But, it will be pointed out, the working class has advanced. Power has
been acquired by labor unions and syndicates. In the beginning power
was won by the principle of the restriction of numbers. The device of
refusing to admit more than a fixed number of new members to the unions
of the various trades has been justified as necessary for the upholding
of the standard of wages and of working conditions. This has been the
practice in precisely those unions which have been able through years
of growth and development to attain tangible strength and power. Such
a principle of restriction is necessary in the creation of a firmly and
deeply rooted trunk or central organization furnishing a local center
for more extended organization. It is upon this great principle of
restricted number that the labor unions have generated and developed
power. They have acquired this power without any religious emotionalism,
without subscribing to metaphysical or economic theology. For the
millenium and the earthly paradise to be enjoyed at some indefinitely
future date, the union member substitutes the very real politics
of organization with its resultant benefits. He increases his own
independence and comfort and that of his family. He is immune to
superstitious belief in and respect for the mysterious power of
political or economic nostrums to reconstruct human society according to
the Marxian formula.
In rejecting the Marxian hypothesis as superficial and fragmentary, we
do so not because of its so-called revolutionary character, its threat
to the existing order of things, but rather because of its superficial,
emotional and religious character and its deleterious effect upon the
life of reason.
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