A BOOK which purports to discuss some of the most important problems of Modern Trade Unionism cannot help raising many new questions concerning other institutions, especially when the answers given to the Trade Union problems visualize the coming of a new society in which the economic and social foundations, and therefore the structure, will be different from those of to-day. To attempt to answer all the new questions concerning the effect of, for example, “Workers’ Control of Industry” on the Parliamentary Institution and various State departments would be interesting and worth while.
But although I am conscious that these questions do arise, I have in this book necessarily confined myself to dealing with the Trade Unions, their structure, policy, and future in relation to the coming of Socialism, and in no sense have I attempted to give a complete picture of the structure of Socialist society.
In its critical aspects, the book is intended as a challenge to those who, I think, under-estimate the future of the Trade Unions. In its positive aspects it is a call to the workers in industry to make the Trade Unions into more effective instruments of the struggle for Socialism.
I wish to thank Mr. H. N. Brailsford for his helpful foreword, and Mr. William Mellor, Mr J. F. Horrabin, and Mr. F. W. Hickinbottom for their useful criticisms and suggestions.
J. T. M.
Next: Foreword