Читать книгу The Complete Works of Malatesta Vol. III - Errico Malatesta - Страница 36

Translated from “Lotte commerciali. Crisi agrumaria in Sicilia,”

L’Agitazione (Ancona) 1, no. 6 (April 18, 1897).

Poor Sicily! After her sulphur, her wines, and after her wines, her citrus fruit.

The United States, which before this consumed over half of the citrus fruit produce of Sicily and Calabria (to the tune of 50 million lire) has now, with the new customs tariffs about to be approved, shut the door to foreign citrus—and Sicily is not going to know what to do with one of her main and most profitable products.

The already harrowing poverty is on the rise, ever on the rise—and it is growing because there is an abundance of good items, items of use to everybody, that are not selling.

As they have previously, Sicilians call for government action. And the government could do something, such as, say, ease the tax burden and force the railways to lower transport costs; but it will do nothing unless Sicilians are able to agitate in such a way as to become a threat to “order.”

And even then, the provisions will be such as to help out the property owners, letting the full burden of the crisis fall on to the backs of the workers.

In any event, the best the government could do is come up with some palliative. The root of the affliction lies outside the government’s remit and influence.

The United States’ customs tariff can be raised or lowered for this item or that, depending on whether the men in power are out to favor one class or another of property owners and capitalists, but the overriding and inescapable fact is that the United States is now producing its citrus fruit at home. Would you have them destroy the rich citrus orchards of Florida and California just to please the Sicilians?

Some have demanded that the government insist that the United States should cut its tariffs on citrus, or that it take retaliatory measures, stepping up the levy on imports of American grains. But who would that help? The United States, since it can now produce citrus at home, will still end up not needing to buy Italian produce; and Italy, since she does not produce enough grains to feed herself, is always going to have to buy the difference from abroad. The only upshot would be a hike in bread price and thus payment of a premium to Italian grain producers (which is to say, the masters) at the expense of the public. And as for boosting domestic grain production, don’t even think about it—not so much because there is a shortage of suitable land and ways of improving yields, but because it does not suit the landowners.

The question of Sicilian citrus, like the questions about sulphur and wines, is merely an episode in a broader phenomenon that embraces every country. Crisis follows crisis, and they are proliferating everywhere, in every branch of production. It is the trade system, the capitalist system that is nearing the collapse, killing itself by the very nature of things.

These days production is not for the purpose of meeting the needs of those who make a contribution to production, but for the purpose of selling, for the sake of the profits of landowner, capitalist, and trader. Now, profit can only come from that portion of the produce that the producer does not consume, and to make profit, outside customers have to be found. Hence the tendency of capitalist production to widen the market continually.

But every country is doing the same: each of them is out to sell much and buy little, to reduce imports and boost exports; each is out to produce things at home that can be sold at home and to produce as much as it can of items it hopes to market abroad. Hence the tendency of international trade to dwindle to a minimum and ultimately the need to change the mode of production.

Meanwhile the crises linger on, production grinds to a halt, poverty grows ever more widespread and deep-seated, and the quality of workers’ lives is lowered.

The only radical cure is production, not for sale and for the market, but for the purpose of meeting the producers’ needs: production for consumption. But that means changing the entire system. It means getting rid of private property, and the property owners will never stand for that. It would suffice for workers to stand for that, though!

Sicilians may well endure their misery as they wait remedial action from some ministry or another, some legislature or another, but no remedies will ever come, or, if they do, they will end in sour derision.

Do they really want to better their conditions? Let them form many strong farm production cooperatives; let them insist that communal lands and the lands of the latifundists are placed at their disposal; and let them work these lands for themselves, not with an eye to trade, but so that they themselves can consume these products and swap the surplus with workers’ cooperatives that will supply them with whatever industrial products they need.

The system is opposed to this and it is right to oppose it because this would signal the onset of its destruction. But the system, in the hope of extending its lifespan a little longer, would give way… if the demand were sufficiently forceful.

Sicilians, band together and dare to demand: you will get what you want. Otherwise, you won’t.