Workers' state

“ To construct and develop an instrumentality by which the workers in the industries can assert and advance their interest as social factors against their employer is to have generated a power that will compel the state to modify its programs and conduct so as to accord with the changes which the workers will force in this relationship to the employers. As the organized proletariat advances in the control of labor power, the prestige of the capitalist class declines and the state as a repressive power is weakened correspondingly. ”

“ With the growth of such a movement—labor will progress to a better state of society, where new problems will be met squarely with social understanding undimmed by class antagonism; and will be solved upon the basis of common benefit. Let us prepare for the next step—build up the Industrial Workers of the World. *⁠*⁠* You have read the pages of this catechism. You have learned how the craft union system grew on the ruins of the Knights of Labor, how it provided good livings for the officials of the craft unions, not to mention banks and mines and farms and office buildings. ”

“ Two other functions of the economic organization of society remain to be considered, the distribution of labor and its remuneration. In the organization of industry society will have to achieve a twofold result, a maximum of general, social efficiency, on the one hand, and of personal liberty and comfort to the workers on the other. The state would not only guarantee the right to labor, but, as a corollary, it would impose the duty of labor upon every competent person. ”

“ In some of these State establishments for the unemployed the circle of industries was remarkably complete, and the whole product of their labor above expenses being shared among the workers, they enjoyed far better fare than when in private employment, together with a sense of security then impossible. The employer's power to control his workmen by the threat of discharge was broken from the time these co-operative systems began to be established, and when, later, the national industrial organization was ready to absorb them, they merely melted into it. ”

“ I have spoken of labor as another essential in the three great groups of the population in raising the Nation's income. Definite strides in collective bargaining have been made and the right of labor to organize has been nationally accepted. Nevertheless in the evolution of the process difficult situations have arisen in localities and among groups. Unfortunate divisions relating to jurisdiction among the workers themselves have retarded production within given industries and have, therefore, affected related industries. ”

“ It central idea was that workers should organise on the economic field with the view of grabbing the means of production from the Boss. Workers had not, so far, accepted this theory which would bring them up against the murderous forces of the State. Perhaps this was the reason so many workers were alive today. ”

“ Inspection of workshops, mills, factories, mines, yards, public services, shops, etc., shall be carried out with reference to the conditions of work, hygiene, and safety, by inspectors elected by the workmen's unions, in concurrence with the State inspectors.
10. Extension of the industrial arbitration courts to all wage-workers of industry, commerce, and agriculture.
11. Convict labor to be treated as a State monopoly; the charge for all work done shall be the wage normally paid to trade-unionist workers. ”

“ But, as we have heretofore decided, a state cannot exclude working men in a particular industry from putting their case to the public in a peaceful way 'by drawing the circle of economic competition between employers and workers so small as to contain only an employer and those directly employed by him'. ”

“ Can all of those categories of industrial employees constitutionally be insulated from American political life? If at some future time it should come to pass in this country, as it has in England, that a broad policy of state ownership of basic industries is inaugurated, d es this decision mean that all of the hundreds of thousands of industrial workers affected could be debarred from the normal political activity which is one of our valued traditions? ”

“ The Government can, however, help to develop machinery which, with the backing of public opinion, will assist labor and management to resolve their disagreements in a peaceful manner and reduce the number and duration of strikes.
All of us realize that productivity--increased output per man--is in the long run the basis of our standard of living. Management especially must realize that if labor is to work wholeheartedly for an increase in production, workers must be given a just share of increased output in higher wages. ”

“ But the wage-workers in our cities, like the capitalists in our cities, face totally changed conditions. The development of machinery and the extraordinary change in business conditions have rendered the employment of capital and of persons in large aggregations not merely profitable but often necessary for success, and have specialized the labor of the wage-worker at the same time that they have brought great aggregations of wage-workers together. ”

“ The most dangerous occupations are often the poorest paid and those where the hours of work are longest; and in many cases those who go into them are driven by necessity so great that they have practically no alternative. Decisions such as those alluded to above nullify the legislative effort to protect the wage-workers who most need protection from those employers who take advantage of their grinding need. They halt or hamper the movement for securing better and more equitable conditions of labor. ”

“ There should no longer be any paltering with the question of taking care of the wage-workers who, under our present industrial system, become killed, crippled, or worn out as part of the regular incidents of a given business. ”

“ When all, or be it even the greater part of society, have learned how to govern the State, have taken this business into their own hands, have established a control over the insignificant minority of the capitalists, over the gentry with capitalist leanings, and over the workers thoroughly demoralized by capitalism—from this moment the need for any government begins to vanish. The more complete the democracy, the nearer the moment that it ceases to be necessary. ”

“ There are some who never labor, yet labor's product get;
They never starve or freeze, nor face the wintry breeze;
They are well fed, clothed and sheltered,
And they do whate'er they please.
These parasites are living, in luxury and state;
While millions starve and shiver, and moan their wretched fate;
They know not why they die, nor do they ever try
Their lot in life to better;
They only mourn and sigh.
These parasites would vanish and leave this grand old world,
If the workers fought together, and the scarlet flag unfurled ”

