Le Sabotage

First published in 1913, this is the foundational text of revolutionary labor theory, a fierce and intellectually rigorous defense of sabotage as a weapon of the working class. Emile Pouget traces the etymology of the word itself from its origins in peasant rebellion through to its modern incarnation as deliberate work slowdown, on-the-job disruption, and the strategic withholding of productivity. He argues with sharp logic and historical evidence that when bosses hold all the power, when courts and police and troops serve capital rather than labor, the worker has only one remaining form of leverage: the power to stop. The book dissects tactics like the "Go Canny" method, where workers deliberately perform their tasks with calculated mediocrity to protest exploitation, and examines when and why sabotage becomes not just justified but necessary. Pouget wrote this during a turbulent era of labor battles, and his preface by Kerr even notes the Socialist Party's explosive debate over "Section Six" and whether advocating sabotage meant expulsion. This is a document of its time and a provocation for all times: it asks whether the worker who builds the机器 but owns nothing has the right to withhold the very work that keeps the system running.