One of the greatest lies ever put over on the Ameri-can people is the assertion that America has a free en-terprise system. A Mos small portion of our businessis free enterprise: small shops, restaurants, etc. (nowthreatened by chains and franchising), but the majori-ty of business is controlled by monopolistic, domin-eering corporations. American law says that anyone isfree to compete in the business world, but it should beobvious that social conditions outweigh the laws. Isthe workingman actually free to compete with GeneralMotors?The ofree enterprise� system says that competitionshould be encouraged, but corporations found thatcompetition reduces profit. It does so because of thefact that to compete, one corporation must make abetter product than its competitor. By working to-gether, and pretending to compete, large corporationscan build cheap goods, knowing they wonTt be forcedoff the market. Once corporations grow large enough,they can produce goods at far less expense than smallbusiness, thereby cancelling out new competitors. Thisis what leads to monopolies and closed markets. Thiscontrol over the market is not something new. As farback as 1888 the problem was recognized. PresidentGrover Cleveland said, oAs we view achievement of ag-gregated capital, we discover the existence of trusts,combinations, and monopolies, while the citizen isStruggling far in the rear or is trampled to death be-neath an iron heel. Corporations which should be care-fully restrained creatures of the law and the servantsof the people are fast becoming the peopleTs masters.�Attempts were made by the Federal trade commis-sion and the anti-trust division of the Department ofJustice. Though attempts were made, they met withlittle success. When the Standard Oil Company wasodissolved� in 1911, JTPT Morgan said, oNo law canmake a man compete with himself.� He was provedcorrect.By 1935 one-tenth of one per cent of all cor pora-tions owned controlling interest (52% in this case) ofall other corporations. One-tenth of one per cent re-ceived over 50% of the net incomes of all corporations.This is a perfect example of o~the rich get richer andthe poor get poorer.�Some may say, oCorporations are owned by manystockholders.� The truth is that even though stockownership is spread out among many people, the lar-gest part of the stock sold by a corporation is in thehands of a very few, and they make the huge profits.DEPRESSIONThe concentration of wealth is one of the basicfaults of the capitalist economy. The workingmanTsincome is generally too small to consume all.the goodsproduced, and at the same time, the capitalist has fartoo much money to spend on consumer goods, or in-vest in a market burdened by the poverty of the mas-sion.With the market flooded by goods and with no de-mand for all the goods produced, production is thenslowed down. To slow down production, workers arelaid off. Being laid off gives them even less moneythan they had, and therefore leads to even less demand:for goods.WAR IS BIG BUSINESSCapitalists found that only in time of war couldfull use of money, materials and manpower come a-bout.fullLarge monopoly industry, having found they couldproduce goods at a much greater rate than their coun-trymen could consume them, were forced to go to newmarkets. One of the richest markets to be found wasthe government, and specifically the Defense Depart-ment. The government could purchase a tremendousamount of goods, at a terrible cost to the taxpayer,and at a large profit to big business. These expendi-tures on the part of government could easily be justi-fied as oin the national interest� or to opreserve free-dom.�As an example, after World War II the need to jus-tify the defense spending was great. It wasTat this timethat the military began to preach the unbelievable sto-ry of the omonolithic communist conspiracy to con-quer the free world.� These stories not only justifiedthe defense spending, but also made conditions ripefor war with the communist countries.On June 25, 1950, units of the US-controlled SouthKorean Army crossed over the 38th parallel and theKorean war began. This was a tremendous help to bigbusiness. It not only led to big profits, but also sub-Stantiated the fear of communism, since Americanswere told they were defending the free world.When the Korean war was over the ocold war� be-gan again. However, it was not long before the US gov-�,�rnment was involved in another war oto preserve free-dom� -- Vietnam.Now with opposition to the war in Vietnam grow-ing, the military-industrial complex must look for anew country and a new war. It has been found in thename of Israel.With the increased production, due to near-constantwar, big business needs foreign countries for natural re-sources and a place to unload surplus goods. Althoughprofits from these foreign ventures are taken by bigbusiness, the US government (military) is used to pro-tect the investment.President Taft said that, owhile our foreign policyshould not be turned a hairTs breadth from the straightpath of justice, it may well be made to include activeintervention to secure for our merchandise and ourcapitalist opportunity for profitable investment.�With the balance of big business changing in the worldand each government trying to keep the profits of itscountryTs business high, war inevitably comes about.Imperialism leads to war and capitalism leads to im-perialism.THE BIGGEST WASTEAnother basic fault of capicalism is that it is waste-ful and inefficient. Under capitalism some of the pop-ulation can not work even if they want to, while thou-sands are able to receive incomes without working.The system is also wasteful because it employsthousands of salesmen and advertisers who spend theirtime in the absurd practice of selling different brandsof the same product.Another example of wastefulness is that the systemis not concerned with taking care of the people it isSupposedly serving, but instead is concemed with themargin of profit and keeping a high demand for goods,which leads to destruction of foodstuffs and manu-factured goods. And it must be remembered that cap-italism leads to war, the biggest waste of all.IRRATIONALAn obvious fault of capitalism is that it is irrational.A system cannot serve the needs of the people whenit is more concerned with the margin of profit theCapitalist receives.Capitalism, with its many faults and contradictionsis a very unjust system. Capitalism cannot be re-formed, the faults are inherent in the system itself.To serve the needs of the people capitalism must bereplaced.SOCIALISM " A PLANNED ECONOMYSocialism is not a cure-all for societyTs problems,but it will alieviate the problems created under cap-_ italism, that is: poverty, exploitation, insecurity andwar.Socialism is not a reformed capitalism but a com-pletely different economic system, free of contradic-tions.Socialism operates under the principle of collectiveeffort for collective benefit. Production will comeabout because of the need for goods, not for the needof profits. Socialism is not concerned with keeping upa high demand for goods. With the elimination of pro-fit, production can continue as long as it serves theneeds of the people.oGentlemen, in times like these we must all makesacrifices " let's lay off another 500.