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The IWW has room for many opinions and courses of action. Here I'd
like to present my own personal vision.
Concentrations of wealth can be created only by theft. The most
powerful form of theft is corruption, by which the government gives
favors to people who are already rich. Another common form is
consumer fraud, which is sometimes illegal, but almost never prosecuted
by the government. Most important in the long run is the system of
wage-slavery. The vast majority of people have no choice, if they wish
to survive at all, other than working as wage-slaves at unfairly low
wages (there's no such thing as a free market, especially a free labor
market). Finally, wealth can be concentrated through brutal, illegal theft
and violence.
I believe this concentration of wealth, which also creates a
concentration of power, must be uprooted if the rest of us are to be free.
There is much to be done if there is ever to be real freedom. The
environment has to be better protected, else we will be free in a dying
world, which is no freedom at all. People must throw off their mental
chains and reject the pursuit of the almighty dollar. And economic power
must be shifted towards the wage slaves, so that we can prepare to
throw off our chains and take back what is rightfully ours.
The IWW is an organization centered on the idea of abolishing
wage-slavery. There are debates as to how this should be
accomplished. The IWW does this by organizing workers into an
anarchist labor union, but it is not limited to traditional union tactics in the
pursuit of its goals.
In my next installment, I'll talk about tactics.
- William P. Meyers
International Minimum Wage Committee
