Moreover, as the class organization grows, in corresponding measure does class consciousness develop. And, as this class conscious feeling spreads, the source upon which the state depends for its repressive forces dries up. The bayonets of its soldiers and the clubs of its policemen are wielded by those who were lately of the working class, and who upon dismissal or resignation will return to that class and face its problems with the rest of us.
It must be the effort of the workers to remove every obstacle to solidarity. The rivalry of antagonistic groups must give way to co-operation. Division in the ranks of labor is the objective desired by the capitalist class. Labor when divided is weak and powerless. The one reliable source of labor's power lies in its control over the means of production—the vitals of society. This power inheres in the worker as producer. It can be organized effectively in no other capacity. It cannot be organized politically. Economic organization by the workers will produce economic changes, and, in the very nature of things, the state will accommodate itself to the modified arrangement. Actual changes in the wage relationship will compel political changes while rule by the capitalist class obtains. The political records of these changes will mark the transition from political government, by and in the interest of a class, to an economic administration, by and in the interest of a workers' society.
By organizing industrially the workers will form the structure of a new society within the shell of the old, and prepare for the change which will revolutionize social conceptions, forms and methods. The worker as worker—producer—alone can carry out the historical social process.
Politics is the temptation of careerists. It may offer a future to some of them, but only at the expense of that understanding at which labor must arrive. The great duty of the present is economic organization along class lines, guided by the conception that labor is the important social factor. With the growth of such a movement—labor will progress to a better state of society, where new problems will be met squarely with social understanding undimmed by class antagonism; and will be solved upon the basis of common benefit. Let us prepare for the next step—build up the Industrial Workers of the World.
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