Title | The road to power, or, the constructive elements of socialism |
Creator (LCNAF) |
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Publisher | Literature Bureau of the Workers' International Industrial Union |
Place of Creation (TGN) |
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Date | 1919 |
Subject.Topical (LCSH) |
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Genre (AAT) |
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Language | English |
Type (DCMI) |
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Original Item Extent | 33 pages: chart; 17 cm. |
Original Item Location | HX86.D25 1919 |
Original Item URL | http://library.uh.edu/record=b8304529~S11 |
Original Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection | Socialist and Communist Pamphlets |
Digital Collection URL | http://digital.lib.uh.edu/collection/scpamp |
Repository | Special Collections, University of Houston Libraries |
Repository URL | http://libraries.uh.edu/branches/special-collections |
Use and Reproduction | This item is in the public domain and may be used freely. |
File Name | index.cpd |
Title | Image 24 |
Format (IMT) |
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File Name | uhlib_12374394_023.jpg |
Transcript | i 22 THE ROAD TO POWER social conditions with a view of employing the knowledge gained therefrom to improve the position of the working-class in its fight for emancipation. Therefore, when the Historical Materialist emphasizes the necessity of organizing the workers along the lines of Socialist Industrial Unionism, his plea is pivoted upon certain sound perceptions. The reason for the distinct class character underlying and sharply distinguishing every truly revolutionary type of proletarian organization from all other types has been sufficiently underscored, and, therefore, need not be dwelled upon any more. What must now be shown is the necessity for this particular form of unionism: the necessity for Industrial Unionism. Industrial Unionism, like all previous forms of economic organization which preceded it, is but a product of the particular stage in the development of the economic conditions or industries from which it emanated. The complex and centralized form of production, which gave birth to Industrial Unionism, can again, on the one hand, be attributed to the concentration of wealth into ever fewer hands, and, on the other, to an ever increasing social character inherent in the machines or instruments of production. The competitive struggle with its process of elimination, and the discoveries and inventions on the field of mechanical and economic endeavor are responsible for the highly corporate and at times monopolistic character of industries, and have given the death blow to small production and also every form of craft organization bound up therewith. Industrial Unionism is, therefore, but a reflex of industrialized (understand highly centralized) capitalist production, and as such only an obedient servant of economic evolution. Therefore, to expect proletarian class-consciousness to assume any other form of organic expression on the industrial field than that of Industrial Unionism |