Sam Dolgoff Quotes
A capitalist democracy is a competitive society where predatory pressure groups struggle for wealth and prestige and jockey for power.
Sam Dolgoff, 1902-1990, [Sholem Dolgopolsky] Political Theorist, Author and Editor, The Labor Party Illusion, c. 1971
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
The National City Company was formed expressly as an attempt to dominate and monopolize the United States economy. It was a holding company that included Standard Oil, National City Bank, 16 other banks, and the Union Pacific and Southern Pacific railroads among others, all controlled by the same 3 men--William Rockefeller, .James Stillman, and Frank Vanderlip.
Many of the far left grew disillusioned with the British Labor Movement and how it was relating to the capitalist companies, the government, and the workers. The Unions had become very undemocratic and controlling with the government pressuring both labor and companies to the degree that many felt that the institutions themselves were no longer free institutions. Ironically, they preferred the open competition of the American system at the time where unions and companies were free to fight out their differences.
The “rebate agony” referred to a corrupt practice of the Railroads and the Large Monopolies. The railroads charged a very high rate for the transportation of important products like beef and oil. However, secretly they gave back a large percentage of the transportation rate charged to the trusts. They in turn could cut their prices and undersell all the smaller competitors who were paying “full freight” and could not afford to match the lower price. As soon as the smaller competitors were driven out of business in an area, the trust raised its rates even higher than they charged originally. The Railroad had made a small but reasonable profit on the freight of the trusts but they were guaranteed all their business. They also made huge profits on the higher rates that the small companies paid until those companies were driven out of business. Journalists like Ray Baker and Ida Tarbell had uncovered the rebate scheme which enabled the trusts to steal high amounts from the general public through unreasonably high prices. President Theodore Roosevelt was committed to try and regulate the railroads and not allow rebates but charge the same public rate to all with no rebates. Socialists like Sinclair, thought that this attempt would be hopeless—that the damage had already been done, and the trusts now had so much money that they could buy state legislatures and many in Congress to preserve their dominance.
At the time English democracy was still suspect especially among the aristocracy.
Sam Dolgoff (1902–1990) was an anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist from Russia who grew up and lived and was active in the United States.
