Communism? The Plot Against Civilization pp. 266-268

We begin this section with Webster attempting to explain why the population would attach themselves to syndicalism rather than socialism. She writes that the workers were frustrated with their leaders taking trips to Switzerland and sleeping in gilded beds while they died on the barricades in France and Russia. This is a fair question and one of the likely reasons that the Internationale collapsed. This is a problem of any organization, the leaders appear as though they are living in luxury while everyone else grovels. It’s a system that looks especially bad for Socialism as everyone is supposed to be equal.

It’s a valid issue to raise as the difference between theory and practice becomes practice. Our problem is in someone like Webster raising this issue. Webster has favored aristocrats like the Tsars of Russia, the aristocrats of the France, and even Napolean III. There is no way she can consistently raise the fact that a Socialist leader once staying in a hotel as a problem for the movement.

Her opinion is that this is what drove people from Socialism to Syndicalism. Maybe, but it could just have been that the difference between the two ideologies is scale. Even as Webster describes it: that revenue and benefits would be evenly distributed through members of the guild—it’s not much different than Socialism. It’s just the trade guilds running their trades and taking care of the guild members. The biggest question we should have is whether Webster thinks this is a good system.

We’re told that under the French Revolutionary government and then Napolean the guild system was crushed by law in 1791. What she is referencing is the Allarde Decree which did abolish the guild system—however, it did so in order to liberalize the economy. The problem that the Revolutionary government identified was that the guild system wasn’t allowing free trade. There are a couple of reasons to this which are very complicated however our issue is that Webster is complaining about how this new system ended the ability of the trade unions to collectively defend their common interests. Which is fine, it also destroyed whatever social safety net the guilds provided. All of this is a strange complaint from Webster who seems to be advocating for socialist policies within the guilds and lamenting their prohibition.

It seems then, that she is in favor of Syndicalism.

“It is no figure of speech to say that Syndicalism is simply a further development of the creed of Anarchy, for it rests on the same basis – negation of the State.”

So it’s bad? The last two pages of this book are about the advantages of trade unions, the guilds, how terrible it was that the Revolutionary Government and Napolean outlawed them, how great it was the Napolean III tried to renew the system, but it’s the same as Anarchism? This doesn’t make sense.

She cites Proudhon who opposed “the exploitation of the railways whether by companies of Capitalists or by the State.” Proudhon is staking a position that no one should be allowed to exploit the railway and that it is no fairer if the state does it or some private company. Proudhon is being consistent. Disagree with him all you want, but he’s not wrong. Exploitation ought to be forbidden.

She claims that, “Syndicalism is, therefore, government by trade unions, and must be inevitably lead to anarchy.”

Syndicalism may not be a desirable system, I’m not sure as I have not engaged with it outside of this book. If the guilds and the unions stayed within their own sphere it might work just fine but we don’t have anyone to administer the law. There are practical problems with this system but Webster, as always, is not concerned with them instead finding anarchism to be the ultimate result.

“The miners might raise the price of coal, the bakers the price of bread, and the rest of the community would have no means of redress, for in the conflict that would ensue between the different groups of workers the key industries alone could exercise any real authority.” This is the result of a Syndicalist form of government.

She’s advocating for government controls over the price of goods and services. This is a system of government we call Communism. She’s advocating against the workers in the guilds establishing the price for their labor. Fine, she’s an anti-Socialist that makes sense. Then she turns around to advocate that the state should be the one in control of production. I’m going to claim that this is an odd take from someone like her.

We wrap up with her lament that the only thing one can do in the face of the power that the guilds hold is the general strike. Her objection is that you can’t really strike against the food producers eventually we need to eat, while we can go pretty long before we need the boot-maker or the tailor. True and this was precisely the problem that the Revolutionary Government and Napolean tried to solve by outlawing the trade unions which was a bad thing according to Webster. I’m not entirely sure that she has read her book. If she was against Syndicalism because she wants to preserve the legal authority of the state that’s fine. There is no reason to think that Syndicalism would lead to Anarchism.

What we know is that she doesn’t want any group of workers to have any kind of authority. Webster cloaks this argument in a concern for the working class which is absurd because any argument against exploitation she finds to be a Socialist plot.

Webster doesn’t want the syndicates to control anything, she doesn’t want the laborers to do so, what she wants is the state to do so in all aspects for its own glory. She can launder it through concerns about the loss of equality all she wants but this is one of her most obvious pleas for fascism so far.