It’s a Wonderful Life: My Semester with the Wobblies
I was watching Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life over Christmas break this year, and it got me thinking about the Industrial Workers of the World. I suppose that is one of the side effects of a Wabash liberal arts education: It can pollute a perfectly good movie with horribly academic thoughts. My preoccupation with the IWW should not be surprising. I spent a great deal of time with the Wobblies (as they were always known) over the fall semester, reading their published propaganda and the minutes from their conventions as research for my senior history paper — and for the time being, they are stuck in the back of my mind, prone to surface on random and unwelcome occasions. On the bright side of this, another consequence of my liberal arts education is that I am able to find meaning in such thoughts, and spending time with the Wobblies has helped me better appreciate not only the film It’s a Wonderful Life, but also my own conservative beliefs.
The Wobblies were a radical band of left-wing laborers seeking to unite the world into “One Big Union” of the working class. Those who believe that the community organizers of ACORN are the most radically liberal players to ever grace the American stage would do well to research the Wobblies and their sympathizers. These union members were so left-wing, they would have scared the living daylights out of President Obama. They did, in fact, frighten Obama’s predecessor, Woodrow Wilson, and many of that president’s harshest policies — from the Espionage Act of 1917 to the Palmer raids — were directed specifically at breaking the IWW’s back. You see, the Wobblies opposed President Wilson’s war, and they did so for very interesting reasons: not because the war killed their union’s members, but because the war killed their class consciousness. The IWW’s resolution condemning the First World War made the claim that the “ever-growing agitation for military preparedness” in the United States was “clouding the main issues and delaying the realization of our ultimate aim with patriotic and therefore capitalistic aspirations.” Their “ultimate aim” was class revolution. War whipped up patriotic fervor — an allegiance to country instead of class — and such an allegiance sabotaged their efforts to create a working class consciousness which would help the proletariat rise up against its capitalist oppressors.
It was for this reason that the Wobblies despised patriotism, and it was for this reason that they despised all other identity constructs that put any allegiance above class. Nationalism, race, gender, political parties, and especially religion, were all targets of the Wobblies, and were all deconstructed as either unimportant or, much worse, tools of the capitalist bourgeoisie.
It is for this reason, also, that the Wobblies would have hated It’s a Wonderful Life. The film, on its surface, does not seem to be something that would draw their ire. Although both Frank Capra and Jimmy Stewart were conservative Republicans, their writers tended to be fairly liberal, and it shows in many Capra plots. From Mr. Deeds Goes to Town to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, the antagonists tend to be rich capitalists, bent on increasing their own wealth at the expense of the working class. It’s a Wonderful Life is no exception. The film’s Mr. Potter plays the part of the wealthy villain, rapaciously denying the good people of Bedford Falls a decent standard of living in a scheme to increase his own power. The main protagonist, George Bailey, meanwhile, takes the role of the bleeding heart liberal, altruistically providing the poor townspeople with bad home loans that might even give Barney Frank pause. Despite all of these liberal tones, the film has one element that radically shifts its ideological direction, and would have made the Wobblies scream in protest: the presence of a higher power.
Can you imagine It’s a Wonderful Life without God — without an angel to step in and show the economically-frustrated George Bailey his life’s true meaning? With the introduction of God, a film that could easily have been about using collective action to achieve material goals suddenly becomes a film about appreciating life’s eternal treasures instead. George Bailey does not lead a proletariat uprising against Mr. Potter and his wealthy cronies, but rather takes refuge in the camaraderie of his family and community members and solace in the fact that he had lived his life for others — all because a higher power assures him that that is where life’s true meaning is found.
For the Wobblies, this would represent the epitome of religion’s coercive influence. They would have seen the presence of God as limiting George Bailey’s economic potential and keeping him in a state of foolish contentment. “Jesus saves the willing slaves” was a popular slogan among the Wobbly ranks. “Trust in the LORD and sleep in the street” was another. IWW songwriter Joe Hill wrote popular parodies of Christian hymns, such as “There is Power in the Union,” which urged listeners to abandon “the blood of the lamb” and instead join the “grand Industrial band.” Much as patriotism sabotaged their efforts during times of war, religion sabotaged their efforts during times of peace. Religion creates the ultimate allegiance beyond class — an allegiance to a being that is completely intangible and supremely powerful.
Even those Wobblies who did consider themselves spiritual held religious views that more resembled their predetermined Marxist ideas than any Biblical model. Eugene V. Debs was a famous — and relatively moderate — Wobbly who held an affection for the historical figure known in radical union circles as “Fellow Worker Christ.” When Debs was arrested for speaking out against the First World War, he even went so far as to display a portrait of Jesus on his jail cell wall. But his understanding of Christ was almost purely based on class. Debs once described Jesus as “the master proletarian revolutionist and sower of social whirlwind” who “hated and denounced the rich and cruel exploiter as passionately as he loved and sympathized with his poor and suffering victim.” In his view, Christ had to be opposed to capitalism because human behavior — even human religious behavior — was a result of economics and class. “We know that economic conditions determine man’s conduct toward man,” he once said. “Christianity is impossible under capitalism. Under Socialism, it will be natural.”
All of this is incredibly silly and single-minded. To think that human nature would fundamentally change given a different set of economic circumstances is to deny that men have any choice at all. This reveals an obsession with class that is a reoccurring theme in any serious study of the IWW. It is not an exaggeration to say that the Wobblies saw class revolution as the solution to nearly every significant problem. They viewed class revolution as a solution to gender problems. They viewed class revolution as a solution to race problems. They thought that class revolution would end war. Class revolution was essential to them, and a consciousness of class was necessary to accomplish that goal. Any idea that stood in the way of that goal was forcefully and zealously attacked.
I have come to appreciate even more through my study of the IWW that fulfillment in life is much more than simple economic comfort. Frank Capra had a much more realistic and meaningful view of life than did the Wobblies. The message of It’s a Wonderful Life is that most dreams don’t really come true, that you’re probably not going to be rich and famous and travel the world, and that life at times is going to be extremely difficult — but all of that’s all right, because there are much more important things than your own self-advancement. The film is about living your life for others — not for an abstract “proletariat,” but for the real people you come into contact with every day. It is about having a real impact in your community, and building social trust with your neighbors — not relying on an impersonal national government to bail you out.
Conservatives are often accused of being motivated solely by economic self-advancement, but it seems to me that that is a characteristic of the left more than the right. Conservatives are not uncomfortable engaging with eternal things. This riles the left tremendously. Their message, to this day, is of material things. That’s why they throw fits when places like McPherson County, Nebraska — the poorest county in America — vote overwhelmingly for George W. Bush. That’s why liberal commentators like Ed Schultz can cry “Where’s the middle class?” in Massachusetts when voters shock the establishment and elect Scott Brown. That’s why the only explanation Barack Obama could muster for why he wasn’t performing well politically in some parts of Pennsylvania was that the residents were “bitter” and economically-frustrated, clinging to guns and religion. The left’s focus is on material things. They seem perplexed by everything else.
With an understanding of the important things, your life will be given more fulfillment than could ever be provided by the hypothetical economic utopia of a proletariat revolution. That is not to say that it won’t be difficult or sometimes frustrating — but with a focus on life’s higher purpose, it will be wonderful nonetheless.
Related posts:
