# One Big Union of All the Workers, the Greatest Thing on Earth/One Big Union

One Big Union
Social relations are the reflex of the grouping of industrial possessions. The owners of all resources and means of wealth form a class of their own; the owners of labor power as their only possession in the market, another. Political, judicial, educational and other institutions are only the mirror of the prevailing system of ownership in the resources and means of production.
One class owns and controls the necessaries, to-wit: the economic resources of the world. That class, for its own protection and perpetuation in power, subjects all other institutions to their prevailing class interests. Conversely, there is a class that strives to change the foundation of the industrial arrangement. The workers realize that immediately following the change these social relations will also be shifted; institutions deriving their support and sustenance from the class in power will be made to conform to new conditions after the overthrow of the previously existing industrial system.
Social structures collapse as a result of ever recurring changes in their economic foundation. But the new structure is not a ready-made product of each of the epochs of reconstruction. An historic process of evolution reaches a climax in a revolutionary upheaval. Achievements of preceding epochs are always utilized in the constructive work of a never-resting, always advancing civilization.
Decaying elements render nourishment to Mother Earth for the generation of new species and structures. Nothing is lost in the reciprocal process of nature. Precisely so in social systems. Achievements of social and ​industrial evolutions are always preserved after a revolutionary climax removes all obstacles to further developments. Only the class previously dominating the policies and actions of the social institutions is supplanted by the revolutionary change; one form of ownership in the means of life is shifted to another class.
Capitalist ownership of industries had its origin in the unfolding of conditions which hastened the downfall of the feudal age, and the advent of another class to power.
Co-operative control of industries by all engaged in the process of production must build its foundation on the highly perfected form and methods of production, and upon the conditions which accelerate the passing away of the capitalist system of ownership in the instruments of production and distribution.
The feudal lords had to surrender their sceptre to the ascending bourgeoisie, better known today as the capitalist class. The latter, at the outset, had in view only the free development of all forces of production, in an era of unrestricted competition between individuals. When, over a century ago, the change was consummated by revolutions, the instruments of production were more equally distributed. They were in possession of a multitude of the victorious capitalists, who owned small enterprises. Most people would expect that in such a competitive system as was then established, every one would have a chance to rise to a superior station in life. The instruments of production were not highly developed. Handicraft in the operation of small machines, or in the use of tools, still predominated. Small capital only was required in starting the manufacture of things for small margins of profits.
This epoch, beginning with the revolution of the "Third Estate" in France, found its counterpart in the revolution of the American people against British semi-feudalistic rule. Since then the forms, methods and yield of production have rapidly developed in one direction, in every industrially advanced country. ​The means of production were centralized ever more in fewer and fewer hands. With the centralization of the means of production and distribution, the agencies protecting the interests in power also grew proportionately. Gradually all elements that obscured the lines of cleavage between the producers of wealth and the class that expropriated all economic resources of the world are eliminated.
The manufacturers of yore exist only in small communities. They depend, however, more or less on the good will of those who permit them to exist by supplying them with the raw products for production, or those who own the transportation facilities by which the products are transported into the markets.
In this process of transformation other things can be observed. Social relations are shifting with the change in the forms and in the ownership of the means of production. Social strata are fiercely struggling for their conservation, in vain. There is no escape from the irretrievable result of these rapid changes in industrial possessions and arrangements.
The howls of freaks, the frantic appeals and clamors of reformers will not in the least affect the course of events. The destructive battles of trades unions, divided up in factions and sections that find their traditional base in the middle ages, will not turn back the wheel that rolls on with irresistible force.
The outcry, so often heard before, redounds in vociferous strength again: A revolution! "A revolution is needed to change these conditions." It is a cry of despondency. Not only heard from Socialists. They at least propose some way of consummating their program of a revolution. But the middle-class is more frantic in its wailings of despair. In their band wagon they are lining up a large following of workers. Millions are made to believe that an impending struggle against predatory wealth will have as object the restoration of by-gone conditions, or the ​enforcement of restrictive measures for curbing further concentration of industries.
But the workers are not, and should not be concerned in the hopeless struggles of a decaying element of society. They have an historic mission to perform, a mission that they will carry out despite the promises held out to them that a restoration of past conditions would accrue to their benefit also.
