ABSTRACT
The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) understanding and critique of capitalism drew largely upon “classical” Marxian arguments. These arguments, at least in the minds of Wobblies, justified their tactical positions of direct action and the general strike, their ethical-theoretical position that workers not the bosses should control their jobs and hence their working lives, and their theoretical-revolutionary position of taking possession of the earth and the machinery of production and abolishing the wage system. However, the core of Marxian economic theory is not as sound as the Wobblies believed one hundred years ago, which means that robust arguments supporting job control and revolution may not exist. The aim of this chapter is to examine this predicament and offer an alternative set of arguments. Thus the second section of the chapter briefly covers the IWW's Marxian critique of capitalism and its justification of direct action for increasing wages and job control and of the general strike for abolishing capitalism and the wage system. The third section outlines an alternative heterodox economics framework for the examination of capitalism, while the fourth section examines its theoretical relationship to job control and revolution. The final section concludes the chapter.
