The Unnecessary Ballot Box.

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 3, 1 April 1913, Page 3

The Unnecessary Ballot Box.

The I.W.W. refuses all alliances, direct or indirect, with existing political parties, or anti-political sects. —1. W.W. Constitution. The I.W.W. considers Parliamentary action on the part of the workers as unnecessary, and therefore an absolute waste of time and energy; for, whatever radical economic change may take place, it must inevitably become lawful, whether the Parliamentary conscience of the legislators may like if or not. Therefore, the fight for Industrial Freedom is economic, not Parliamentary; and on the Industrial field alone. It follows, then, that any Parliamentary legislation, not in accord with economic conditions, must prove abortive, because the class holding economic power can disregard all laws. Why, the employing class, the economic rulers of to-day, have reduced the status of even the Monarch himself.

The Capitalist Class, in that they own and control the necessaries of life, dominate the workers economically. As a class they control the Parliamentary machine, an institution absolutely unnecessary to them, but which, they allow to exist for no other reason than to make exploitation lawful, the working class having for centuries been drugged with the superstition that whatever is enacted in Parliament must necessarily be sacred and held in awe. Otherwise, Parliamentary action is unnecessary even to the employing class, save, of course, to those ambitious of fame, or the ■spoils of exaltation. Hence, whatever law may be written on the Statute Book, no matter who guided the pen, Socialists or otherwise, the class holding economic power can laugh it to scorn. Yea, though a vast army of police, and military, stand ready to enforce the law, the class possessing economic power holds even them hard and fast, and can starve them into subjection just as they have starved the workers.

When Industrially organised, the Working Class will possess economic power, for they will hold a monopoly of their labour commodity. the control of which by the employing class of to-day is the very foundation of the present hated system. Everything depends on Industrial organisation. The ballot box cannot help the workers; it is organised might that helps. The ballot box cannot hurt the workers; it is the lack of organised might that hurts. The ballot box is useless in the fight for Freedom—economic freedom, the very basis of all Liberty. Everything depends on organised might, and the determination to assert it.

• Again, a militant minority on the economic field, through a strategic dislocation of industry, can force the hands of more workers than are needed to make up a Parliamentary majority, and need no organising at all. If the workers are led to believe that Parliamentary action is their only means of expression, they are simply blinded to their real opportunities of carrying on a quick, effective campaign. Let the workers organise them-.selves-as a class, and let them aim, through Direct Action, straight towards Industrial Freedom, and Parliament, be its roof sky-high, and crammed to the rafters with Capitalist legislators, even the latter must register a bull’s-eye and quit the exploitation business for ever.