socialist program. What is sometimes called a constructive program is generally nothing more than a socialist expression of desires, without any adequate proof of how these are to be attained. A fair sample of the ultimate aims of the socialists is the following statement by an American socialist group calling itself the United Communist Party: with re Under capitalism the very development of higher productivity Socialist is inevitably accompanied by an intensification of the bondage and desires oppression of the workers. The machines invented to serve humanity gard have become the instruments for enslavement of the producing masses. [Socialism] will release all the productive energies for the common to producwelfare of all the people. In place of profit as the animating im- tion, pulse to production must stand the needs and enjoyments of the producing masses. The right and the obligation to labor service toward the common enjoyment of all this shall be the basis of citizenship under the [socialist] régime. Education of the masses toward better social service and toward and educahigher appreciation of the enjoyments of life is the foremost item in tion. the [socialist] transformation. This education must go to the adult workers, who have so long toiled in darkness, as well as to all the children of the nation. Under the blockade conditions ample of bolshevism in Russia. Education under [socialism], as already in process of development The exin Russia, takes account of the physical welfare of the children along with their mental training. compelling the rationing of food, it always been given the preference. of the poor in the big cities have been fed on a communal basis. . . The general educational system includes periods for all city children in the country, on the socialized agricultural estates, while the village children, in turn, will be brought periodically into the cities, and in this way education is made to include contact with every phase of the industrial, institutional and cultural life of the nation. Art, music, the stage- all the cultural advantages which have been held aloof for the enjoyment of the privileged few, and in their more vulgar forms have been used to deceive and cajole the masses become [under socialism] the institutions of the working masses. Nature of or labor theory of value. CHAPTER XIII THE GENERAL NATURE OF SOCIALISM 73. Socialist theory of value 1 In spite of the enormous amount of time and energy spent in disthe socialist cussing socialism, astonishingly little attention has been paid to the socialist theory of value. And yet this theory of value is the basis and foundation of all socialist doctrine. This was recognized by Karl Marx, the "father" of modern socialism, and he accordingly began his great work Capital with a development of what has become generally known as the socialist or labor theory of value. Marx points out that all commodities have size, weight, color and other physical properties, but that these properties have no direct relation to the exchange value of commodities. He then declares that one property is characteristic of all commodities, i.e. they are produced by human labor. His reasoning soon becomes both complex and contradictory, but in essence it amounts to this: commodities tend to have exchange value in proportion as socially necessary labor has been expended upon them. In the following extract from his celebrated book Capital, Marx explains what he means by this statement: Labor a measure of value, A. . . useful article, therefore, has value only because human labor in the abstract has been embodied or materialized in it. How, then, is the magnitude of this value to be measured? Plainly, by the quantity of the value-creating substance, the labor, contained in the article. The quantity of labor, however, is measured by its duration, and labor-time in its turn finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours. Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labor spent on it, the more idle and un 1 From Karl Marx, Capital. Swan, Sonnenschein, Lowrey and Co., London, 1887. Vol. 1, Part 1, Chapter 1, Section 1. CHAPTER XIV MILITANT SOCIALISM: THE I.W.W. 79. Why the I.W.W. organization was formed 1 The letters I. W. W. are a convenient abbreviation which is used Origin of to designate a group of militant socialists calling themselves the the I.W.W. Industrial Workers of the World. This socialist group was organized in Chicago in 1905, by a number of radicals who felt that the workers had little or nothing to gain from either trade unionism or political socialism. This point of view is illustrated in the following extracts from the manifesto which in 1905 called a convention to organize the Industrial Workers of the World: reduced to wage slav ery. The worker, wholly separated from the land and the tools, with The worker his skill in craftsmanship rendered useless, is sunk in the uniform mass of wage slaves. . . . Shifted hither and thither by the demands of profit-takers, the laborer's home no longer exists. In this hopeless condition he is forced to accept whatever humiliating conditions his master may impose. . . . Laborers are no longer classified by differences in trade skill, but the employer assigns them according to the machines to which they are attached. These divisions, far from representing differences in skill or interests among the laborers, are imposed by the employers that workers may be pitted against one another and spurred to greater exertion in the shop, and that all resistance to capitalist tyranny may be weakened by artificial distinctions. While encouraging these outgrown divisions among the workers the capitalists carefully adjust themselves to the new condition They wipe out all differences among themselves and pusent a unite front in their war upon labor. Through employersociation they seek to crush, with brutal force, by the injunction of the jud 1 From the Manifesto Calling a Convention to Organize the of the World. Chicago, January, 1905. An illustration of this lack of unity. The division of workers into a large number of trade unions has injurious results. The true solution of the workers' difficulties is one great industrial union, ciary, and the use of military power, all efforts at resistance. The battles of the past emphasize this lesson. The textile workers of Lowell, Philadelphia, and Fall River; the butchers of Chicago, weakened by the disintegrating effects of trade divisions; the machinists on the Santa Fe, unsupported by their fellow workers subject to the same masters; the long-struggling miners of Colorado, hampered by a lack of unity and solidarity upon the industrial battlefield, all bear witness to the helplessness and impotency of labor as at present organized. This worn-out and corrupt system offers no promise of improvement and adaptation. . . . This system offers only a perpetual struggle for slight relief within wage slavery. . . It shatters the ranks of the workers into fragments, rendering them helpless and impotent on the industrial battlefield. Separation of craft from craft renders industrial and financial solidarity impossible. Union men scab upon union men; hatred of workers for workers is engendered, and the workers are delivered helpless and disintegrated into the hands of the capitalists. . . . Craft divisions foster political ignorance among the workers, thus dividing their class at the ballot box, as well as in the shop, mine and factory. Craft unions may be and have been used to assist employers in the establishment of monopolies and the raising of prices. . . Previous efforts for the betterment of the working class have proven abortive because limited in scope and disconnected in action. Universal economic evils afflicting the working class can be eradicated only by a universal working class movement. . . . ... A movement to fulfill these conditions must consist of one great industrial union embracing all industries — providing for craft autonomy locally, industrial autonomy internationally, and working class unity generally. It must be founded on the class struggle, and its general adminis tration must be conducted in harmony with the recognition of the founded on irrepressible conflict between the capitalist class and the working the class class. struggle, and non character. It should be established as the economic organization of the work- political in ing class, without affiliation with any political party. . ... 80. The I.W.W. declare war upon capitalism 1 constitution. In answer to the call for a convention to organize the Industrial The I.W.W. Workers of the World, a number of anarchists, socialists, and radical adopt a trade unionists assembled in Chicago in the summer of 1905. This convention adopted a constitution and formally announced its intentions toward capitalism. These principles are stated in the preamble to the constitution of the I. W. W. in the following language: The working class and the employing class have nothing in com- The preammon. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the war. employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system. ble declares for class union an enemy of man. We find that the centering of the management of industries into The trade fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions the workingfoster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers. These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working The general class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one 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. Instead of the conservative motto, “A fair day's wages for a fair 1 From the Industrial Workers of the World, "Preamble to the Constitution. Chicago, 1905. strike favored. |