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Syndicalism and Anarchism |
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by Errico Malatesta |
02 Sep 2005
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"There is no longer anyone who does not understand what the workers' organisation means, to us anarchists more than to anyone, believing as we do that the new social organisation must not and cannot be imposed by a new government by force but must result from the free cooperation of all. Moreover, the labour movement is now an important and universal institution. To oppose it would be to become the oppressors' accomplices; to ignore it would be to put us out of reach of people's everyday lives and condemn us to perpetual powerlessness. Yet, while everyone, or almost everyone, is in agreement on the usefulness and the need for the anarchists to take an active part in the labour movement and to be its supporters and promoters, we often disagree among ourselves on the methods, conditions and limitations of such involvement." |
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Texts :: critics |
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The Labour Movement and Anarchism |
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by Errico Malatesta |
02 Sep 2005
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"It can happen - indeed, it often happens - that the founders of workers' associations are men of ideas about radical social change and who profit from the needs felt by the mass of the people to arouse a desire for change that would suit their own goals. They gather round them comrades of like mind: activists determined to fight for the interests of others even at the expense of their own, and form workers' associations that are in reality political groups, revolutionary groups, for which questions of wages, hours, internal workplace regulations, are a side issue and serve rather as a pretext for attracting the majority to their own ideas and plans. But before long, as the number of members grows, short-term interests gain the upper hand, revolutionary aspirations become an obstacle and a danger, 'pragmatic' men, conservatives, reformists, eager and willing to enter into any agreement and accommodation arising from the circumstances of the moment, clash with the idealists and hardliners, and the workers' organisation becomes what it perforce must be in a capitalist society - a means not for refusing to recognise and overthrowing the bosses, but simply for hedging round and limiting the bosses' power." |
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Texts :: critics |
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Further Thoughts on Anarchism and the Labour Movement |
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by Errico Malatesta |
02 Sep 2005
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"I am against syndicalism, both as a doctrine and a practice, because it strikes me as a hybrid creature that puts its faith, not necessarily in reformism as Santillan sees it, but in classist exclusiveness and authoritarianism. I favour the labour movement because I believe it to be the most effective way of raising the morale of the workers and because, too, it is a grand and universal enterprise that can be ignored only by those who have lost their grip on real life. At the same time I am well aware that, setting out as it does to protect the short-term interests of the workers, it tends naturally to reformism and cannot, therefore, be confused with the anarchist movement itself." |
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Texts :: critics |
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The Bourgeois Roots of Anarcho-Syndicalism |
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by Green Anarchy |
02 Sep 2005
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"Like the anarcho-syndicalists quoted above, the bourgeoisie wanted a "society of freedom and equality, without authoritarianism or exploitation." Leave out the parts about "workers" and "the employing class" and Thomas Paine might have written the quote ... Of course, the anarcho-syndicalists will tell us that they aren't using the words in the way the bourgeois revolutionaries did. I'd take them at their word if it weren't for the fact that anarcho-syndicalism reflects bourgeois ideology in much more significant ways than merely borrowing its terminology. The values upheld by anarcho-syndicalists do not significantly differ from those of the more radical of the bourgeois liberal theorists, and their project, upon examination, proves to be merely the extension of the liberal project." |
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Texts :: critics |
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Anarcho-Syndicalism, its Strengths and Weaknesses |
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by Alan MacSimóin |
02 Sep 2005
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"The weakness of syndicalism is rooted in its view of why workers are tied to capitalism, and its view of what is necessary to make the revolution. Spain in 1936/7 represented the highest point in anarcho-syndicalist organisation and achievement. Because of their a-politicism they were unable to develop a programme for workers' power, to wage a political battle against other currents in the workers' movement (such as reformism and Stalinism). Indeed syndicalists seem to ignore other ideas more often than combating them. In Spain they were unable to give a lead to the entire class by fighting for complete workers' power." |
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Texts :: critics |
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Anarcho-Syndicalism, an Individualistic Middle Class Trend |
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by Communist Party of New Zealand |
02 Sep 2005
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"Trade unions alone cannot satisfy the organisational needs of the militant proletariat. This is because they cannot go beyond the limits of capitalism, for their object is to improve the conditions of the workers under the capitalist system. The workers, however, want to free themselves entirely from capitalist slavery, they want to smash these limits, and not merely operate within the limits of capitalism." |
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Texts :: analysis |
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Wage Labour and Capital |
by Karl Marx
Previously published: Neue Rheinische Zeitung, April 5-8 and 11, 1849 |
29 Aug 2005
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But the exercise of labour power, labour, is the worker's own life-activity, the manifestation of his own life. And this life-activity he sells to another person in order to secure the necessary means of subsistence. Thus his life-activity is for him only a means to enable him to exist. He works in order to live. He does not even reckon labour as part of his life, it is rather a sacrifice of his life. It is a commodity which he has made over to another. Hence, also, the product of his activity is not the object of his activity. What he produces for himself is not the silk that he weaves, not the gold that he draws from the mine, not the palace that he builds. What he produces for himself is wages, and silk, gold, palace resolve themselves for him into a definite quantity of the means of subsistence, perhaps into a cotton jacket, some copper coins and a lodging in a cellar. And the worker, who for twelve hours weaves, spins, drills, turns, builds, shovels, breaks stones, carries loads, etc. -- does he hold this twelve hours' weaving, spinning, drilling, turning, building, shovelling, stone-breaking to be a manifestation of his life, to be life? |
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Texts :: analysis |
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The Revolutionary Pleasure Of Thinking For Yourself |
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by Anonymous |
29 Aug 2005
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"This is a manual for those who wish to think for themselves, a manual for creation of a personally (rather than ideologically) constructed body of critical thought for your own use, a body of thought which will help you to understand why your life is the way it is and why the world is the way it is. More importantly, as you construct your own theory, you will also develop a practice: a method to get what you want for your own life. Theory, then, must be either practical-a guide to action-or it will be nothing, nothing but an aquarium of ideas, a contemplative interpretation of the world. The realm of ideas divorced from actions is the eternal waiting room of unrealised desires. Forming your own practical theory, what could be called "self-theory," is intimately connected to achieving the realization of your desires." |
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The Importance of Being Idle |
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by Nic Townsend |
29 Aug 2005
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"So you've finished your VCE and suddenly you've found yourself at university. If you're here with expectations of intellectual enlightenment and a fulfilling learning experience, you're about to be disappointed. If you're here with expectations of heavy workloads and lots of late nights studying, then you're in for a pleasant surprise . . . Through my own experiences I have learned the ins and outs of the Way of the Bludger, and as I embark on my final year of study, a feel a responsibility to pass down my knowledge to a new generation of disciples." |
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Texts :: analysis |
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Kill or Chill: Analysis of the Opposition to the Criminal Justice Bill |
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by Aufheben |
29 Aug 2005
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"No amount of rights can compensate for the absolute poverty of the proletarian condition. The world of rights is founded upon our alienation. Rights define, not freedom, but its limits. Real freedom can only come about through the dissolution of this world of rights, the restoration of our creative capacities unto ourselves in a world where the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all. Communism [sic] abolishes rights in favour of free determination, the production first and foremost of ourselves as social individuals with richly developed needs and desires. The lobby for rights on the other hand serves to maintain this stinking rotten world of work and duty, unfreedom and poverty." |
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