"
This thesis is a declaration of war as well as a declaration of
principles. The I.W.W. aims at nothing less than the complete
overthrow of modern capitalism and the political structure which
accompanies it. Emma Goldman, who prides herself on having
received her knowledge of syndicalism "from actual contact" and
not from books, says that "syndicalism repudiates and condemns
the present industrial arrangement as unjust and criminal."
Edward Hamond calls the labor contract "the sacred cow" of
industrial idolatry and says that the aim of the I.W.W. is "the
abolition of the wage system." And W. E. Trautmann affirms that
"the industrial unionist holds that there can be no agreement
with the employers of labor which the workers have to consider
sacred and inviolable." In place of what they consider an unjust
and universal capitalistic order they would establish a new
society in which "the unions of the workers will own and manage
all industries, regulate consumption, and administer the general
social interests."
How is this contemplated revolution to be achieved? By the
working classes themselves and not through political activity,
for "one of the first principles of the I.W.W. is that political
power rests on economic power . . . . It must gain control of the
shops, ships, railways, mines, mills." And how is it to gain this
all-embracing control? By persuading every worker to join the
union, the "one great organization" which, according to Haywood,
is to be "big enough to take in the black man, the white man; big
enough to take in all nationalities-an organization that will be
strong enough to obliterate state boundaries; to obliterate
national boundaries .
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