the impoverishment of the masses steadily grows.

Now, therefore, in order to make goods available to the impoverished consumer, capitalism is forced to lower prices. Yet any price reduction, without a concurrent decline in the business man's rate of profit, can only be attined by means of lowering the cost of production, or the cost-price of the product. This, in turn, can be achieved, in the first place, by wage cuts, i.e. a still greater impoverishment of a still larger number of people, and secondly, by the rationalizeation of production through increased mechanization of production processes and a lesser dependence of the manufacturer on man-power. In consequence of this, a rise in the number of unemployed is bound to occur once again, with an ever greter contradiction of the people's purchasing power. Thus a further lowering of production results, with the recurrence of all the consequences briefly described aboce. Hence the "planned economy" of capitalism and its "rationalized production" process, aimed essentially at one single target --- private gain --- lead logically to an increasiongly brutal dictatorship and to an intensifying concentration of cinancial capital, as well as to an unnecessary curtailment of national production and constantly rising unemployment and poverty. In short, capitalism, which has given birth to a new social scourge, is unable to get rid of its own evil offspring without killing itself in the

This page has been accessed by visitors outside of Pitzer College times since September 12, 2001.

OWN YOUR OWN COPY OF ANARCHY ARCHIVES

[Home]               [Search]               [About Us]               [Contact Us]               [Other Links]               [Critics Corner]