Monopoly capitalism working class

Imperial Chemical Industries among the world leaders in terms of size, and almost one quarter of the non-American giants under British control, it is clear that capitalism in Britain is more highly concentrated than that of other countries in Western Europe. The rapid rise of giant capitalist enterprise in Japan has also to be noted.

EXTEND

Bitter competition is now taking place between these giants who must extend their share of the world market if profitability is to be maintained.

While in relation to technique and organization the industrial giants bring the econsocialization, the contradic- the threshhold tions of the capitalist mode of production become more intense.

The tendency for business operations to become worldwide indicates how the demands of modern production conflict with the limitations imposed by the national state.

At the same time there is the cut-throat drive for supplies of raw materials and markets and the struggle for the world market continues. The anarchic, unplanned conditions of capitalist production are thus revealed.

The giant businesses are forced to drive against the working class by pushing ahead with automation and speed-up.

NO ACCIDENT The synchronization of big strike movements throughout Europe is thus no accident. It is not the reflection of some imaginary international conspiracy.

The most important and hard fought strikes in the major capitalist countries are precisely in plants belonging to the firms which figure on 'Fortune's' list, together with those of their Americanowned rivals.

These big concentrations of capital are engaged all the time in a desperate struggle to cut unit costs, raise sales and yield profits in order to make possible further investment and attract bank and other outside capital.

This competitive anarchy of the market is heightened by the repercussions of the continuous inflation and the world monetary crisis. Interest rates throughout the capitalist world have soared to heights which would once have been considered fantastic.

DEPENDENT

Only big profits can stand such Payments to banks and financiers. There is also increasing pressure to finance the constant re-equipment and expansion made necessary by world competition from internal sources.

In a way, because of their size, the big monopolies can weather the high interest rates better than the smaller firms which are more directly dependent upon bank capital. In fact, the process of merger and take-over which is continuously taking place is speeded-up by the inflation and the penal interest rates which smaller firms cannot stand.

That only means, however, that the giants have to sweat it out of the working class all the more.

Thus Measured Day-Work, productivity deals and similar attempts to break down collective bargaining and get more work for less pay stem directly from the international crisis of capitalism.

The international monetary crisis, the struggle tor a world markets, the inflation and high interest rates have a direct meaning on the factory floor.

It is a case of the needs of capital coming more sharply than before into collision with standards built up by the workers during the boom.

OUT OF HAND

At the same time, in all capitalist countries the cost-of-living has been rising at a rate of between three and five per cent each year on average. There is no sign of gains made in wage bargaining being stopped. In fact, all the indications are that the inflation is getting out of hand.

A general lack of confidence in the future purchasing power of national moneys contributes to this process.

Nobody wants to hold money even with interest rates at their present level.

The weakest currencies are prey to every rumour and speculative move. Devaluation all along the line and international monetary collapse have become an actual possibility.

The questions which are posed to the working class, therefore, arise directly from international crisis of capitalism. The working class also fights back as an international class, even though not yet consciously so.

It should be obvious, then, that there is no solution to these questions on national lines. Of course, each national group of employers tries to scare its 'own' working class with stories of the harder work, lower wages and trade union docility in other countries.

We have heard stories about the German, and to some extent the Japanese and Scandinavian workers, many times in recent years. Events are now showing that the conditions which these workers face are no different from those of workers in British factories.

TEMPORARY

As the crisis deepens, it also becomes clearer that the employers are unable, because international competition conditions, to make the concessions which were possible in the past.

Even wage gains can have only a temporary significance in a period of inflation.

Still more important, there is no guarantee that wages will be forthcoming.

Closures and redundancies are everyday occurences. Capital must destroy jobs in order to survive.

An understanding of these dominating economic trends in world capitalism is very Without seeing how the general issues are posed, in the context of international crisis, only the old-style militancy is possible.

The development of capitalism itself has outdated this form of struggle just as much as it has outdated reformism.

It is only by raising the political questions, that is to say, by indicating to the working class a path forward to power, that leadership can be offered which measures up to the needs of the class and the opportunities of the time.

PAGE FOUR ober 3, 1869