ABSTRACT
The covert and ambiguous nature of much industrial sabotage sounds like a good reason for steering clear of the topic; especially as so many examples look like ‘irrational’ pieces of behaviour, sudden gratuitous acts which may be explained only by reference to the idiosyncratic character of their perpetrator. So individuals who behave in ways which are often regarded as irrational may go along with the general opinion by admitting that they acted in such a way because they were, ‘drunk’, ‘overcome’, ‘temporarily incapacitated’. Industrial damage inspired by such self-conscious, even ‘political’ motivation has been a common element in the history of industrial disputes. At times, sabotage was specifically recommended by anarchists and socialists as a viable method of achieving industrial ends. Sabotage in popular usage does carry with it the idea of a specific target — the boss, the government, even the ‘economy’.