�COMMITTEE OF] |. \LIGHT INDUSTRY] | INDUSTRYThe fear workers now have of depressions, infla-tions, layoffs, etc., will vanish because workers can re-ly on a planned economy to insure constant employ-ment and a constant flow of goods.With the means of production in the hands of theworkers, no one man will be in the position to exploitanother. No individual can make a profit off anotherTslabor.When the measure of a manTs success is no longerthe amount of money he has, then men will no longerfeel the need to step on each other.Another and perhaps the most important changewould be the elimination of imperialist wars. Althoughforeign market could be utilized, the absolute needfor them would be greatly lowered.The essence of socialism is that the goods producingcapital of a country (factories, shops, etc.) would nolonger be owned and mismanaged by a few, but wouldbe owned by all, for the benefit of all.CENTRALIZED PLANNINGFOR SOCIALISMCentralized planning is necessary to a socialist econ-omy. Many feel that it is too big a job for the economyof a large industrial nation to be planned by a smallgroup of officials. This has been proven wrong bymany countries. A planned economy has been usedsuccessfully by the Soviet Union, Cuba, North Korea,and other socialist states.The argument has been brought up that the US (cap-italist) has the highest standard of living in the world.But it must be noted that the US was one of the earli-est countries to industrialize. The socialist states havedone in 50 years or less what the United States took200 years to do. This fact must be accepted regardlessof oneTs opinion of the Soviet states.As an example of centralized planning we will dis-cuss the Soviet Union. Their economy is handled bythe State Planning Commission (Gosplan). The tasktaken on by the Gosplan is to accumulate statistics onthe number of workers, mines, factories, resources,railroads, trucks, ships, docks, etc. With these statis-tics they determine what a factory, for instance, didthe year before, what it will do the present year, whatit will do in the future. The ideas put out by the Gos-plan are not the final plans, however. The plans mustbe approved by all the people. Each phase of industry -has its own planning committees which work their wayup to the central committee. This diagram shows itmore clearly.GOSFLAN]HEAVYMINES TRANSPORTATIONSUIPS RSWORKERS | WORKERS] [WORKERSThis diagram is obviously incomplete, but it illus-trates the idea of different levels of committees.Under thissystem the citizens of a socialist countrycan control their economy. They decide what theyhave, what they need, and how they will go aboutgetting what they need.The aim of a socialist is to set up a society whichwould be free of the contradictions and evils of thecapitalist society.The only thing that most Americans know about so-cialism is that they donTt like it. It is either taken asajoke, or feared because it would enslave ofree Ameri-oe common belief couldnTt be farther from thetruth.All citizens of America are slaves now -- because ofcapitalism. It goes without Saying that the one excep-tion is, of course, the capitalists themselves.Capitalism is a system whereby a small segment ofsociety can control the masses simply by owning andmanipulating all resources and wealth as is necessary.This wealth includes everything from natural resources(land, oil, iron, etc.) to all means of production (fac-tories, shops, etc.). By incorporating this system, cap-italists need not work, but only sit back while the work-ing class supports them. One class lives by owning;the other class lives by working. Capitalists get theirincome by controlling the production of goods; theworking class, on the other hand, gets its income byproducing the goods for the capitalists.It is therefore obvious that the capitalist needs tobe producing goods constantly and the worker, whois also the consumer, needs to purchase these goods asthey are produced. The wise and successful business-man is the one who invests the least possible into pro-duction, yet takes back as much from the market as hecan.One of the major expenses of production is labor.It is in the capitalistsT interest to pay the lowest wagespossible and still employ workers. The capitalist mustmake profits or he ceases to be a capitalist, and theworker must make decent wages to survive. When theworker makes a lot of money, the capitalist cannot af-ford to pay labor to produce goods; yet when theworker is not paid enough, he cannot pay for the goodsproduced. Each can succeed only at the expense of theOther. The so-called oharmony� between labor andcapital is non-existent.With the capitalists need to constantly producegoods, there also arises the need for constant markets.As an example, when the automobile industry man-ufactures enough cars to satisfy the needs of Americait cannot afford to stop production. Instead, they tryto convince Americans that they oneed� a newer andobetter� car. To do this the industry procures an ad-vertising firm, at a great expense, to convince the con-sumer of his need. One would think that the moneyspent on advertising could be more wisely spent on theproduct to be advertised. But instead, as an added bo-nus to the customer, to help him decide, the originalautomobile is produced so poorly that the need doesactually exist to replace it.In this way the capitalist is assured of constant pro-duction, and the worker is assured of constant wages.These wages are spent purchasing the capitalistTs goods,éach time at a profit for the capitalist, and a loss tothe worker.This system is employed by all manufacturers, not" just the auto industry. Make note of the new modelsof t.v.Ts, refrigerators, washing machines, etc. EachyearTs model is obetter� or oimproved.� The exam-ples of deceit by big business are too numerous tomention.The Soviet system is not necessarily the only systemthat could be used. It must be noted that the UnitedStates would not need to go through the tremendousStruggle jo industrialize. The US is already heavily in-dustrialized and could step into a socialist economyeasily. Of course there would be a letdown for theRockefellers, Fords, Duponts, etc. The US would notbecome Russian but would develop the type of social-ism best suited for itself.People in the United States must begin working forsocialism. Capitalism is destroying itself and will de-stroy America with it. Only through socialism canAmerica save itself and what it stands for.Capitalism is the law of the jungle, survival of thefittest. Socialism is civilization, cooperation and bro-therhood.---- Pete Gorczynsky