Politics & Power Quote by Daniel De Leon

Make no mistake is not a flourish here; its a warning shot. De Leon is writing in the key of hard-headed organizing, trying to discipline a movement that, in his view, kept splitting itself into boutique strategies: unions that refused politics, parties that treated the shop floor as someone else's problem. His insistence on both "economic and political" organization is a rejection of purity culture before the term existed. If capital coordinates workplace power (control over jobs, wages, production) with state power (laws, courts, police, elections), then meeting it on only one terrain is not moral restraint; its tactical surrender.

The subtext is also about time and leverage. Economic action alone can win concessions, but it is vulnerable to injunctions, strikebreaking, and legislative rollback. Political action alone can produce speeches and platforms, but without the credible threat of disruption it becomes a petition to power, not a transfer of it. De Leon is arguing that the working class needs an institution that can strike and legislate, with each side reinforcing the other.

Context matters: the late 19th and early 20th century US saw brutal labor conflict, an expanding corporate order, and a state often deployed to secure "order" against workers. De Leon, a leading figure in the Socialist Labor Party, pushed a vision that fused socialist politics with industrial unionism. "Attack him on both" isnt bloodlust; its a theory of power stated with the bluntness of someone tired of watching good intentions lose to better organization.