Muste with thoughts on false dichotomies, intellectuals, and intellectualism in the workers’ movement.

‘Wild Intellectual and Sober Workmen’ by A.J. Muste from Labor Age. Vol. 19 No. 8. August, 1930.

THERE is current a “theory of the Labor Movement” which is based on the supposed contrast between the role of “the intellectual” and that of the wage-worker and “trade unionist” in the Movement. The theory, in my opinion, is contrary to fact, and now more than ever dangerous and harmful.

The theory is to the effect that the intellectual is visionary, radical, and wants to reconstruct society as a whole according to ideal standards; the wage-worker, on the other hand, and the pure and simple trade-unionist who knows what the worker really wants according to the proponents of this theory, cares nothing about any general reconstruction of the social order. What he wants is a job, security of tenure in that job, good pay, reasonable hours, tolerable conditions of work, and not too much “lip” from the foreman. If the average worker can get these, he will be only too happy to leave the management of industry to other and possibly wiser heads, and speculations about Utopia to theorists who don’t know any better.

Furthermore, according to the proponents of this theory of the Labor Movement, labor throughout the world is tending to escape from the misleading tutelage and direction of the radical and visionary intellectual, in sticking to its own simple and immediate aims and following its own realistic and practical leaders. Labor will thus form a bulwark against, rather than an instrument for, radical, social and economic reconstruction.

There is, of course, an element of truth in this analysis, as is usual in such cases. The average man at the bench or the mine face or the store counter is not a social theorist nor, in ordinary times, a raving radical. That is sufficiently obvious, but there is no point in saying that with great solemnity and then assuming that it furnishes the basis for an elaborate theory of the Labor Movement! It is also historically correct to say that in the beginning of the Labor Movement in any country or section of a country or industrial group, leadership is likely to come almost exclusively from without and probably from the formally educated sympathizers with labor, the unorganized group being too deeply unorganized group being too deeply submerged and handicapped to be able to move under its own power in the face of the opposition aroused by every stirring of revolt, and that later when unions gain a foothold leadership comes from non-intellectuals. There is usually a tendency in this second stage to decry the intellectual, emphasize immediate aims exclusively, etc.

To point to the experimental, idealistic, rebellious, Utopian character of the Labor Movement in its earlier stages and then to the sober, practical, sensible pure and simple unionism of the second stage, and to ascribe as the reason for the difference the fact that “the crazy intellectual” misled the workers in the first stage and that the realistic trade unionist led him aright in the second stage, is to miss a good many important elements in the picture, however. The conditions which unorganized workers face when the industrial revolution first invades a particular region or industry themselves largely determine the type of organization which workers can or will devise to meet them. Similarly, when capitalism stabilizes itself in an industry or region, when economic conditions are generally favorable and the level of real wages for the workers is rising, another type of unionism develops to meet the changed conditions.

Broadly speaking, Chartism and the New Model Unionism in Great Britain belong to different periods in Britain’s economic development. The first could not have existed in the 1860’s nor the second in the 1840’s, even if the leadership in the two periods could have been exchanged. Similarly the A.F. of L. could not have come into being in the United States in the 1820’s even if Samuel Gompers. had lived then and not half a century later.

While it is true that in a typical situation such as the British, the experimental, Utopian movement of the first period is replaced by straight trade unionism, disregarding the unskilled workers, renouncing political action, etc., it is also true that this second type in its turn had to give place to a third. Craft unionism was not enough to cope with advancing capitalism, and industrial unionism had to be developed. Many conditions affecting the worker and his family could not be handled through his union; political measures had to be taken and a labor political party was accordingly brought into being. The plain man at the bench who was no social theorist, and in ordinary times had no great hankering for revolution, learned that he jolly well had to know something about world-conditions and economic theories when developments in India closed Lancashire cotton mills and juggling with war debts and reparations robbed South Wales coal of a market. There came a day when the same plain man at the bench was ready to go on a General Strike and was not too happy or eager to go back to work on the orders of his leaders before the struggle had been won. And if during the second period the leadership of the intellectuals was of less importance than in the first, in this third period the role of such men and women as MacDonald, Snowden, the Webbs, G.D.H. Cole, Tawney and countless others can hardly be overestimated.

Intellectuals’ Role In the Movement

While one may distinguish certain phases through which the Labor Movement passes and ascribe a somewhat more prominent role to this type of leadership or that in a particular phase, the point may easily be pressed too far. The fact is clear to anyone who has more than a cursory acquaintance with the Labor Movement in any of its periods and groupings that the intellectual has played a pretty important part in all of them. As legal advisers, as economic counsellors, as editors and writers of the labor press, in cooperative or political enterprises, as trade union leaders, especially in countries where teachers and other professional workers are organized, intellectuals have helped to guide the destinies of the movement, sometimes ably and well and sometimes not, as has been the case with others also. Intellectuals are found cooperating with and helping to guide the policies of all kinds of unions and labor organizations reactionary, conservative, progressive, socialist, communist, and what have you!

