Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the earth and the machinery of production, and abolish the wage system.
We find that the centering of the management of industries into fewer and fewer hands makes the trade unions unable to cope with the ever growing power of the employing class. The trade unions foster a state of affairs which allow one set of workers to be pitted against another set of workers in the same industry, thereby helping defeat one another in wage wars. Moreover, the trade unions aid the employing class to mislead the workers into the belief that the working class have interests in common with their employers.
These conditions can be changed and the interests of the working class upheld only by an organization formed in such a way that all its members in any one industry, or in all industries, if necessary, cease work whenever a strike or lockout is on in any department thereof, thus making an injury to one an injury to all.
Instead of the conservative motto, "A fair day's wage for a fair day's work," we must inscribe on our banner the revolutionary watchword, "Abolition of the wage system."
It is the historic mission of the working class to do away with capitalism. The army of production must be organized, not only for the every day struggle with capitalists, but also to carry on production when capitalism shall have been overthrown. By organizing industrially we are forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.
"Men in society represent economic categories," said Thompson. "By that I mean that in the world of shoes there are shoemakers, and in the world of boats there are seamen, and in this society there are economic categories called the employing class and the working class. Now, between them as employing class and working class there is nothing in common. Their interests are diametrically opposed as such. It is not the same thing as saying that human beings have nothing in common. The working class and the employing class have antagonistic interests, and the more one gets the less remains for the other.
"Labor produces all wealth," continued Thompson, "and the more the workers have to give up to anyone else the less remains for themselves. The more they get in wages the less remains for the others in the form of profits. As long as labor produces for the other class all the good things of life there will be no peace; we want the products of labor ourselves and let the other class go to work also.