SABOTAGE AND ETHICS.

Industrial Unionist, Volume 1, Issue 8, 1 September 1913, Page 2

SABOTAGE AND ETHICS.

Sabotage is not new; it lias been used in many lands for many generations. Every Bible student lias read bow that whiskered old fakir Moses used it very effectively thousands of years ago. Sabotage can, .however, be described as a new and powerful weapon, being forged by the revolutionary labour movement of to-day, for it is now advocated by all revolutionary industrialist and syndicalist papers, and is discussed by many live propaganda societies of workers, who, by the way, have a great advantage over those who meet to discuss politics, as they can often test their theories the next day if desired. Among the chief objections urged against Sabotage are: That it is immoral; and that it can become a two-edged weapon easily turned against the workers. Both objections are shallow. The latter is easily met and dismissed —the employers use all the Sabotage they can or dare use now; Sabotage is aimed at profits or property —the workers have neither.

As to morality, tlie employers make suck free and frequent use of Sabotage against tlie workers in tke everyday economic struggle that tlie workers are justified in using it to kick back. Certainly, two wrongs may no l make a right, but when two “ rights” clash the deciding factor is might. The workers create the good things, but don’t get them —largely because they have not enough might. Sabotage, better understood and used all round by the workers, would add greatly to their might. On ethical grounds Sabotage can be more than justified—though ethics count for little in the class struggle. The worker who makes ammunition harmless by Saboting the powder, especially if it is to be used against workers on strike, is doing tlie praiseworthy thing — saving life. The workers who prevent the adulterating of foodstuffs by acts of Sabotage do a good thing —preserve health. The worker who places a human life before a machine and destroys a machine to save life is more “moral” than the employer who places profits first. If a Popper drill worked by one man soon destroys lungs, and therefore life, and if by having two men the machine is rendered harmless or nearly so, then the quickest means to compel the boss to employ two men is the best.

If, in such a case, the prospects of a successful strike are poor, and we must choose between “ popping the popper ” or allowing one fel-low-worker to be sacrificed, then let us make sure no worker is sacrificed, and get others to do the same—and let us make no bones about it. The intelligent militant of today, ' whose activities are directed towards ending the Wage System, knows that the “ immorality ” argument is only used by those who havd; something to lose or by those whose heads are still befogged by\ capitalist “ ethics ” —* whether such objectors call themselves Socialists or not.

Some so-called revolutionists, who spend much time in theorising and trying to get a following to believe in emancipation by ballot-box and out-of-date industrial methods, are among the bitter opponents of Sabotage. The reason, of course, is that their theories would suffer and their hopes of a following be gone if the workers forced considerable concessions by the aid of Sabotage.

Such would-be leaders will denounce the “ emery powder revolutionist ” as a snake in the grass and a reactionary, but fail to point out that Sabotage does not begin and end with a handful of emery, or that in many an acute situation a machine put temporarily out of action by the application of emery to the oil-can would put the scabs —union or otherwise —idle, and turn a threatened defeat to victory. To be a Socialist or communist is to be a revolutionist, and the revoluntionist must search for, experiment with and develop, the means. Socialists of to-day admit that economic might and the industrial fight matter most, yet some types of revolutionists would retard the gathering of that might by decrying, or at least ignoring, Sabotage; in other words, they help the employing class to bolster up capitalism by endorsing, tacitly or otherwise, master class “ Morality.”