The New York Times headline, which you can read in the archives, says “Warn I.W.W. Raiders: Officials Take Steps to Prevent March on North Dakota Town.” That headline appeared in 1921. Another from 1918 reads: “Reveals I.W.W. Plans: Proposed Amalgamation with Non-Partisan League in North Dakota.”
What is this all about? For those who don’t know, the I.W.W. was the American movement of Reds – hardcore communists of the pure Stalin variety. The Non-Partisan League was the American movement of pinks, the social democrats who wanted full socialism but with liberties (so long as they could be tolerated). They join in 1918 to lay siege to the governor’s office in North Dakota, and then nationalized the mills and the banks. They raised taxes, nationalized insurance and did a thousand other wacky things that sunk the economy and led to the recall of the governor. The whole experience ended in calamity, a fact that won’t surprise anyone who understands the failure of socialist economies.
In those days, however, few understood in detail why socialism couldn’t work. It wasn’t until 1920 that Ludwig von Mises explained precisely why socialism cannot work: it crushes the pricing signals that are the main data that make economic calculation and therefore rationality possible.
The North Dakota communist experience is a bizarre chapter in American history, one remember mostly by those who love Red lore. It turns out, however, that one American novelist followed the events very carefully and wrote a fantastic novel about it all.
The novel is Harangue (The Trees Said to the Bramble Come Reign Over US), by Garet Garrett, soon to be offered in the Mises store. Harangue was written in 1926. The action is dramatic and the story wonderfully fertile for economic insight. He details what happens to an economy when central planners are in charge, with a special focus on pricing problems and production decisions. He explains what happens when a bank no longer deals with the problem of risk.
But what is especially interesting is his treatment of the sociology of the rich. Garrett has an enormously insightful take on what turns the rich into supporters of the Reds. In the story, Jael Saint-Leon is the daughter of an highly successful Wall Street trader, who dies when she is only 16. She is suddenly a mega-millionaire and internationally famous. She tries her best to pretend to be bourgeois but eventually she realizes that this is impossible. So like others of her class and wealth, she turns rather to difficult task of distinguishing herself.
In the precapitalistic age, the rich were distinguished for what they owned. But in the capitalistic age, this is hardly possible, since most of what the rich acquire becomes available to the middle class in a matter of time. So the super rich look elsewhere: to exotica in art, architecture, music, and, finally, ideology. Radical socialist theory is something the super rich can purchase and support that the middle class will not – and this is precisely what is so attractive about it.
Jael Saint-Leon becomes the great benefactor of the communist cause in Garrett’s gripping novel of conspiracy, ideology, and violence. But what is especially striking is to follow her psychology, not only during her Red phase but also following. She began to read about the history of socialist experiments.
“She turned to the literature of these experiments and was surprised at the extent of it. She read the fascinating history of Brook Farm, also that of the Oneida Community. In an obvious sense every such experiment had failed. That is, not one of them endured.”
And so does she abandon socialism? Nope “No matter,” she thinks. “In a spiritual sense they had not failed. The mistake was to suppose they might succeed materially. That was neither their point nor their meaning.”
Interesting! So what is the point of socialism if not to succeed materially?
“Going to and fro between New York and New Freedom had produced more than once that occasion in which everything one knows falls away, even one’s name and identity; things hitherto unknown, beyond good and evil, assume terrific importance. She became aware of the great mystery of the earth mother. Always it was west of the Mississippi river this happened, sometimes in the swooning glimpse one may remember but never recall, sometimes in dreaming reverie of which the mystical truth alone without object or subject may be remembered. Some inner region of herself became in these moments vast, co-terminous with the limits of the universe, pulsating with a knowledge the mind cannot share. These experiences left her wordless. She could neither describe nor define them….
Directly or indirectly all those indescribable emotions associated themselves with the earth—the fundamental mother.”
So you guessed it: she turns from communism to environmentalism, setting up a collective, live-off-the-land, love-the-earth community. And then what happens? It falters for the same reason, and it is particularly hard hit with the tragedy of the commons. The lazy live off the productive. At first this disgusts her. But then she thinks again.
“At this time, however, Jael was less interested in economic analysis than in a new way of regarding life from an emotional approach. She was down on rational thinking. Deliberately to give herself up to feeling alone had become a conscious aesthetic experience. She knew what she was doing. That was the pleasure of it. She could say, ‘Now I am feeling,’ and enjoy it, just as she could say, ‘Now I am reasoning,’ and enjoy that. Feeling was the new enjoyment.”
