i8 SYNDICALISM 



The connection between Syndicalism and both Socialism and Trade-unionism may 

 be seen at once from a summary of its three leading ideas: (i) Labour is the source of 

 all wealth and therefore the only proper title to its enjoyment; (2) the workers in any 

 great branch of industry ought to own the materials and machinery with which they 

 work, and to control the administration; (3) the method of achieving this result is for 

 trade-unions to take " direct action " by strikes, and particularly by " general " strikes. 



But the distinguishing feature of Syndicalism, as a form of socialistic trade-unionism, 

 is really in its interpretation and application of these three principles, each of which, no 

 doubt, is part of the general theory either of orthodox Socialism or of ordinary trade- 

 unionism; for the rise of Syndicalism is directly due to disappointment among the con- 

 vinced Socialists of the operative class at the economic results hitherto attained either 

 by trade-unionism, by the Co-operative movement, or by parliamentary action on the 

 lines of state-socialism. 



Starting with the proposition that labour is the only source of wealth, the syndicalist 

 is in passionate revolt against society as organised. He regards it as essentially unjust 

 that those who do what (in his view) is the hardest, most disagreeable, and most neces- 

 sary work should receive individually a comparatively small proportion of the value of 

 the product, while others, contributing either nothing in work, or doing what is com- 

 paratively pleasant and (as he thinks) easy, receive large salaries or amass enormous 

 fortunes. And, in his view, the only remedy for this is for the operative class to insist 

 on owning and controlling the materials and machinery of industry, and distributing the 

 profits according to their own more enlightened estimate of the relative values of the 

 various sorts of labour which have made the industry a remunerative one. He is think- 

 ing of his own particular sort of Labour, and not of the community as a whole, and this 

 is the point at which he parts company with the ordinary Collectivist who advocates 

 state or municipal ownership. The usual idea of modern democracy is not at all satis- 

 factory from the syndicalist point of view, because the public as a whole includes not 

 only " Labour " (i.e. manual labour) but the upper and middle classes as well, a host 

 of people, in fact, who are regarded by him as only unproductive consumers, fattening 

 on the real workers. The State, as such, he sees organising itself, even on democratic 

 lines, in such a way as to keep Labour still in subjection to the propertied classes; and 

 parliamentary action in consequence proceeds in a manner which makes things sub- 

 stantially no better for Labour than before. Having come to the conclusion that, on 

 existing lines, the increased political representation of Labour in Parliament is to a large 

 extent a sham and a humbug, the syndicalist falls back on the necessity of working di- 

 rectly for the rights of the operative class by means of the weapon to their hand in the 

 trade-union organisation. This is the meaning of " direct action." It includes any- 

 thing that will drive Capitalism out of the industrial organisation, and compel it to hand 

 over the control to the workmen themselves. For this purpose anything is legitimate, 

 from malingering and shirking to destruction of machinery and wrecking of trains; but 

 the strike is the effective weapon, and particularly the " general strike," a simultaneous 

 strike of all workers either in one industry, allied industries, or all industries which 

 will put Property at Labour's mercy and consummate the social revolution. 



In the case of an inchoate movement of class-opinion like this, what is of most im- 

 mediate importance to society at large is to realise its existence, and to know what are 

 the ideas behind so many of the contemporary manifestations of " Labour unrest." 

 They have been admirably analysed, and no less admirably criticised, by Mr. and Mrs. 

 Sidney Webb, who are not likely to be accused of want of sympathy with either the 

 socialist or the trade-unionist movements, in a special supplement of The Crusade for 

 August 1912 (the organ of the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, 



and other articles indicated under "Economics and Social Science" in Index Volume, p. 893. 

 On the whole question, historically, no single lx>oks are so informing as Mr. and Mrs. Sidney 

 Webb's Industrial Democracy and History of Trade Unionism. 



