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Texts :: theory |
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The American Labor Movement - A New Beginning |
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by Sam Dolgoff |
04 Sep 2005
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"The American labor movement as it exists today, is the result of the interaction, over many decades, of business unionism and revolutionary unionism. Its major defects stem from the former and its constructive tendencies come from the latter. It is necessary to examine the revolutionary syndicalist tradition of the American labour movement, the better to understand the path that must be followed for its regeneration and further progress." |
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Texts :: theory |
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Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism |
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by Rudolf Rocker |
04 Sep 2005
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"Anarchism recognises only the relative significance of ideas, institutions, and social conditions. It is, therefore not a fixed, self enclosed social system, but rather a definite trend in the historical development of mankind, which, in contrast with the intellectual guardianship of all clerical and governmental institutions, strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Even freedom is only a relative, not an absolute concept, since it tends constantly to broaden its scope and to affect wider circles in manifold ways. For the Anarchist, freedom is not an abstract philosophical concept, but the vital concrete possibility for every human being to bring to full development all capacities and talents with which nature has endowed him, and turn them to social account. The less this natural development of man is interfered with by ecclesiastical or political guardianship, the more efficient and harmonious will human personality become, the more will it become the measure of the intellectual culture of the society in which it has grown." |
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Texts :: theory |
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Anarchism and the Labor Movement - A Shared History of Conflict and Cooperation |
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by Brian Oliver Sheppard |
04 Sep 2005
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"Luigi Galleani wrote that the "anarchist movement and the labor movement follow two parallel lines, and it has been geometrically proven that parallel lines never meet." (Galleani's comments were, I noticed, prefaced with a note by the editors that they "disagree strongly with" some of Galleani's ideas.) While no mathemetician would argue with Galleani's geometry, a historian might: the real history of the anarchist and labor movements can not be framed in terms so simple or absolute." |
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Texts :: theory |
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Anarchism and the Workers' Unions |
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by Fernand Pelloutier |
04 Sep 2005
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"Suppose now that, on the day the revolution breaks out, virtually every single producer is organised into the unions: will these not represent, ready to step into the shoes of the present organisation, a quasi-libertarian organisation, in fact suppressing all political power, an organisation whose every part, being master of the instruments of production, would settle all of its affairs for itself, in sovereign fashion and through the freely given consent of its members? And would this not amount to the "free association of free producers?" |
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Texts :: theory |
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Anarchism in Australia |
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by Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation (ASF) |
04 Sep 2005
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"Anarcho-syndicalists see the workplace and the community intimately intertwined, and organises on the bases of local groups and industrial associations. This is a logical consequence of our dual aim -- to struggle for better conditions within existing structures and to build now the structures necessary for the establishment of an anarchist society. Anarcho-syndicalists clearly see the need to have workplace activity supported in the community, and community activity supported in the workplace. Either without the other is ineffective." |
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Texts :: theory |
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Anarcho-Syndicalism |
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by Rudolf Rocker |
04 Sep 2005
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"The term "workers' syndicate" meant in France merely a trade union organisation of producers for the immediate betterment of their economic and social status. But the rise of Anarcho-Syndicalism gave this original meaning a much wider and deeper import. Just as the party is, so to speak, the unified organisation for definite political effort within the modern constitutional state, and seeks to maintain the bourgeois order in one form or another, so, according to the Syndicalist view, the trade union, the syndicate, is the unified organisation of labour and has for its purpose the defence of the interests of the producers within existing society and the preparing for and the practical carrying out of the reconstruction of social life after the pattern of Socialism. It has, therefore, a double purpose: 1. As the fighting organisation of the workers against the employers to enforce the demands of the workers for the safeguarding and raising of their standard of living; 2. As the school for the intellectual training of the workers to make them acquainted with the technical management of production and economic life in general so that when a revolutionary situation arises they will be capable of taking the socio-economic organism into their own hands and remarking it according to Socialist principles." |
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Texts :: theory |
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The Anarcho-Syndicalist Answer to Corporate Globalisation |
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by Brian Oliver Sheppard |
04 Sep 2005
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"The capitalist class, through corporate globalization, can disempower workers, and settle in areas where workers have no political voice to affect change. Already the WTO is set to meet in the remote desert nation of Qatar, which is ruled by a monarchy, and where rival political factions and freedom of speech are illegal. In the USA, corporations increasingly rely on the easily exploitable labor of illegal aliens and prison workforces, two segments of the labor force that have no real rights. Direct action is their only recourse. Likewise, oppressed workers in other lands often have no political say. What else can they do but act directly upon what is immediately oppressing them?" |
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Texts :: theory : documents |
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Basic Anarcho-Syndicalism (Anarcosindicalismo Basico) |
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by Local Federation of the CNT-AIT Sevilla |
04 Sep 2005
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"Anyone can voluntarily belong to the anarcho-union, with the exception of police, soldiers and members of security forces. No ideological qualification is necessary to be in the CNT. This is because the CNT is anarcho-syndicalist, that is, it is an organization in which decisions are made in assembly, from the base. It is an autonomous, federalist structure independent of political parties, of government agencies, of professional bureaucracies, etc. The anarcho-union only requires a respect for its rules, and from this point of view people of different opinions, tendencies and ideologies can live together within it. Ecologists, pacifists, members of political parties .. can be part of the CNT. There will always be different opinions, priorities and points of view about concrete problems. What everyone has in common within the anarcho-union is its unique way of functioning, its anti-authoritarian structure." |
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Texts :: theory |
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The Basis of Trade Unionism |
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by Emile Pouget |
04 Sep 2005
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"In the present, the permanent mission of the trade union is to defend itself against any reduction of vitality -- that is to say, against any reduction of wages and increase in working hours. Besides resisting attack, it must play a pro-active part and strive to increase the well-being of the union, which can only be realised by trespassing on capitalist privileges, and constitutes a sort of partial expropriation. Besides this talk of incessant skirmishes, the union is engaged in the work of integral emancipation, of which it will effectively be the agent. It will consist of taking possession of social wealth, now in the hands of the middle class, and in reorganising society on a Libertarian Communist basis, so that the maximum amount of social well-being will be achieved with a minimum of productive effort." |
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Texts :: theory |
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Direct Action |
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by Emile Pouget |
03 Sep 2005
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"Direct Action . . . implies that the working class subscribes to notions of freedom and autonomy instead of genuflecting before the principle of authority. Now, it is thanks to this authority principle, the pivot of the modern world - democracy being its latest incarnation - that the human being, tied down by a thousand ropes, moral as well as material, is bereft of any opportunity to display will and initiative." |
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