So there we have it: from red, to green, to deconstructionism. Keep in mind that this novel, which closely tracks the real experience, was written in 1926! It surely must rank among the most prophetic novels of the 20th century. It certainly deserves to be ranked among Garrett’s great works.
{ 21 comments }
>>They raised taxes, nationalized insurance and did a thousand other wacky things that sunk the economy and led to the recall of the governor.<<
Yes, the Governor was recalled, but two years later he was sent to Washington, D.C., as a newly-elected US Senator.
The IWW were anarchists, not communists.
TGGP… are you getting that from wiki?
***************
“The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of the working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things of life. Between these two classes a struggle must go on until the workers of the world organize as a class, take possession of the means of production, abolish the wage system, and live in harmony with the Earth. … 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.”
*******************
sure sounds like communism to me, don’t ya think?
the word “anarchist” gets thrown around way too loosely by hippies and punks. they fail to grasp that “no government” means “no socialism”
Communist/anarchist: oddly hard to tell the difference in those days… When I read the work of ideological extremists in those days, I find myself grateful to Mises and Rothbard for finally putting it all together coherently.
One must be careful to make one’s intended meaning
known when using the terms “socialism” and “capitalism”
(as well as related terms) because they have undergone
polemic re-definition over the decades that causes a great
deal of confusion.
In the traditional sense, “capitalism” means the ownership
and control of the means of production by a class of
“capitalists” (in the traditional sense, the owners of capital,
or means of production used by workers other than the
capitalists/owners themselves) and an economic and political
system that favors this.
In the traditional sense, “socialism” means the ownership
and control of the means of production by the workers
themselves, whether as individuals, cooperatives, collectives,
communal groups, or through the state, and an economic
and political system that favors this. One should note that
this does not necessarily mean by the people as a whole,
nor does it necessarily mean state ownership, nor does it
necessarily imply a non-market form of organization;
historically, anarcho-individualism (e.g., in the free-
market form advocated by Benjamin Tucker) has been
an important form of socialism.
In the later re-definition, “socialism” means the ownership
and control of the means of production by the people as a
whole, generally by means of the state, or simply the
ownership and control of the means of production by the
state, or more broadly any form of central planning by
the state.
In the later re-definition, “capitalism” means the private
(non-government) ownership of the means of production,
and more generally the absence of central planning by the
state.
Matters have become especially confused because these
terms have been used in ways that include both the
traditional sense and the later re-definition of the terms.
Thus, Marxist-Leninists will define “socialism” in the
traditional sense, but at the same time refer to examples
of “socialism” in the later re-definition, in order to gain
support for totalitarian Bolshevik regimes that actually
destroy any examples of “socialism” in the traditional
sense; likewise, their “capitalist” opponents will do the
same, in order to support the belief that There Is No
Alternative (TINA) to “capitalism” other than a tyrannic
despotism. (In this connection, one should note that
according to Marx and Engels, the “dictatorship of the
proletariat” is a transitional stage between capitalism
and socialism/communism, which will not exist until
the state has withered away to nothing.)
In the same way, advocates of “capitalism” will define the
term with the later re-definition, but actually refer to concrete
examples that instead fit the original sense, even citing as
positive examples dictatorships such as Pinochet’s in Chile.
And just as with “socialism”, some opponents of
“capitalism” will do likewise in order to discredit it in the
sense of the later re-definition. At present, state-corporate
globalization, in which there is rule by states, corporations,
international financial institutions (IFIs), and the like, is
the typical form of “capitalism” actually advocated by
most avowed capitalists, rather than a truly free market.
This effectively means that there are (at the least) three
common usages of the terms “socialism” and “capitalism”,
and so it behoves one to make clear in what sense one is
using these and related terms, and to what empirical examples
one refers.
One should also note the term “state-capitalism”, used
by socialists (in the traditional sense) to refer to state
ownership and control of the means of production in
varying degrees ranging from capitalist dictatorships
such as Pinochet’s through to Marxist-Leninist
dictatorships such as the Bolshevik regimes. This
extends the traditional sense of “capitalism”, as the
state (at least partially) replaces the traditional “private”
capitalist class to varying degrees.
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo/
Unbelievable. LvMI has dug up more Garrett gold. Unthinkable that this could have been buried so deep. What great stuff. I’ll have to hurry up and start with Garrett’s works. Looking forward to Harangue being published.
