THESES ON THE DEGENERACY OF THE INDUSTRIAL WORKERS OF THE WORLD AS A GENUINE PROLETARIAN ORGANIZATION

1. Since its heyday in the early 20th century, the IWW has degenerated into a grotesque shell of its former revolutionary proletarian self. Once the closest realization of “the party” in the United States and beyond, the IWW is now a haven for ragtag leftists, lifestyle evangelists, historical re-enactors, moralist-scold anarchists, and labor lusters who would just as soon join the SEIU or an AFL-CIO union if they had open membership. This is not a reflection on workers who get involved with organizing campaigns at their workplace, but rather those who have made the IWW their personal ideological clubhouse.

2. For much too long, the IWW has fetishized decentralization and autonomy. This has led to small cliques and personal fiefdoms in elected union offices. It is not unusual to see members running for union office unopposed in yearly elections. Members who have held the same office for multiple years with nobody running against them become comfortable and complacent.

3. This trend toward decentralization has led to a complete mishmash of ideologies and ideas left to infect and fester in the IWW, which has led to the promotion of all sorts of concepts which fly in the face of the preamble. These include, but are not limited to, support for $15 minimum wage, cooperatives, and no coordination at the branch level. Reformist cretinism has no place in a revolutionary union, leave that for parliamentary cretinism.

4. The union’s newspaper, Industrial Worker, is at this point a waste of money and resources, printing only feel good articles and nothing else. For several years now, an IW website has been promised and has yet to happen, with little sign of it coming down the road. For all intents and purposes, it’s still strictly a print newspaper with a PDF posted onto a third party website for online viewing. This is an embarrassment. At the moment, the paper is only good for lining cat litter trays. The money spent each year on the IW could be better spent elsewhere, such as toward organizing funds or a strike fund (see point 9).

5. The communication between branches is a complete shambles. Only those most engaged and with the least amount of a social life are able to keep up with events union wide. There is no single news source, no single twitter or facebook account, just a myriad of half updated accounts.

6. There is a complete and utter incestuous degeneracy of revolutionary praxis (and even syndicalist praxis) with the adoption of activism. This is mostly a means to waste our time, so that people feel like they are doing something rather than trying to integrate with the class at large. With focus on soft and easy targets and an abandonment and lack of understanding that this abandonment has occurred, of a class theory of history, the reason for the existence of the IWW, and the fact that we are a union and need to have workers in it.

7. The self absorbed navel gazing in regards to organizational approaches and inner orientation as compared to an actual orientation towards the class. The IWW can no longer be a social club for pretend revolutionaries.

8. The Union pretends to not have an historic position on political economy, forsaking the intellectual heritage of revolutionary class politics that used to be the backbone of the union. Marx’s analysis was heavily used to form that backbone and is exactly why we emphasize proletarian politics from a marxist view. The program of the IWW must include investigation into political economy.

9. As far as any of us are aware, there is no strike fund in the IWW. How can the IWW consider itself a union with no form of emergency fund for IWW workers who are caught in the bad end of an organizing campaign? Your “solidarity” means nothing without this basic material necessity, and a crowdfunding campaign launched at the last minute won’t cut it. Perhaps some of the thousands of dollars which are thrown away on the Industrial Worker each year could go toward a strike fund.

10. The focus of gender equality in the organization over political ability. As a woman, there is a preference over my sex over my ability as someone with an insight into political economy and ideology, which was never taken into account at all. This often results in situations where the political ends of a proposal are never taken into account, just as long as there is “gender balance”.

“It would be better if these endless and useless adventures that are daily exhausting the working masses were all channelled, merged and organized into one great, comprehensive upsurge aimed directly at the heart of the enemy bourgeoisie.” – Amadeo Bordiga, “Seize Power or Seize the Factory?”