ism is absolutely necessary if Trade Unionism is to succeed in playing that part in altering the economic structure of society which its advocates claim for it rather than for the political parties. Industrial unionism organizes men, as craft unionism does not, in accordance with the enemy whom they have to fight. English unionism is still very far removed from the industrial form, though certain industries, especially the railway men, have gone very far in this direction, and it is notable that the railway men are peculiarly sympathetic to Syndicalism and industrial unionism.
Pure Syndicalism, however, is not very likely to achieve wide popularity in Great Britain. Its spirit is too revolutionary and anarchic for our temperament. It is in the modified form of Guild Socialism that the ideas derived from the C.G.T. and the I.W.W. are tending to bear fruit.[1] This movement is as
- ↑ The ideas of Guild Socialism were first set forth in "National Guilds," edited by A. R. Orage (Bell and Sons, 1914) and in Cole's "World of Labour" (Bell and Sons), first published in 1913. Cole's "Self-government in Industry" should also be read (Bell and Sons, 1917), as well as various pamphlets published by the National Guilds League. The attitude of the Syndicalists to Guild Socialism is far from sympathetic. An article in the Syndicalist for February 1914 speaks of it in the following terms: "Middle-class of the middle-class, with all the short-comings (we had almost said 'stupidities') of the middle-classes writ large across it, 'Guild Socialism' stands forth as the latest lucubration of the middle-class mind. It is a 'cool steal' of the leading ideas of Syndicalism and a deliberate perversion of them. … We do protest against the 'State' idea … in Guild Socialism. Middle-class people, even when they become Socialists, cannot get rid of the idea that the working class is their 'inferior'; that the workers need to be
