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382

THE COMMUNIST

that it could rise out of its twilight existence into the ranks of the bourgeoisie. They gambled with an enthusiasm they could never have mustered except in an imperialist war or in an attack on the working class. The stock market crash brought them down to the harsh reality of their petty bourgeois existence-poorer than they had left it to venture into the mystery of money making on the stock exchange. The purchase of stock by the petty bourgeoisie and the labor aristocracy cannot be other than froth on the waves of the class struggle that arises and develops inevitably out of the system of capitalist exploitation. Brookings' "socialized corporations" are the trustified corporations which have thousands of the petty bourgeoisie owning in toto piecemeal sections of the corporations' securities. These corporations, the organs of capitalism, exploit tens of millions of workers for the benefit of an infinitesimal group of capitalists.
In the language of the "talkies" Mr. Robert S. Brookings "theme song" is the "saving wage". The "saving wage" trails its way through the entire collection directly or by implication. "The prevalence of such a wage scale (the "saving wage"-E.B.) frees the worker from the pressure of cut throat competitive selling of his labor and assures him economic independence" and creates "this sound, ethical, and economic relation of capital to labor which now exists." (p. 76). "The 'saving wage' which is not only sufficient for subsistence needs but provides for the necessary savings to protect the worker and his family from the menaces of unemployment, sickness, old age, and death, has grown to a size which is rapidly making capitalist of all our workers." (p. xxiii). The independence of seven million unemployed American workers is the independence to starve. Cossacks' clubs against the unemployed that is the "sound, and economic relation of capital to labor which now exists." That is the lesson that the American proletariat is being taught at a faster tempo than Mr. Robert S. Brookings could ever dream of in his weirdest nightmare. It is significant to note that the "saving wage" arose out of the "restriction of immigration, the protective tariff, the development of big business, and the wide distribution of corporate securities among investors"-which formed the basis for the exceptional position of American capitalism according to one Mr. Jay Lovestone.
"The "saving wage" has so raised the standard of living among the great masses of the population and made our home market so large that we are practically independent of exports." The capitalist class of Great Britain, Germany and France knows how independent American capitalism is of exports. They know that the growth of American capitalism implies the growth of export markets