Labor page

Anarcho-Syndicalism

IWW (Industrial Workers of the World)

    The IWW has room for many opinions and courses of action. Here I'd 
like to present my own personal vision.
    Concentrations of wealth can be created only by theft. The most
 powerful form of theft is corruption, by which the government gives
 favors to people who are already rich. Another common form is
 consumer fraud, which is sometimes illegal, but almost never prosecuted
 by the government. Most important in the long run is the system of
 wage-slavery. The vast majority of people have no choice, if they wish
 to survive at all, other than working as wage-slaves at unfairly low
 wages (there's no such thing as a free market, especially a free labor
 market). Finally, wealth can be concentrated through brutal, illegal theft
 and violence.
    I believe this concentration of wealth, which also creates a
 concentration of power, must be uprooted if the rest of us are to be free.
 There is much to be done if there is ever to be real freedom. The 
environment has to be better protected, else we will be free in a dying
 world, which is no freedom at all. People must throw off their mental
 chains and reject the pursuit of the almighty dollar. And economic power
 must be shifted towards the wage slaves, so that we can prepare to
 throw off our chains and take back what is rightfully ours.
    The IWW is an organization centered on the idea of abolishing
 wage-slavery. There are debates as to how this should be
 accomplished. The IWW does this by organizing workers into an
 anarchist labor union, but it is not limited to traditional union tactics in the
 pursuit of its goals.
   In my next installment, I'll talk about tactics.

- William P. Meyers

International Minimum Wage Committee