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INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY
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mising hostility. In fact, it is at bay—its back is against the wall—it has turned upon its tormentors. The "social revolution" is on.

POLITICAL MEDDLERS

The modern socialist parties, which pretend to represent the workers upon the political field, but which are almost wholly "middle class" in their aspirations and tactics, and are obsessed with a reverence for statute laws, propose that the direction of industry shall be placed in the hands of the "government," thereby illustrating their own fatuity, for government can only operate industries through the agencies of bureaus—and bureaucrats are primarily despots. In their keenness to be social saviors the politicians, who usually know very little about industry, fail to realize that the workers must control the industries through their own associations, if the spirit of democracy is to be preserved and promoted. Working class control of the industries means democratic participation and control in all production and in the social life flowing from it; therefore, the workers are not to be hampered by administrators appointed by some delegated authority, as would surely happen under a territorial political system. To adopt such a policy, would defeat the ends of the social revolution and set up a new form of servitude, since the bureaucrat could only secure efficiency by adopting coercive measures.

If, by some chance, a purely political Socialist party should accomplish the overthrow of the present master class government and divert the control of industry—the administration of production—into the hands of the working class as at present developed and organized, nothing short of chaos could result. A recession in civilization is all that could be expected, since the Industrial Democracy is not to be had as a gift from above, but is a growth—a development—a thing to be achieved through the economic training and disciplining of the working