AN ECONOMIC :: SEPTEMBER, 1923 PUBLISHED BY THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD LARADIE COLLECTION HB 301 T42 Printed by Printing and Publishing Workers Industrial Unon, No. 450, I. W. W. Introduction N THE following pages the reader must be aware that, wherever a worker's activity has been selected IN for the purpose of illustration, both the worker and his process typify the working class and social production; for the exploitation of wage labor is the exploitation of one class by another class the working class by the capitalist class-and is not necessarily the exploitation of the individual worker by his employer. Unless we understand this the class struggle is only a meaningless phrase. The Interdependence of Labor When in this booklet a worker or a working group is referred to, as producing some article or commodity, it is necessary to understand that such reference is merely to illustrate a point. Production of any article is impossible to any worker under the capitalist arrangement of industry; the simplest article as well as the most complicated machine is the product of the entire working class. From the sulphur match to the aggregate of the world's commodities there cannot be eliminated any classification of labor, and have the match, or the world's wealth. We say of the miner that he produces coal, of the baker that he produces bread, but such is not the case. They assist each other in the production of coal and bread and are at the same time dependent upon the balance of the workers for their equipment and materials. Before the miner goes down into the earth his fellow workers in every line of human endeavor have cooperatively labored to supply him with house, food, furniture, clothing, tools, powder, etc.; so that in the mining of coal all of the workers assist him. They do not go to the coal-face, but he could not go there without them. The mining of coal is therefore a social function |