Through Eyes of Marx

THE DECLINE OF AMERICAN CAPITALISM--Lewis Corey--Covici, Friede ($4). Readers who want to know the orthodox Communist point of view toward U. S. history, politics, business and society will find it on the grand scale in Economist Corey's huge tome. With its 622 pages divided into 26 chapters and well packed with dramatic graphs, notes, sources and index, The Decline of American Capitalism is the most exhaustive critique of U. S. social structure from the Marxian slant yet to appear. Other economists will dispute Author Corey's charts, tables, sources, as well as conclusions, but they cannot say he has failed to back up his generalizations with evidence. He writes with temperate civility, trying to make his case intellectually rather than emotionally, and only on rare occasions does he step out of his role of scholarly logician to hurl the professional thunderbolts of Communist rhetoric.

Corey starts out with the present "Crisis," in the face of which he finds what he calls "Niraism" (the New Deal) helpless and meaningless except insofar as it serves to call in the State to bolster up a sagging economic order. Working backward, he considers the "Golden Age" which he insists was by no means everybody's boom. Farmers were excluded and "real" wages remained practically stationary by holding their own with rising prices, no more. But profits increased enormously. These profits were appropriated by "the owners of the means of production" and since they could not be "consumed," were turned into increased "capital."

The seeds of destruction of the capitalist system are sown by itself. Prosperity depends on profits, the conversion of profits into capital, the increasing accumulation of that capital. So long as there were outlets for this accumulation, the system managed to get along, despite ups and downs and frequent "cyclical" depressions. The decline of capitalism is the result of old age. Its "historical role" is over. This is owing to the exhaustion of "the long-time factors of expansion"--industrial expansion, creation of new industries, opening up of new land. Stagnation has set in. The forces of production overwhelm the forces of consumption. Demand and supply, profits and wages clash. The "contradiction" arises from the fact that the system lives on profits; to insure profits wages must be cut; to cut wages diminishes consumption. When production is restricted, whether by State intervention or through lack of markets, capitalism goes into decline.

To save itself, argues Corey, competitive capitalism turns to monopoly. Monopoly becomes international, seeks outlet by way of exporting capital; the imperialistic stage is reached. But exhaustion of markets again overtakes it; the imperialist nations must "plunder one another." The result is war.

Bound up with the decay of the economic system is the problem of technological unemployment, which has been present since the industrial revolution. So-called "normal" unemployment, says Corey, has been a necessity for capitalism, providing a reserve of labor for new undertakings, serving as a club to beat down wages which are always threatening to destroy profits. But with the exhaustion of "the long-time factors of expansion," with no new worlds to conquer, capitalist industry will be unable to take care of the "surplus population," creating a mob of millions of destitute workers. According to Corey's charts and figures the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth, despite the claims of the boomtime-era bankers and statesmen, or the promises of Niraism, is tragic, but under the system unavoidable. In a chapter called "The Crisis of the American Dream," Author Corey writes glowingly of the early American Democracy before it was overtaken by modern capitalism. Originating in revolution, it was dedicated to the ideals of Liberty, Democracy, Education, Equality, Progress, Peace. Pointing out the discrepancies between ideals and practice. Lewis Corey is, for a Marxian, generous in his estimation of its real accomplishments. To him, the impending "American Revolution" is consistent with U. S. traditions. It will mark the triumph of the socialism of Marx and Lenin.

The Author. Lewis Corey was born in San Francisco, in 1894. Son of an Italian shoemaker, he received only brief, formal education in public and parochial schools. Self-educated, he speaks four languages. He is now an assistant editor of The Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences, lives in Sunnyside, L. I., with a Russian wife and an 11-year-old daughter. In 1930 he published his successful The House of Morgan.

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