The merry-go-round

The Daily Express (11 /3,/49) published the following letter under the title the “Export Cycle.”

“Here is a new four-stroke cycle for those in the Coventry motor industry under the present government policy of export or bust : Production, Depression, Exhausted, Fired.”

The writer, C. G. Hancock, has the cycle of production in its correct order, but when he says that it is a new one then he makes a hopeless error.

The headlong gallop of production outstripping the markets’ capacity to absorb the commodities produced. Then the depression and the exhausted workers being fired.

This cycle is an integral part of the capitalist system and has constantly recurred since the inception of Industrial Capitalism. It applies equally to all of modern industry and not just to the motor car producers alone.

With sickening regularity the cycle goes round and round. The whole productive machinery of the world is strained to the utmost in order to snatch the profits as quickly as possible.

The workers are lashed to a frenzy by the governments of the geographical areas in which they live ; they are told that “More from each, is more for all.”

Suddenly the markets begin to shrink, the stocks pile up and are unsaleable. The capitalists close down their plants and the depression arrives; “recession” is the modern idiom.

The workers, exhausted by their efforts to produce, are fired and the cycle is complete. The rival groups of capitalists bicker over the disposal of the piled up stocks and eventually go to war. In these wars stacks of goods are destroyed and wasted. At the end of the war the way is cleared for another complete cycle.

Eminent trade union leaders and Labour politicians tell the workers that Full Employment is assured for all for a considerable time and that as soon as the workers produce more then they will get more.

(No mention you notice of Labour politicians or T.U. leaders producing more.)

The workers “put their shoulders to the wheel” or give “ten per cent, more,” foolishly believing that things will be better by and by.

But the signs crop up everywhere, thousands of railway workers to be fired, thousands of motor-car factory workers put off.

This cycle of Production will be with us as long as the system whereby goods are produced for profit remains.

The spanner needed to operate on the works is the spanner of Socialist knowledge, a simple enough tool. All that is required is for the workers to realise that their troubles are due to the class ownership of the means of production (mines, factories, etc.) and that the only solution to them is to organise for the purpose of wresting those means of production from the owning class. When they have done this and set the productive forces of Society working to produce things for their own use the ground work will have been created upon which the carriage work of a social system without export cycles can be built.

So we call all to join us in the Socialist Party of Great Britain and help to spread the knowledge of Socialism among our fellow workers.

Don’t stand aside saying you are sympathisers. Roll up and help in the good work. We welcome all, man or woman, black, white or yellow. All are workers, all have the same interest—Socialism.
J. J. SHAW