to reduce his socialism
to practice," write the Webbs, "this was certainly the very worst. For
his short-lived communities there was at least this excuse: that within
their own area they were to be perfectly homogeneous little socialist
States. There were to be no conflicting sections, and profit-making and
competition were to be effectually eliminated. But in 'the Trades
Union,' as he conceived it, the mere combination of all the workmen in a
trade as cooeperative producers no more abolished commercial competition
than a combination of all the employers in it as a joint stock company.
In effect, his Grand Lodges would have been simply the head offices of
huge joint stock companies owning the entire means of production in
their industry, and subject to no control by the community as a whole.
They would, therefore, have been in a position at any moment to close
their ranks and admit fresh generations of workers only as employees at
competitive wages instead of as shareholders, thus creating at one
stroke a new capitalist class and a new proletariat.[29] ... In short,
the socialism of Owen led him to propose a practical scheme which was
not even socialistic, and which, if it could possibly have been carried
out, would have simply arbitrarily redistributed the capital of the
country without altering or superseding the capitalist system in the
least."[30]

Although this "group socialism" would certainly necessitate a Parliament
in order to harmonize the conflicting interests of the various
productive associations, there is nothing, it appears, that the
syndicalist so much abhors. He is never quite done with picturing the
burlesque of parliamentarism. While, no doubt, this is a necessary
corollary to his antagonism to the State, it is aggravated by the fact
that one of the chief ends of a political party is to put its
representatives into Parliament. The syndicalist, in ridiculing all
parliamentary activity, is at the same time, therefore, endeavoring to
prove the folly of political action. That you cannot bring into the
world a new social order by merely passing laws is something the
syndicalist never wearies of pointing out. Parliamentarism, he likes to
repeat, is a new superstition that is weakening the activity and
paralyzing the mentality of the working class. "The superstitious belief
in parliamentary action," Leone says, " ... ascribes to acts of
Parliament the magic power of bringing about new social forces."[31]
So