[lbo-talk] Taibbi (was Re: Fwd: Antioch College Closing!)

Mike Ballard swillsqueal at yahoo.com.au
Sun Jun 17 02:02:02 PDT 2007


Mike Ballard wrote:
>
> A [genuine] question: what is the basis of solidarity? Surely it is
> more than back-scratching?
>
> --ravi
> The felt notion that "an injury to one is an injury to all." Acting on that
> notion as a matter of class interest is the basis of human solidarity, IMO.

You are probably putting the cart before the horse. Recognizing that notion is a derivative of class solidarity not a source of it. The reality must come first -- only then the does the slogan make sense. If you take the slogan literally, an injury to Adolph Hitler is an injury to all of us.

Carrol *****************

Yes, of course, content comes before form. The content of human solidarity is that humans feel for each other, if they recognize their common interests, in the case of the majority of people, their common working class interests. Unlike fascist Idealists, self-conscious workers realize that their class interests and those of the employing class have nothing in common. As you probably know, the context of that phrase comes from the Preamble to the Constitution of the I.W.W.: **********************************

The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life.

Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth.

We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allows one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.

These conditions can be changed and the interest of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.

Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."

It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for everyday struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.

*****************************

Mike B)

An injury to one is an injury to all http://www.iww.org/

____________________________________________________________________________________ Pinpoint customers who are looking for what you sell. http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/



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