ABSTRACT
The American labour movement must assume that, it can change the law only by building the democracy of the United States on different economic foundations. The American labour movement has always operated, in the main, on the assumption that trade-unions exist in a capitalist world the framework of which they do not seek to change; and they have seen their chief functions, first, in maintaining the right of the workers to bargain collectively, and, second, to get the best conditions on the job that their bargaining power makes possible. The weakness in the approach of American labour to politics is the vital one that it has taken its theory of the State from the employers and asked only for concessions and adjustments on the ground that the American government, as the agent of the State power, is a neutral and mediating force among the different elements in society.
