It has no participation in the ownership of industry. It is claimed that it might withdraw its labor power and in this manner break down the entire economic system. It is urged that labor alone is absolutely necessary to production and that if, in a great general strike, it should cease production, the whole of society would be forced to capitulate. And in theory this seems unassailable, but actually it has no force whatever. In the first place, this economic power does not exist unless the workers are organized and are practically unanimous in their action. Furthermore, the economic position of the workers is one of utter helplessness at the time of a universal strike, in that they cannot feed themselves. As they are the nearest of all classes to starvation, they will be the first to suffer by a stoppage of work. There is still another vital weakness in this so-called economic theory. The battles that result from a general strike will not be on the industrial field. They will be battles between the armed agents of the State and unarmed masses of hungry men. Whatever economic power the workers are said to possess would, in that case, avail them little, for the results of their struggles would depend upon the military power which they would be able to manifest. The individual worker has no economic power, nor has the minority, and it may even be questioned if the withdrawal of all the organized workers could bring society to its knees. Multitudes of the small propertied classes, of farmers, of police, of militiamen, and of others would immediately rush to the defense of society in the time of such peril. It is only the working class theoretically conceived of as a conscious unit and as practically unanimous in its revolutionary aims, in its methods, and in its revolt which can be considered as the ultimate economic power of modern society. The day of such a conscious and enlightened solidarity is, however, so far distant that the syndicalism which is based upon it falls of itself into a fantastic dream. FOOTNOTES: [W] His words are: "What is the General Confederation of Labor, if not the continuation of the International?" _Documents et Souvenirs_, Vol. IV, p. vii. [X] In justice to the French unions it must be said that a large number, probably a considerable majority, do not share these views. The views of the latter are almost identical with those of the American and English unions; but at present the new anarchists are in the saddle, although their power appears to be waning. [Y] See pp. 234, 235, _supra_. [Z] See p. 52, _supra_.