Maybe it is also relevant that to this day, the democratic party in ND is called the Dem-NPL, reflecting on their merger in the 1950s. Though, if I remember correctly, the NPL was started by a bunch of republicans. The crazy economic ideas are still with ND, as seen by its State Bank, State Mill, progressive income tax, eleven constitutionally-mandated universities making ND taxpayers pay the most per capita for subsidizing higher ed, the dispute every legislative year about lifting the ban on “corporate” farming, and the recent mess in the Workforce Safety and Insurance agency.
Socialism never ever dies… it just changes its name.
Mises’s ‘Socialism’ addresses pretty much all forms of socialism, be they state-sponsored or anarchical.
Jeffrey Tucker: For those who don’t know, the I.W.W. was the American movement of Reds – hardcore communists of the pure Stalin variety.
This contains several different misrepresentations of the Industrial Workers of the World.
The I.W.W., although much reduced in membership, still exists. You can find them on the web at iww.org. I am am a dues-paying member, as are several other libertarians I could name.
The I.W.W. neither were nor are “hardcore communists.” There were communists who became members of the I.W.W., most of whom left for Daniel De Leon’s Socialist Labor Party within a few years, or for the Communist Party of the U.S.A. some years later. But the economic ideas promoted by the union itself are decentralist and syndicalist, and disavow state confiscation of the means of production. (Incidentally, if you check up on von Mises’s exchanges with Polanyi et al. during the socialist calculation debate, you’ll find that he concedes that rational calculation, while not possible under state socialism, is possible under syndicalism.)
The I.W.W. certainly neither were nor are Stalinists. When the I.W.W. was founded in 1905, Koba was still snitching for the Okhrana back in Georgia. In part because of the many anarchists in their ranks, and in part because of the Stalinist CPUSA’s repeated attempts to take control of U.S. labor unions for its own purposes, the I.W.W. largely detested Stalinism and Stalinists. The Industrial Worker ran anti-CPUSA cartoons, including one from the 1940s in which Communist operatives were depicted as a rat studying a union rule-book.
eric lansing: sure sounds like communism to me, don’t ya think?
No, it doesn’t.
Communism is the belief that all forms of private property, at least in the so-called “means of production,” should be abolished in favor of collective ownership, either by the State or by some central organization putatively representing the workers.
Communists might agree with the selections from the Preamble that you quote, but so would many others, including many anarchists. The Preamble does not specify that the means of production should be owned collectively by the whole community, or revolutionary expropriation by a “workers’ state,” or anything of the sort. Not surprisingly; the I.W.W. rejected those approaches in favor of industrial organizing, direct action, the general strike, and “forming the structure of the new society within the shell of the old.”
The IWW is syndicalist and anti-political.
Mises, in *Socialism,* doesn’t consider syndicalism a form of socialism, though he concedes that most socialists do.
Chaplin, in his *General Strike,* states that:
“At the present time [1930s] there is scarcely a Socialist, or Communist Party or Libertarian [Socialist] group anywhere in the world which does not contain minorities, at least that are frank in admitting that the class struggle is largely an industrial struggle and that the final victory must be won by industrial instead of political methods.”
My emphasis. The distinction between the economic/industrial means and the political means was familiar to the IWW – it was the core reason for the rivalry and opposition between the Socialist Party (political means) and the IWW (industrial means) after 1908. Also:
“Confidence in political action not only robs the worker of the initiative for independent action, it also leads him into that state of mind where he is willing to exchange one kind of dictatorship for another. The ultimate aim of the General Strike is not to substitute for the yoke of [state] capitalism, the yoke of the red republican, the fascist, the militarist– or any other yoke.”
Mises, in *Socialism,* doesn’t consider syndicalism a form of socialism, though he concedes that most socialists do.
Could you say where he says so? I’ve heard the claim before, and I’ve tried looking it up both in Human Action and Socialism, but couldn’t find it. He was right that socialists often claim that syndicalism is a socialist ideology.
Mises on syndicalism:
Wow, real commies on this thread! (just teasing)
I’m quite certain that Garrett (who was no Red baiter) portrayed them accurately as they were in 1920 or so, but it is also possible that I’m conglomerating several factions into one in calling them Stalinists. In the story, however, the whole “means to an end” issue gets quite mixed up to the point that results in horrible violence — and it made me think of Stalinism.
Anyway, IWW members should read this book. It’s about to be released again to the world.
Mises, Socialism, part 2, chapter 16:
Thanks Mike.
Jeffrey,
I look forward to the opportunity to read the book.