“ During the very first storms of the revolution, the French bourgeoisie dared to take away from the workers the right of association but just acquired. By a decree of June 14, 1791, they declared all coalition of the workers as "an attempt against liberty and the declaration of the rights of man," punishable by a fine of 500 livres, together with deprivation of the rights of an active citizen for one year. [6] This law which, by means of State compulsion, confined the struggle between capital and labour within limits comfortable for capital, has outlived revolutions and changes of dynasties. ”

“ The workers, conscious of their mission, must recognize the fact that the industries are developing to the highest state of perfection, and will be ready for operation under a new arrangement of things, namely after the class now in possession and control of them have gone the way of decay under the pressure of the advancing force of a new civilization. But it is imperative to arrange the human forces of production for the operation of the vast resources and implements of production under a system wherein commodities will be made for use alone. ”

“ We have but to overthrow the capitalists, to crush with the iron hand of the armed workers the resistance of these exploiters, to break the bureaucratic machine of the modern State—and we have before us a highly technically-fashioned machine freed of its parasites, which can quite well be set going by the united workers themselves, hiring their own technical advisers, their own inspectors, their own clerks, and paying them all, as, indeed every "State" official, with the usual worker's wage. ”

“ We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever-growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping to defeat one another in wage wars. ”

“ The Industrial Union
Shall be the human race.
We want no condescending saviors,
To rule us from a judgment hall;
We workers ask not for their favors;
Let us consult for all.
To make the thief disgorge his booty
To free the spirit from its cell,
We must ourselves decide our duty,
We must decide and do it well.
The law oppresses us and tricks us,
Wage systems drain our blood;
The rich are free from obligations,
The laws the poor delude. ”

“ Finally, that all so-called "immediate demands" of the workers, such as the eight hour work day, employers' liability, limitation of child labor, protection of machinery, etc., can be obtained and made effective only through the action of a united and powerful movement of the working class on the industrial field. ”

“ The drastic amendment of the Factory Acts, to secure (a) a safe and healthy work-place for every worker, (b) the prevention of overwork for all women and young persons, (c) the abolition of all wage-labor by children under 14, (d) compulsory technical instruction by extension of the half-time arrangements to all workers under 18?
7. The direct employment of labor by all public authorities whenever possible; and, whenever it is not possible, employment only of fair houses, prohibition of sub-contracting, and payment of trade-union rates of wages? ”

“ They cover almost every risk to life, limb, health, and interest of the industrial classes. They send the law, as it were, everywhere a worker is employed for daily wages to fling the shield of the state over him or her in the labour of livelihood. ”

“ That is a Utopia. But to break up at once the old bureaucratic machine and to start immediately the construction of a new one, enabling us gradually to abolish bureaucracy—this is not a Utopia, it is the experience of the Commune, it is the direct and necessary task of the revolutionary proletariat. Capitalism simplifies the functions of "the Government." It makes it possible to throw off autocratic methods and to bring it all down to a matter of the organization of the proletariat (as the ruling class) hiring "workers and clerks" in the name of the whole Society. ”

“ In order to win a real equality and a real democracy for the working masses, for the workers and peasants, it will be necessary first to deprive the capitalists of the possibility of hiring writers, of buying publishing plants, of bribing newspapers. And to accomplish this it will be necessary to shake off the yoke of capitalism, to dethrone the exploiters, and to break their resistance. Capitalists have always meant by "freedom" the freedom of profits for the rich and the freedom of the poor to perish of starvation. ”

“ The immediate commercial interests of the buyers of labor, the employers, are opposed to those of the sellers of labor, the employed. To control the price of labor, each of these parties in the labor market resorts to whatever measures it finds within command. The employers in many branches of industry actually, and employers in general tacitly, combine against the labor organizations. On the wage-workers' side, these organizations are the sole means, except a few well-nigh futile laws, yet developed to raise wages and shorten the work day. ”

“ IT says, "Labor is entitled to all it produces," and to get it or any partial increase, Industrial Unionism is needed. "All workers in an industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof; thus making an injury to one an injury to all." Every worker in any section of an industry is organized in a Branch of an Industrial Union of all the workers in that industry. ”

“ It is a national responsibility shared by every citizen to see that such cruelty and such injustice shall cease. No system of commercial production can be permanently maintained which ignores the primitive rights of the human workers to such returns for labor as shall provide decent food, clothing, shelter, education and recreation for the worker and for those dependent upon him or her, as well as steadiness of employment, and the guarantee of such working conditions as shall not be prejudicial to health. ”

“ What has the State done to bring about a more just distribution of the product of labor? Has it made any attempt by legislation or otherwise to protect the workingman against the superior power of capital or to set a limit to the social inequality that is growing from day to day? ”

“ The war, more than anything else, has served to open the eyes of the workers, to tear the false veil from bourgeois democracy, and to reveal to the people the whole abyss of war-time speculation and profiteering. In the name of freedom and equality the bourgeoisie has conducted this war; in the name of freedom and equality the purveyors of war-munitions have become incredibly rich. ”