"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean." – Lewis Carol, Through the Looking Glass

Anarchism is the theory and practice of individuals living without the interference of human authorities: without being bossed around by a church, government, military, or even a business boss. Syndicalism is the theory and practice of people working together as a union, most typically a labor union (syndicate is the French word for labor union). What does anarcho-syndicalism mean? Can these two seemingly opposite concepts, people acting without bosses and people acting as a group, be combined? Could it mean a group of people working to create anarchy, or individuals working to create a union of individuals? Or is it just a muddle, an attempt to mix oil and water, that goes against the nature of things?

Of course words mean what people want them to mean. Anarcho-syndicalism, in the 19th century, came to mean both a method of people organizing themselves and a type of society they hoped to create. The society they desired was anarchist. In an anarchist society people voluntarily cooperate to work together for their own good and the community. Each individual remains free from coercion by bosses. The way they hoped to get to this society was through gaining workers' control of production, of industry, agriculture, and trade. The way they could gain control of production was by organizing anarchist labor unions.

Anarchist labor unions have only a shell of resemblance to the type of labor unions that existed in the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States. In an anarchist labor union decisions are made democratically. There are few paid union officials and they are paid ordinary wages. There is no top-down hierarchy that orders around local affiliates. The union may appoint a committee to negotiate with an employer or to do other tasks, but the committee is of volunteers who have no permanent power or position in the union. The union is not usually organized according to craft, so that the workers at a given business belong to a variety of unions. Rather, all the workers at a workplace belong to the same union. Finally, the goals are different. Anarchist labor unions believe that capitalists should not run society, should not even run businesses. The businesses should be owned, controlled, and managed by the workers themselves. The practice of wage slavery should be abolished. Anarcho-syndicalism is about more than just how labor unions should function: it is about how society is organized and our relationship with nature.

Anarcho-syndicalism, in order to be a true theory of society, economics, and politics, must correctly describe reality. It must be able to develop as it experiences and interacts with reality, and of course as reality itself changes. Anarcho-syndicalists strive to see the social and natural situation as it really is, but do not accept the situation as it is. The destruction of the environment and the destruction of humanity, two trends that have accelerated throughout the 20th century, both demand that human society be changed. Anarcho-syndicalism is the theory of meaningful political, economic, and social change for the 21th century.

The Development of Anarcho-Syndicalism

"When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?" – John Maynard Keynes

Today's problems, and tomorrow's, developed out of the past. The solutions to our problems also have a history. Volumes have been written on the history of anarcho-syndicalism; here only the most pertinent history will be reviewed.

While the antecedents of anarcho-syndicalism go back to the dawn of civilization and could be found scattered around the globe, modern anarcho-syndicalism developed in Europe concurrently with the industrial revolution and then followed the industrial revolution to the United States and other countries as they developed. Unlike Marxism, anarcho-syndicalism was not the creation of any one particular intellectual. Though highly influenced by anarchist theorists and organizers such as Bakunin and Proudon, anarcho-syndicalist theory and practice was worked out by the self-organization of agricultural and industrial workers.

The industrial revolution was characterized by the substitution of machine work for the work of animals and humans. While this process began in ancient times, in the 19th century it became the dominant trend in the world, with the burning of coal providing the energy to run the machines. This was accompanied by urbanization, the shift from farm life and farm work to city life and city work. The dominant social class of the pre-industrial period, the nobility, which had owned most land and had also been the military class, had lost power to a rapidly expanding class of capitalists. These capitalists, who owned the factories or controlled trade and banking, used money to control politics. Slavery and serfdom were abolished in most of the world during the 19th century, but the former slaves, serfs, and free farm workers found the only place for them in the economy was as factory workers. Working conditions and pay were terrible; people found they had become wage slaves.

Naturally these wage slaves wanted to improve their condition in the world. Several ideas attracted them. For individuals there was the hope that they might start a business of their own, or work their way up into management, or lord it over the workers as a policeman or private security person. Most people knew this option was available to only a small percentage of the workers and did not want to become the exploiters of their former friends. Some sought solace in Christianity or other religions, which taught them to accept their sad fate as natural. The four major political trends that attracted those who hoped to act as a community to escape wage slavery were reformism, democratic socialism (both Marxist and non-Marxist), authoritarian socialism (Marxism-Leninism), and anarcho-syndicalism.

Reformism sought improvements within the existing political and economic framework. Reformists sought to blunt the hard edges of capitalist exploitation; people were to become better-paid wage slaves. Democratic socialists sought to gain control of the government through the electoral process and then have government own major industries; the workers would own their industries through the medium of a democratically elected government. Authoritarian socialists wanted to gain the same ends through armed revolution followed by a dictatorship which would own the factories in the name of the working people. Anarcho-syndicalists wanted to abolish the government as well as wage slavery. They sought to create a society in which the workers owned their own farms and factories; functions formerly carried out by government could be done by various factory and farm groups working cooperatively together.