They begin to realize that in the constructive work for the future they have to learn the facts of past evolutions and revolutions. And from these facts expressed in theories they find the guide for the course that they have to pursue in their struggle for the possessions of the earth, and the goods that they alone have created. That growing portion of the working class are building on the rockbed of historic facts, and the structure to be erected follows the plan that
"It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism"—"the army of production must be organized. By organizing industrially the workers are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old."
Some definite conclusion must be drawn from the previously established premises. It is the heritage of the working class to utilize to the fullest extent the great achievements of the preceding and existing processes and methods of production, for the benefit of all useful members of society.
In its advent to power and supremacy the present economic master class succeeded another that decayed in the process of evolution. This mastery of the present owners of the economic resources will also give way and pave the way for successors. The workers, conscious of their mission, must recognize the fact that the industries are developing to the highest state of perfection, and will be ready for operation under a new arrangement of things, namely after the class ​now in possession and control of them have gone the way of decay under the pressure of the advancing force of a new civilization. But it is imperative to arrange the human forces of production for the operation of the vast resources and implements of production under a system wherein commodities will be made for use alone. To build and to arrange correctly, and for lasting purposes, the constructors of a further developed industrial structure must possess a thorough knowledge of the material, and of organizations destined to accomplish the task. The architects must know the proper grouping of each component part and cell in the composition of industrial combinations, so that, when harmony in the industrial relationship of mankind is established, it will be reflected in the harmonious social, political, judicial, and ethical institutions of a new age.
We repeat: Industrial and social systems are not ready-made products. In their changes from one stage to another they derive their propelling forces from the achievements and accomplishments of each preceding epoch. In its onward course to a further advanced system, society is going to utilize all that present day society has evolved and constructed. This the workers must know, and then they will also learn the intricate, interdependent arrangements of the component parts of the whole industrial system. Equipped with this knowledge, they will be able to construct and form their own industrial organizations, the frame-structure of the new society, accordingly. By learning the social relations and understanding their source, they can profit and prepare to change the industrial structure of society, which as a matter of course, will determine also the changes in the social and political character of the system which is bound to be inaugurated. And this is the problem. The working class, as the promoter and supporter of a higher standard of social relations and interrelations, ​must be equipped with the knowledge, must construct the organizations, by which the cause of social classes can be removed. Industrial inequality is the source of all other inequality in human society. The change in the ownership of the essentials of life will bring automatically, so to say, the change in the intercourse and the associations, and also in the institutions for the promotion of these things, between the human beings upon the globe.
Good will, revolutionary will-power, determination, courage are valuable assets in the struggle for the change. But they are like the water on the millwheels, unconscious of the great service that they are rendering. To convert force and power into useful operation requires intelligence. And that intelligence must guide us to use the accumulated force for a defined purpose. That purpose, as it seems to be agreed, is to form a new social, or rather industrial structure within the shell of the old. To accomplish this the advocates, the militants for the new, must know to what extent the present factors in industrial development have organized and systematized industrial production. When this is fully understood, this may also explain the subsequent domination of industrial possession over the political, social and other agencies in present day and previously existing societies.
The workers of the world, conscious of their historic mission, will learn to avoid the mistakes they would make should they depend on other forces than their own for the solution of the world's problem. Agencies and institutions deriving their lease of existence from the industrial masters of today can not be looked to for support. They may feign being in favor of radical changes in the effects—they will, however, strenuously and violently oppose any attempt at destroying the base, or the cause.
The working class alone is interested in the removal of industrial inequality, and that can only be ​accomplished by a revolution of the industrial system. The workers, in their collectivity, must take over and operate all the essential industrial institutions, the means of production and distribution, for the well-being of all the human elements comprising the international nation of wealth-producers.
No destruction, no waste, no return into barbarism! A higher plan of civilization is to be achieved. When the workers understand how the industrial system of today has developed, how one industrial pursuit dovetails into another, and all comprise an inseparable whole, they will not wantonly destroy what generations of industrial and social forces have brought forth. The workers will utilize the knowledge of ages to build and to plant on a solid rockbed the foundation of a new industrial and social system.
The foundation must be firm and solid. The revolutionary climax, after an incessant course of evolutionary processes by which forms and methods undergo changes, will eliminate forever the cause for the industrial division of society into two hostile camps. Harmonious relations of mankind in all their material affairs will evolve out of the change in the control and ownership in industrial resources of the world.
That accomplished, the men and women, all members of society in equal enjoyment of all the good things and comforts of life, will be the arbiters of their own destinies in a free society.
We present, with this introduction, to all our comrades in battle and strife, a portrait of industrial combinations.