In each wing of the movement you will on occasion find bitter criticism of the intellectual that is, the intellectual who is not in full accord with the tendency of that particular wing! In A. F. of L. circles he is often damned as a fool or a dangerous, reckless red; in Communist circles he is just as vociferously damned as a weak-kneed, overcautious, lukewarm liberal or counter-revolutionary. And just as you find Chester Wrights and Wallings on the damning of the hue and cry against intellectuals as theorists and crazy reds, you will find intellectuals in left wing circles joining in the damning of fellow-intellectuals for opposite reasons. Under the circumstances, it seems sufficiently obvious that in this, as in similar instances, resort is had to pinning a nasty-sounding label on a proposition in the absence of sound argument against it, as putting the curse on industrial unionism or a labor party or social insurance or public ownership or the abolition of war by saying that intellectuals are trying to put it over on the honest workingman!

When it comes to warning against intellectuals as a class, I am inclined to think that the lefts may be more nearly right in their reasons than the rights. Is there anyone who has an actual acquaintance with the educated classes, with people in the professions, with intellectuals generally, who really believes that they are chiefly remarkable for the daring of their speculations, their utterances and their actions? Unless, of course, you want to make the definition to suit a special purpose, and call only those who have advanced views on any question intellectuals!

But otherwise, is it not among them that we find the bulwarks of orthodoxy and conservatism in all lands as well as a minority who do dare to think and act? I have gone about a good deal during the past year in the eastern half of this country from north to south, and the timidity, the fear, the lack of courage to speak up which marks groups such as teachers, social workers, preachers, editors, in what is supposed to be the land of Thomas Jefferson is appalling. They cannot surpass workers in this regard in this period of economic depression, but they certainly equal them–and with far less excuse!

Turning back for a moment to our consideration of changing phases in the development of the Labor Movement, it seems to me that those who argue that the Labor Movement is now pretty generally throughout the world accepting trade unionist as against political and intellectual leadership, is passing into a phase of conciliation and practicality, and abandoning the idea of revolution or radical reconstruction of the economic and social order, exhibit a plain case of making the wish or the fear father to the thought. It may be noted as not without some significance that you can get this observation that the Labor Movement in general is becoming a bulwark against fundamental change from both extreme conservatives and extreme radicals.

Unscientific Deduction

A certain reaction there has obviously been in recent years. Some sections of labor have perhaps become permanently reactionary. But to deduce a permanent tendency for the Labor Movement as a whole from the very special situation of the recent post-war period is absurd and utterly unscientific. Those who now think that labor will never again be militant and revolutionary are probably as far wrong as those who ten years ago thought that the social revolution was just around the corner in every country on earth. Despite the general reaction in recent years and the extreme reaction in certain quarters, compare the Labor Movement throughout the world as a whole with the Movement before the war–in numbers, in prestige, in concrete achievements for workers, in the range of problems with which it is dealing and in any other respect you may choose and you will have a tough time making out that labor is a giant falling asleep rather than waking up!

And this brings us to our final and most important observation, namely that the business of pitting the workers against the intellectual and seeking to minimize the role of the latter, is a peculiarly harmful and dangerous thing at just this stage in the history of labor and of the world.

Unless practically all our leading students of world affairs are hopelessly insane, we are in a very critical period. Indeed, the ordinary citizen has but to look at India, at China, at Egypt, at the world-wide economic depression, at our mounting expenditures for war preparations, to sense this. Obviously, also, the American Labor Movement in its attempt to organize workers under modern conditions faces a terrific and perplexing task. It is impossible to organize by the hit and miss method that availed in a simpler time. Furthermore, labor once organized, whether on the union, the political, or the cooperative field has to reckon with complex world conditions and faces the most intricate problems. Under such conditions–and who can deny that they are the conditions labor confronts–how can we dispense with the man trained in economics, finances, psychology, speaking, writing, organizing methods, etc.? Even the actual work of organizing in big basic industries, certainly the planning of organization campaigns under modern conditions, may have to be done by specially trained men, not to mention numerous other phases of labor activity. Capitalism is increasingly willing to spend its millions and billions to train experts who can serve and defend it. How can labor cope with them if it has no trained forces? Those who under these circumstances, for whatever reason, seek to drive a wedge between the so-called intellectual and the so-called worker, do no service to the latter any more than to the former.

This is not to suggest that the intellectual is a Messiah or Moses coming from the outside to lead labor into the promised land. They are brothers; they can and should serve each other. Together they can help to make a decent world for all who produce. Together they can do something about building industrial unions and a labor party; establishing social insurance; securing freedom of speech and press; developing democratic control in industry; outlawing war and building an international democracy of the workers, for the workers, by the workers.

Labor Age was a left-labor monthly magazine with origins in Socialist Review, journal of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society. Published by the Labor Publication Society from 1921-1933 aligned with the League for Industrial Democracy of left-wing trade unionists across industries. During 1929-33 the magazine was affiliated with the Conference for Progressive Labor Action (CPLA) led by A. J. Muste. James Maurer, Harry W. Laidler, and Louis Budenz were also writers. The orientation of the magazine was industrial unionism, planning, nationalization, and was illustrated with photos and cartoons. With its stress on worker education, social unionism and rank and file activism, it is one of the essential journals of the radical US labor socialist movement of its time.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/laborage/v19n08-Aug-1930-Labor-Age.pdf