The lines between these groups were somewhat blurred; they shared some common ideas and often worked on the same causes. All could agree that an 8 hour day and 40 hour work week was a good cause to rally behind at a time when people were forced to work 60 to 80 hours a week. An individual worker or group of workers might typically believe that any of these four trends would be an improvement over being slaves to the capitalists.

All of these trends had labor unions. The reformists tended towards craft unions, which organized the more skilled workers for higher wages; in the USA these eventually became the AFL (American Federation of Labor). The democratic socialists supported labor unions but used them mainly as a source of votes and money in their quest to gain political office. The authoritarian socialists tended to see labor unions as fighting units for their revolutionary take-over of the government. For anarcho-syndicalists the labor union was the germ of the new society. Instead of favoring craft unions they favored industrial unions, which put all workers in a given industry in the same union. It was important to the anarcho-syndicalists that the workers learn to run their factories, for they would someday do exactly that. National and international federations of industrial unions would both build the power to eventually abolish wage slavery and act as the main organs of cooperation in the new society.

Anarcho-syndicalism was the dominant radical workers' trend until the Bolshevik (Marxist-Leninist) Revolution in Russia consolidated power around 1920. Marxism had been particularly strong in Germany and England, the two most industrialized nations. But anarcho-syndicalism had been strongest in France, Spain, Italy, Australia, and the Americas. The largest anarcho-syndicalist organization in the United States was the Industrial Workers of the World, founded in 1905. In Europe the anarcho-syndicalist national organizations were united in the International Workers Association (IWA). Again, it should be noted that the lines dividing radical trends are quite porous. A labor union might be fundamentally in sympathy with anarcho-syndicalism but officially be reformist; a local union dominated by anarcho-syndicalists might have Marxists and socialists in it, and vice versa.

To everyone's surprise the first country to set up what appeared to be a workers' society was Russia. This was surprising mostly because there weren't very many factory workers in Russia, and it had not even had much of an industrial revolution, in which one would expect the capitalists to overthrow the Czar and set up a democracy. The Czarist government actually lost power to the Soviets, which were elected assemblies representing all the political trends. The Bolsheviks, better known now as Marxist-Leninists, staged a military coup against the Czar and the Soviets and established a bureaucratic government which then closed down the Soviets. The socialists and anarcho-syndicalists had been outmaneuvered; they either joined the Bolsheviks or were imprisoned and killed or exiled.

Anarcho-syndicalism as a world-wide radical movement went into serious decline after Lenin's successful coup. Workers had been frustrated by decades of failure; they were impatient to put an end to capitalism. Lenin's vanguard party model of organizing and governing had particular appeal to people with big egos and aggressive personalities. The workers seemed to be in power in Russia. The anarchist opinion that the Bolsheviks could be characterized as a new class ruling over the workers was dismissed by many as mere capitalist propaganda. Vanguard party led, dictatorial socialism became known as Communism. In the USA most democratic socialists became Communists and many of the workers in the IWW became Communists as well.

Anarcho-syndicalism was caught in a pincer-movement. Capitalists controlled the newspapers and had the resources to thwart anarcho-syndicalism. In Russia the anarcho-syndicalists were secretly murdered (as were most non-Leninist radicals), and around the world people were attracted to the new Communist doctrine. Russian agents were sent around the world to help establish Communist Parties. Communist propaganda pretended that the workers were in charge in the Soviet Union; but it was the dictator of the moment who was in charge. Then fascism (capitalism with an open dictatorship rather than a representative democracy) became a major phenomena. Italy went fascist in 1922; Germany in 1932; and Spain in 1936. It was in Spain that anarcho-syndicalists would fight their greatest battle to date.

The Spanish Revolution and Civil War was a complicated phenomena which is worth reading an entire book or two about. In the 20th century Spain had become a semi-industrialized nation, one of the poorest in Europe. Governments had fluctuated between liberal and conservative democracies and right wing military dictatorships; many people were still loyal to the royal family. In 1936 a republic existed which was making some attempts to reform the economy and social system. The republican government was dominated by parties that might be characterized as liberal capitalists, reformist democrats, and democratic-socialists. The military, the Catholic Church, the fascist party, the monarchists and some of the capitalists decided to overthrow the Republic and establish a dictatorship (they actually could not decide in advance who would be dictator). In several regions of Spain the anarcho-syndicalists of the CNT were the strongest social organization; they did not participate in the government, but were pushing for an anarcho-syndicalist revolution.

The military coup attempt might have succeeded immediately, but the ordinary people fought back. In the anarcho-syndicalist regions like Catalonia and the socialist regions of southern Spain, as well as in Madrid, the fascists and their allies were initially defeated. A civil war followed. During the civil war the socialists and anarcho-syndicalists showed they could run their areas fine without capitalists or other bosses. But over the course of two years the Republican side lost the civil war to the fascists. While the reasons for this were complex, the main reason was that Mussolini and Hitler sent large amounts of aid to the Fascists, while the US, British and French governments refused to give or sell military aid to the Republican side. After the civil war the new dictator, General Franco, with the aid of the Catholic church, rounded up over a million Anarcho-syndicalists and socialists and shot them in cold blood. Soon after that World War II started when Stalin and Hitler invaded Poland.

