Editorial: The Right to Work. (1905)

Editorial from the December 1905 issue of the Socialist Standard

The very latest is a ”Right to Work Committee” upon which, a number of middle-class persons and some who have discovered that labour “leadering” is more easy and profitable than work have elected themselves. The “right” they clamour for is not for themselves but for others. They “appeal” to the working-class to “demand” from the dominant class more work, when already too much is performed. They would perpetuate the capitalist system by shewing the wealthy shirkers how they may stave off the day of reckoning and save their skins for awhile if they will accept their proposals and make work. For our part we say To Hell with the “Right” to Work; we claim our Right to Live and to live right well. Let us scorn these middle class decoy ducks and organise to bring about the common ownership of the means of life, which alone will enable us to secure the only Right we are concerned about. Then and not till then shall we recognise our obligation to perform our share of the necessary work. In the meantime, our Right to work is the Right of the wealthy idlers to organise our labour as their wage slaves. The “demand” for that Right we will leave to the agents of the capitalists, whether in the guise of middle class sympathisers or well paid labour “leaders.”