Behind all this is the assumption that the business man representing capitalism, can be worried into submission by losses in the shop and mill. This again takes for granted two things: first, the decrepitude of our business system and, secondly, the ability and preparedness of labor (as defined by Syndicalists) to take over and administer capitalist production. The saner among them do not claim that this can be done "at once," but only as capitalist management is worn out by the unremitting plague which labor can inflict on capital by refusing any longer to play the capitalist game. "From now on," says Tom Mann, "we know the enemy and how to deal with him."
It is flatly impossible to take with much seriousness either of these claims. With whatever brutalities and vices the present business system is infected; whatever the measure of its wrongs to labor, it is not yet in a state of decrepitude, neither are wage earners, without many decades of training, within sight of power or fitness to manage the main enginery of capitalism, finance, transportation, and the great industries.
It is among things conceivable that two or three generations of discipline, especially in productive coöperation, may give labor essential mastery over this enginery. But it must be said with a certainty that needs no revision, that this discipline and capacity will not be acquired through habits and modes of thought made by the practiced negations of strikes, boycotts, and sabotage.
As this volume goes to press, an Article on Direct Action appears in The Independent, Jan. 9th, by
