Industrial Democracy Wanted

The Industrial Workers of the World see nothing good in an economy that is controlled by corporate managers or by politicians. Instead they want economic democracy--industry run by its workers through direct democratic process free from hierarchy.

The greatest problem facing humankind is not the much-discussed question of production and distribution. It is the problem of power. It never has been safe to let a few control the affairs of the many, and it never will be safe. The depressions, the wars, the various other ills of the modern world, have been possible only because there was already an unsafe concentration of power in the hands of the few. What happened did happen as the result of the will of these few, not of the will of the many.

Under capitalism every invention that has increased our power to produce or destroy has increased the power of the few and decreased the power of the rest of us. Every improvement in communication has extended the empire of this minority.

And every time we give more power to some one to try and remedy the resulting evils, we increase the problem that much further. And this holds true whether we allow that power to fall to the present managers of industry, their friends in government, or their friends in the undemocratic business unions. Consequently the only safe and logical choice is economic democracy--industry run by those who do the work using democratic procedures on a daily basis for the equal benefit of all.

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