I wish to discuss some of the points brought up in Comrade Winn’s reflections on the general strike.[1] In the first place, I do not think the ‘workers themselves understand that they are the victims of an unjust and undesirable social order,’ as Comrade Winn declares. The workingmen who do understand that slavery exists are the exceptions – it is not true of the mass. But even if it were the case, there would be no occasion to blame them for inactivity, for then they would not be inactive.
As soon as a goodly number of workingmen realize that the wage system is slavery, and that property in land is the basis of slavery, something will break loose. It will not be necessary to awaken all the workers to such a realization, nor even a majority of them. The next change in our economic system will come as all other changes have come, that is thru the action of an intelligent minority. It seems to me that all that can be done is to teach the masses of the people that they are slaves. When a sufficient number get that in their heads, they will throw off the yoke without asking advice or direction.
The ideal of the average workingman at present is living wages and a good boss. He has so much respect for property rights, that he will see his family famine-stricken and not repudiate that respect. What is more, in a strike they will let starvation walk in and break the strike and destroy the solidarity of their union, send them back like whipped dogs to their masters, and a lower scale of wages. They will allow all this rather than take bread. In short, a workingman will sacrifice his liberty before he will do that awful thing which will label him a thief. And until he does take bread, the general strike will be impossible. Labor has ever paid the expenses of strikes. When one section of workers win an advance in wages, it means their employers have robbed Peter to pay Paul. Even the reduction of the hours of labor have been brought about more thru improved methods of production owing to mechanical inventions, than thru the demands of labor unions.
The one grand thing about labor unions and strikes is that by these methods the infant Labor is learning to walk, to feel his power.
The main question is not ‘how to lead men to emancipation,’ but to teach them to desire emancipation; and when they learn that the cause of their sufferings is slavery, they will take liberty. Before the general strike can come the workers who participate must possess the qualities outlined by Comrade Winn, namely, ‘determination, a total disregard of the laws of the State, the lies of the Church,’ and not hesitate at destruction if they cannot hold possession. When we consider the above necessary qualifications for the general strike, it is easy to see we are a long way off from that most desirable object.
If the cause of human misery and inequality is slavery, and if the cause of slavery is government, as Tolstoy has set forth so vividly in his writings, the only remedy is to abolish government. There exists a well defined movement against all government, world-wide in its scope. Every land furnishes tributaries that are slowly forming into a strong human current that will in time sweep away the props of the State. While it is possible that those reformers who wish only to reform the State, not abolish it, might unite on some plan of action, which if carried would amount to nothing, for the State reproduces every evil that is scotched, if not in the same form, then in another. The movement against all government cannot possibly unite with the reformers of government.
No one need be discouraged over the war of contrary ideas, Agitation forces men to think; and human thought will in time kill government. But it is well to recognize all that the people must unlearn before they can question the all-powerful State. They, in common with their masters, consider property rights more sacred than life. As long as they do, they disarm themselves and arm their foes.
Kate Austin
Free Society March 16 1902 (vol. 9, no.11)
1, Ross Winn’s ‘Radical Reflections : The General Strike’ appeared in Free Society 23 February 1902.