The Daily Worker Newspaper, July 11, 1925, Page 8

Dollarizi PERUSAL of the daily press is sufficient nowadays to give one a picture of the outstanding economic position and the imposing political role of the American imperialists. We need not go thru ponderous edi- torials. We need not even attempt to read between the lines in order to have evidence of the growing power of the dollar in international politics. In a sense, all we have to do to get a line on the swift and menacing ad- vances being made by the Yankee capitalists to dominate international finance and politics is to glance at some of the big advertisements in the financial columns of the daily press. A fifteen million dollar loan for the city of Berlin; a twenty million dollar loan for a bank in Chile; a five mil- lion dollar loan for the province of upper Austria; and a huge loan for a province in the Argentine—all in the brief period of a few days! These are the announcements to be seen flaunt- ing the face of the reader in the bold- est of type. Three Gigantic Strikes IS is the terrific pace at which American capital is being export- ed. Last year our bourgeoisie export- ed more than a billion dollars worth of capital to every corner of the globe, Three significant events mark the development of this “dollarization” process of the world. 1. The organization of the Federal Reserve System as a means of co-or- dinating, increasing the stability and centralizing American finance. 2. The change in the gold-holding relationship among the capitalist countries. 8. The change of the United States from a debtor country into a creditor country. These three events are of monu- mental importance in an analysis of the growth of American imperialism into the giant stage which it has reached today. The Federal Reserve System be came the unifying force in the finan- tial system.of Wall street when- the war hastened the assumption “>fWorld ‘capitalist feadership by the United States. Then, having become the manufacturer as well as the pan- try of the world because of the funda- mental disruption of the European economic order by the years of in- fernal slaughter, the United States be- came the possessor of the greatest quantity of monetary gold ever held by any national group. American cap- italists now hold more gold than the rest of the world put together. The climax in this series of imperialist strides is the.role now being played by the Yankee bourgeoisie as the greatest creditor in the world. Before the world war the American national capitalist group was a debtor nation. Significance of Huge Capital Export gp struggle.for the contrel of the markets for the sale of manufac- tured and food products has been a source of capitalist wars. For the bourgeoisie of any country the cer- tainty of controlling a market to which they can export their “surplus” commodities, a market in which they can sell the articles produced by but taken from their exploited working class, is @ paramount importance. The actnal and even greater potential valug of China as a market for these commodities is perhaps the most pro- lific source of dissension among the international imperialists in the Far East. But for the weaker and colonial peo- ples themselves the conflict among the imperialist powers for the control of these economically underdeveloped countries as fields for the investment of surplus capital is an even more acute menace. In this instance, far more than in the conflict among the various strong bourgeois national groups for the domination of the market for the sale of manufattured and food products, the weaker colonial peoples tend to become pawns on the chessboard. ‘Let us examine a concrete situation. Let us take the Latin-American coun- tries as a market for the “surplus” manufactured and food products and the surplus capital of the British and American ftnperialist groups. ng a World The American bourgeoisie and the British capitalists are angling let us say, to control the Brazilian and Ar- gentinian markets for the disposal of their “surplus” shoes. Well, this is a source of strife between the British and American capitalists.. But when the shoes are. sold the Chiliars and Argentinians are not necessarily ‘in- terfered with, on.a large scale by the British capitalists, » On the other hand, let us say that the British and American steel inter- ests are competing to sell Brazil or Argentine steel and rail equipment with which to build railroads in these countries. The export of British or American steel into these economical- ly underdeveloped countries lays the basis for a much more permanent stay in these countries by the British and American steel interests or their agents. The building of railroads must be financed, For this purpose Brazil or Argentina must float a loan, must export thirty-five million dollars worth of capital to Poland, they stipulate that in default of regular pyments they will have the right to supervise the Polish railways and eollect the revenue therefrom to meet the pay- ment of_interest or principle in the loan floated. Here we have a source of direct, positive domination of the internal. affairs ofan economically weaker Country by the ruling class of an economically stronger country. Here we have also the source of con- flict between the American exporters of capital and, let us say, the British or French exporters of capital, who also make stipulations and receive guarantees for the payment of inter- est and principle on their investments in Poland, or in any other country to which these imperialists export their surplus capital. There is no doubt that the exporters of capital, the international financiers who control the railways, the oil-wells, By Jay Lovestone in the public utilities, banking enter- pfises, mercantile houses, railroads, mining and meat-packing in the Latin- American countries. Here we have the material, the gco- nomic, basis for Yankee imperialist in- terference with and domination of tho political, economic and social life of these Latin-American countries. Here we also haye the economic basis of another source of war between the British and American national cap- italist groups. Here we also have the economic, the real, basis of the resent- ment of these weaker peoples towards the policies, political doctrines and diplomacy of the mighty -imperialist powers like the United States. The Dawes Plan Issue. The situation in the Latin-American countries is now being introduced into the war-vanquished Germany. If we lift the diplomatic veils from the in- tense competition between the British and American exporters of surplus Four Fighters for Communism ternational. import capital. This necessary capital is today controlled by certain leading national capitalist groups. There is all the difference in the world between exporting shoes and “exporting” railways, waterpower sys- tems, harbor facilities, and other pub- lic utilities. First of all, the “export- ing” of railways, electrification enter- prises and mines, grows out of the exporting of vast amounts of surplus capital. Secondly, when a national capitalistic group exports such com- modities as shoes the process of col- lecting the payment for these shoes is of far less duration than the process of collecting the interest and principle on the exported huge quantities of fi- nance Capital. Of course, the various bourgeois groups are protected by their respec- tive governments in the collections of such payments and debts. Therefore, it is obvious that the shorter the duration of the process of collectiing these bills and debts the shorter will be the period of the pro- tection of these debt and bill collec- tors by the respective imperialist gov- ernments. It follows, then, that the shorter the period of the protection of the exporters of manufactured com- modities or finance capital by the v ous imperialist governments, the less likelihood there will be of interference in the internal affaits of the weaker peoples by the powerful national capi talist groups and their imperialist gov- ernments, This is the economic basis of the continued increasing interference with the politcial economic and social atf- fairs of the weaker and colonial peo- ples by the stronger imperialist pow- ers. When the American bourgeoisie Left to right: the water power resources, the harbor facilities, (the electricity enterprises, and other basic public utilities, also wield a tremendous influence on the political and economic life of the in- dustrially under-developed countries. Colonialism is but a phase of imperial- ism in practice. Colonial empires are but the geographical expressions of the boundary lines of imperialist ag- gression. The Mexican “Incident.” T is precisely an “incident” of this sort which occurred recently when the United States Secretary of State Kellogg sent a warning to Mexico. Few realize the sharp conflict for su- premacy in the export of capital to Latin-America that is now being waged between the United States and Great Britain. Altogether there are more than thirteen billion dollars of surplus capitl invested in the Latin- American countries by the leading im- perialist powers. Prior to the world war, Great Britain had by far largest mass of capital in : war, Some of the leading figures in the Russian Communist Party and the Communist In- Stalin, Rykoff, Kameneff and Zinoviev. capital to Germany we will see clearly the why and wherefore of the develop- ing difference in attitude towards the likelihood of the success of the Dawes plan. Sir Josiah Stamp is one of the lead- ing financiers of Great Britain. He is afraid that the Dawes plan may go on the rocks. Sir Josiah Stamp and the satellites of the British imperial- ist group have apparently decided. that “the time had arrived to give the world the truth of the situation as‘seen by business men.” But the American finarfcier, Willis H. Booth, vice-president of the Guar- antee Trust Company; John W. O’Leary, president of the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, and the Yankee Reparation Agent, Mr. Gilbert, Jr., himself, are still waxing enthusiastic over the Dawes plan suc- ceeding. Surely, experience has taught the working class of the world that when international capitalist financial ex- perts fall out, the dangers of imperial- ist wars multiply and intensify. Al- ready, rash rumblings of proletarian discontent are drowning the hypo- critical applause which the German bourgeoisie are today according the A Big Stick Policy. Already, the Latin-American coun- tries are reacting sharply to the threatening arrogant notes of Secre- tary of State Kellogg. We quote the following editorial comment from the LISTIN DIARIO OF SANTO DOMIN- GO: “As to Pan-Americanism, it has become discredited because it has served only to further the interests of American industries, big business ~(Continued on page 7) £