Labor Herald Library
No. 4.
The Bankruptcy of the American
Labor Movement
By Wm. Z. Foster
CHAPTER I.
A State of Bankruptcy
A commonly accepted principle of practical economics is that in a given country the extent and ripeness of the labor movement depends directly upon and may be measured by the degree of industrial development attained in that country, In non-industrial China, for instance, no one looks for important labor organizations, but all the world takes as a logical thing the powerful labor movements in highly industrialized Europe. Karl Marx stresses this principle, saying: "—combinations (of labor) have not ceased to grow with the development and growth of modern industry. It is at such a point now that the degree of development of combination in a country clearly marks the degree which that country occupies in the hierarchy of the world market."[1]
This economic principle holds true quite generally. With almost unfailing regularity those nations with well developed industrial systems also have well developed labor movements, and those that are backward industrially are also backward in working class organization. The one glaring exception to the rule is the United States. Here we have the extraordinary situation of the world’s most highly developed industrial system on the one hand, and the most backward labor movement of any important country on the other, The United States stands first in the world market, but, in apparent contradiction to Marx, this could never be deduced by a study of its primitive working class organization. The whole situation is a great paradox.
Before indicating the cause of this paradox and pointing the way
- ↑ Poverty of Philosophy, p. 156.
