Industrial Democracy and Work Safety

Industrial Democracy and Work Safety

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Today, no one dares to say that the history of mankind is the history of class struggles. Both the proletarian and the peasant, and the industrialist and the entrepreneur are words that have a new meaning in the new millennium. When these ideas and concepts emerged, workers' resistance took the form of ludicrous destruction of machines, street fights, and strikes ended in bloody clashes and lynchings. Revolts due to famine, sudden increases in the prices of basic necessities, mass panic, were not isolated incidents but a frequent occurrence. The use of force, police and army in quelling the resistance was not only the last resort in the threatening revolutions but the usual order and threat of the rule of law. Even revolutions were not conceived and planned as military actions. It was about sudden and frantic events in which the despair of a hard life turned into violence, processions in the streets that broke more out of fear than according to a contingent plan. When Mikhail Bakunin (as described by Richard Wagner) organized the uprising in Dresden in 1849, (or in Lyon in 1870), the uprising resembled a bad operetta. For example, he puts a picture of Raphael's Madonna on the walls - because „(...) Germans are raised too well to shoot art“. Poor workers follow him to the barricades and listen to crazy ideas about blowing up the whole city. The miners dig all night, and in the morning they learn that there is no gunpowder. Strikes do not resemble organized protests at all, because if the reasons are known, they are usually trivial. Conspiracy organizations are movements to which only occasionally strong leaders inspire a goal or write programs.


  • ISBN: 953-7177-11-4
  • Number of pages: 382
  • Year of the edition: 2006