[Marxism] For An Organization of Intellectual Workers

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

(This is a statement made by Albert Einstein on joining the Academic Union)

For An Organization of Intellectual Workers

by Albert Einstein

I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual 
workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status 
and also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field.

On the first-mentioned, the economic side, the working class may 
serve us as a model: they have succeeded, at least to some extent, in 
protecting their economic interests. We can learn from them too how 
this problem can be solved by the method of organization. And also, 
we can learn from them what is our gravest danger, which we ourselves 
must seek to avoid: the weakening through inner dissensions, which, 
when things reach that point, make cooperation difficult and result 
in quarrels between the constituent groups.

But again, we can also learn from the workers that limitation to 
immediate economic aims, to the exclusion of all political goals and 
effective action, will not suffice either. In this respect, the 
working classes in this country have only begun their development. It 
is inevitable, considering the progressive centralization of 
production, that the economic and the political struggle should 
become more and more closely interwoven, the political factor 
continually growing in significance in the process. In the meantime, 
the intellectual worker, due to his lack of organization, is less 
well protected against arbitrariness and exploitation than a member 
of any other calling.

But intellectual workers should unite, not only in their own interest 
but also and no less importantly in the interest of society as a 
whole. For division among intellectuals has been partly to blame for 
the fact that the special parts and the experience which are the 
birthright of these groups have so seldom been made available for 
political aims. In their room, political ambition and desire for 
profit almost exclusively determine events, instead of professional 
knowledge and judgement based on objective thinking.

An organization of intellectual workers can have the greatest 
significance for society as a whole by influencing public opinion 
through publicity and education. Indeed it is its proper task to 
defend academic freedom, without which a healthy development of 
democracy is impossible.

An outstandingly important task for an organization of intellectual 
workers at the present moment is to fight for the establishment of a 
supranational political force as a protection against fresh wars of 
aggression. It seems to me that the working out with a view to 
selection of a particular plan for an international government should 
not, at the present moment, be our chief aim. For if there existed, 
among the majority of citizens, the firm intention of establishing 
international security, the technique of giving shape to such an 
instrument would not present an all-too-difficult problem. What is 
lacking in the majority is the conviction, founded on clear thinking, 
that there is no other means of permanently avoiding catastrophes 
like the present one. In the organization and promotion of 
enlightenment on this subject, I see the most important service which 
an organization of intellectual workers.

  


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