A naetiagit tamed: Fo MPs a» == o~-a } REVIEW ~ ye WHO NE E'S a 60-year-old lady in By BERT W Tier HYTE W. ashington, Mrs. Ida Rho- mothe wn is in love with "échines Aca translation { "hich happen €r place of work, ("Butea S to be the Natio- I thee «« 2 Of Standards. Says "tee More we work with {toni c aN Machines, the more ae fee] about the marvel- hing kings of the human hily © call it ADAM—abso- ign “Vine automatic mach- No a ctvone is so enthusias- ig Mega g comation, Its positive ie amin features in society Bittice ace With a somewhat be ee by Robert E, Cub- Veisveet, Peociate editor of agazine, in Who fii? Ne? (114 pp. $4.50; yy, by Musson Book Co. Ma has gone * qu BP ates the glowing Madi- ‘tina, 4° Prose of the U.S. 1 tluter. SSociation of Manu- » Dower, Guided by electro- Mere 5 a by atomic energy, a 5 Re Smooth, effortless Cc automation, the hai ieee’ of our economy fy MSticong ot and undreamed tie ride Just going along ‘ On a be the biggest Opies: p 5 RL Cupylions of Americans, ing teag “ge wryly, the thrill iy ME harge™® and gone, leav- y aga angover of rea- bens , Sombre, complex he Ang. «4. 2Utomation are “bles . the worst of these Unemployment.” \ a eg in or gives, these 4 tigg eee major U.S. in- i Set about since the : War by automa- Mer fears Voy or, iy, OTe waa h pan a million farm AyMateg .- lost their jobs to Neve, b etuipment, yet food nalore €n so plentiful. “ity “al ean 260,000 bitumi- 1%, but pr ers have lost their Mding ductivity is up an BR, Percent. ts, ‘llroag 4 “Seq, €Mployment has Mode -Y 540,000 workers, Ay 'n is up 65 percent. Lite ' iy, bo » the auto industry i i947 Ky mh ke 9 production work- 0 4 lee = re cars, Hy ten, PACity has increased > Even at capacity, Mtoe, by 17,000. ty : Ba treae tick E. Gorman, 4b 4 Meat Urer of the Amal- En. 0 the utters: “No one , sY Rive long run automa- Ww ‘a Substance to man- My cky °2M of freedom aking toil, may to world poverty bre ah en and starvation. But in the long run we shall all be dead.” Capitalism in the United Sta- tes fears one thing more than anything else—that the Soviet Union will use automation to outstrip American production. When that happens, their sys- tem is finished. Author Cub- bedge doesn’t put it quite so bluntly, but he says: Vital weapon “Automation becomes the only way that the United States can keep pace with Soviet Commun- ism—or keep, hopefully, a few jumps ahead of it Since World War II, the industrial out- put of the Soviet Union has grown at an estimated rate of nine percent a year (versus a rate of about three percent in the USA) ... Surely, then, auto- mation is a vital weapon in the ideological conflict with com- munism.” Still the problem of unemploy- ment remains. The author de- votes several chapters to a des- cription of depressed areas, quotes numerous authorities who - feel that jobless lines will grow longer from year to year, and quotes some “experts” who of- fer tentative solutions—a vast public works program, transfer- ring of unemployed to other areas where jobs exist, an early retirement program, an “exile” program of shipping American workers to nations needing their talents (!) and a birth control program (!!). He cites the temporary answer to the problem achieved for its members on the West Coast by the International Longshoremen and Warehousemen’s Union A contract which ensures conunu- ed jobs for those not working— but quotes Harry Bridges as ad- mitting the pact is “narrow and selfish. . . Automation is a na- tional social problem. We can only take care of ourselves.” But Cubbedge has some harsh words to say about American management: “In this country, business, by and large, still con- siders its employees little more than chattels; it still builds its new plants wherever it pleases. It does little to care for its own jobless, nor does it attack the problems of general unemploy- ment. Only in rare instances does it pay its workers by the year; it still pays all others by the hour or the piece. It defends its decisions in these matters as its prerogative — its absolute right. What’s more, it has also claimed the right to automate as another absolute right. . .” New axioms But, who gave management this right? asks the author. Ulti- mately, he concludes, “techno- logy may force America to adopt a different set of axioms, a new industrial Bill of Rights.” To reach the Golden Age with no bones broken, says Cubbedge, labor, management and govern- ment must plan in advance for technological change and mea- er EE ET ETT TO | EDS PEOPLE? sure out the effect of such change, for “only then can its impact upon employment be nul- lified, its benefits magnified... The role of government then must be that of leader—of cata- lyst and partner—in the forma- tion of a coalition for the com- mon welfare.” Who Needs People? raises the problem, but only supplies a general answer. How the “coali- tion” of government, industry and management is to be achiev- ed, Cubbedge doesn’t say. a ve w Let us turn now to a Soviet book, Automation Serves Man (by A. Merkulov, 159 pp., 60 cents; distributed by Progress Books) and take a look at how automation is changing the lives of more than 200 million people in the USSR. Different picture “To complete all-round mech- anization within the next few years and pass from the auto- mation of separate units and in- stallations to comprehensive au- tomation, with fully automated shops, technological processes and enterprises—such is the path of re-equipping Soviet economy on a new technical basis out- lined by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at its 22nd Congress,” says the author in his introduction. “Machines serve man” is the fundamental principle of auto- mation in the Soviet Union. The book devotes special chap- ters to automation developments in major industries — machine tools plants, steel mills, coal pits, electronics, and farming. The capitalist world is at log- gerheads with technology. So- cialism presents an entirely dif- ferent picture. Machines are not a threat to the Soviet worker; he has no fear that he will lose his job. “There is still a considerable shortage of manpower in many Conflicting views on automation branches of our industry and agriculture,” - writes Merkulov. “Therefore, for example, when it is said that the automatic oil- field contro] system can do the work of 30,000 well-walkers, it does not mean that 30,000 work- ers will be sacked. It means, rather, that more oil fields will be operated and more oil will be produced. The workers that are made redundant by the automa- tic system will be transferred to other jobs — better and higher paid, too... For man’s sake “But suppose the time comes when the rate of releasing man- power due to automation ex- ceeds the demand for labor in the Soviet Union. In socialist conditions this will serve as a material prerequisite for the re- duction of the working day, not for the development of a reserve army of unemployed. In fact, automation is already playing an important part in reducing the working day.” The distinction between men- tal and manual labor is bein; reduced; workers are becomin; intellectuals and intellectuals art becoming workers. This transi tion of labor to a qualitatively new state is proceeding apace as the people march forward to: ward a.communist society. Automation helps speed thi: great social transformation Hence it is welcomed by every citizen. “Everything for the sake of man, for the benefit of man’ —such is the motto of commun: ism. One can only conclude thai when automation raises living standards in the Soviet Union to a higher level than American living standards, the great com- petition between capitalism will finally be decided in favor of so- cialism, for nothing on earth can then prevent the workers in the U.S. and Canada, and in all re- maining capitalist countries, from taking their destiny in their hands and ushering in socialism in their respective countries—a system where man finally be- comes master of his fate and captain of his soul. t i ee f . . . and automation sorts freight cars and sends them on their way. July 10, 1964—PACIFIC TRIBUNE —Page 7 cha hls et eeepc iintiee