I would be interested to know to what extent Garret’s book portrays the local Wobblies as being directly involved in the Non-Partisan League’s activities. After all, it was the N.P.L., not the I.W.W. (which was not an electoral party) which won a majority in the legislature and pushed through the taxes, government-operated mills and banks, etc.
The articles that you cite don’t say much about active collaboration between the two on these kind of political measures, and neither does the (admittedly scattered) reading I’ve done on the topic elsewhere. The first article you link to describes an effort by I.W.W. members to rescue some of their comrades from a state jail, and has nothing in particular to do with the NPL, as far as I can see. The second article details some abortive plans for the agricultural department of the I.W.W. (A.I.W.U. 110) to make a private contract with farmers in the N.P.L., to the effect that the farmers in the N.P.L. would only hire A.I.W.U. workers, and the A.I.W.U. workers would only work for N.P.L. farmers. This is of course a perfectly legitimate labor contract between two independent parties, and disingenuously portrayed as “amalgamation” by government lawyers, who were in the process of prosecuting over a hundred Wobs for the political crime of organized opposition to St. Woodrow’s Holy War. In order to sex up their tyrannical prosecution, they had good reason for trying to portray the I.W.W. as more involved in political scheming than it actually was.
The N.P.L. has often been described as “sympathetic” to the I.W.W., compared with other state governments in the West, but that’s mainly used to mean that the N.P.L. was less aggressive than other state governments about punching their heads and locking them in cages for public speeches.
This isn’t to say that there wasn’t actual collaboration between some of the Wobblies in North Dakota and the state socialists in the N.P.L., beyond the issue of private labor contracts. There may have been; I haven’t read enough on the topic to say definitively. But the materials you cite here certainly don’t bolster my confidence that the North Dakota Wobblies are being fairly portrayed.
Oh I’m really happy to tell about what happens in the story. I didn’t know that anyone would be that interested!
So a bigshot from the NPL–under the guidance of Jael–goes there to administer New Freedom and oversee everything. But he needs a newspaper editor, asks him to come too, who turns out to be with the IWW and completely dedicated to this cult-like cause. This Wobbly brings many others with him, though he lies about their affiliation. The NPL tough has no idea that the whole thing is being directed toward IWW goals, but once he discovers he, he decides to take the prudent course and accept whatever allies he has. They decide to go as far as they can together. But as the experiment gets worse, the IWW grows in strength and the NPL recedes, eventually walking away and leaving the IWW to engage in extremist activity that sends the editor to jail. I’m a bit cautious about revealing more of the plot…
Let me add here that Garrett is a serious novelist, so there are no white hats or blacks hats here. In general I would say that the NPL comes across here as opportunistic and cowardly, whereas the IWW comes across as principled and courageous — but all the more dangerous for being so. In general, however, Garrett isn’t out to score easy points; it is a piece of historical sociology with deeper lessons. Look at the subtitle for clues.
Human Action, Chapter XXXIII. Syndicalism and Corporativism.
Ok, one final comment. Let me say that I do not relish my role here as being the sole interpreter of this book, to which I am pretty much the only one who has quick access as of now. I do look forward to hearing everyone else’s thoughts on this book when it appears online and in the store in a matter of a week or so.
TGGP:
There’s no question but that the IWW was a Red (as in Russian-style communist) organization.
I had an aunt who was an organizer for the IWW and later, for the ILGWU (garment workers). She was a hardcore communist throughout her life, full of “throw off the shackles,” “comes the revolution..,” etc., etc. When young, she travelled all over the country in organizing efforts; otherwise, she spent her entire life as a
seamstress. Amazingly, she finally actually figured out for herself (at about age 85) the impossibility of socialism and the plain commonsense superiority of capitalism and free markets.
The thing that converted her was an extensive experience with the kibbutz system in Israel, with which she was intimately involved over a long period. her conclusion was that it was an entirely sham system which relied on forms of moral intimidation (in which you’d be a “bad person” if you didn’t obey and produce) to achieve production levels which would have been laughable in comparison to commercial enterprise.
But the one facet that drove it home for her was an eventual recognition that the system would have collaped much earlier were it not for a large, virtually unending stream of starry-eyed young folk from (mainly) the U.S. whose labor was contributed virtually free in return for the “privelege” of the experience. Further, the lackluster performance of the inhabitants was constantly being pushed by a regular practice of using experienced (also visiting) production workers from the U.S. carefully placed so that their established, customary work speed could serve to “pace” the rest.
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