Between World War II and the collapse of the dictatorship Soviet Union in the 1980's, anarcho-syndicalism was a very weak political trend, with only a few thousand conscious adherents world-wide. It often found itself splintered into small groups arguing about theoretical fine-points. But since 1990 it has revived rapidly and has even been picked by some capitalist intellectuals as the main threat to capitalism today.

The Present Situation And The Near Future

"But we all have one thing in common here: a great big corporate, banking, media, government, military, environmental disaster that affects us all." — Anarchist Farm by Jane Doe

People have learned a great deal in the 20th century. Most notably, we have learned that the global ecosystem has a limited capacity to sustain human life.

Today, at the dawn of the 21st century, we live in a world in crisis. The world's human population is already greater than the earth can sustain in the long run, yet it continues to grow. Consumption by the richest segments of the world's population is astounding (and growing) while billions of people live in equally astounding deprivation of such basics as food, water, housing, and dignity. The world's forests have been stripped of trees and her oceans of fish. Agriculture is in a constant state of critical care, sustained by torrents of artificial fertilizer and pesticides. The ozone layer is deteriorating and global warming is accelerating while multinational corporations order governments to take no action.

Like a vampire grown strong on its victims' blood, capitalism dominates the world's economy, governments and military. The international capitalist class, a group of people not numbering more than 10 million people, controls some six billion wage slaves. Their philosophy, Neo-liberalism, the worship of money, dominates the mass media. In addition to controlling almost every national government on earth they have created a group of organizations, the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Trade Organization, that constitute, for practical purposes, a world government. These capitalists have at their disposal almost all of the world's money, its means of communications, and its advanced weaponry up to and including nuclear weapons.

They see their main problem as controlling the rest of us. This risk of losing control has four major components. One is religions particularly Islam and Catholicism (or Christianity, if you want to include the Protestants and Orthodox). Another component is the coalition of mostly small, mostly single-issue groups that seek to protect the environment, labor, and democracy. The third component is the greatly-weakened Leninist/Communist method of organization. The final threat is anarcho-syndicalism.

Catholicism is traditionally an ally of capitalism in our era, just as it was an ally of the nobility in the previous era. Yet it is not entirely subject to the capitalists. It still has its own agenda, the conversion of everyone into its fold. For capitalists it is a contradictory blessing: it keeps poor people away from secular radicalism, but it also sometimes defends those poor people from capitalist predation. Catholicism has always favored capitalism over anarcho-syndicalism. While the church knows both are atheistic, capitalists are more willing to pretend to be Christians, and have money to donate to the Catholic hierarchy. Islam's position is similar to Catholicism, but it has no central authority, so it is more difficult to control. Also Islam is a traditional enemy of the Christian capitalist/industrialist countries of Europe.

Single-issue groups usually achieve their goals, if they do, by taking advantage of capitalism's cost consciousness and internal conflicts. Which is more expensive, putting pollution control devices on factories, or paying for medical care costs created by the pollution? Which is more expensive, a national brain-washing campaign and huge political donations, or letting some reform become law in the United States? Is the United States too protective of its environment? Cheaper to move the factories to Mexico than to risk losing a fight with the non-profit organizations and the voters. But when capitalists want to (are willing to spend the money necessary) they can always defeat non-profit organizations. The end-run around the US congress to the World Trade Organization is the most glowing recent example of the power of the international capitalist class.

In the near future we can only expect conditions to get worse. Even when a national or world economy is expanding the benefit goes entirely to those who already occupy the economic high ground. When the US stock market bubble of the 1990s collapses the misery for the lower and middle classes here may be the worst since the Great Depression.

Sadly, the destruction of the earth's ecosystem is not likely to slow down significantly even during a severe worldwide recession. A one-third reduction of the world's economy, with concurrent reductions is carbon dioxide emissions, other pollution, forest destruction, etc., would still be swallowing up the little that is left faster than the earth can regenerate itself. In addition, when economic conditions are poor, corporations demand and receive concessions from governments, such as being able to cut forests even faster, postpone investment in pollution control technologies, etc.

If the world continues on its present trends we can expect near total ecological collapse some time in the 21st century. When and exactly how that will happen, we can only guess.

Anarcho-syndicalism, properly implemented on a worldwide scale, can increase the supply of necessities to people most in need while reducing the destruction of the earth to the point the earth can heal. Just as important, it can do this in a humane manner that allows individuals and communities greater social and cultural freedom. The question is, can we get there fast enough, or even at all? Can we create an anarcho-syndicalist society before the earth is destroyed by capitalism?

A Vision of an Anarchist, Sustainable Society

What would an anarcho-syndicalist society and world look like?

At first it would have to be a world under repair. Without economic, political, or religious bosses, many people will doubtless have trouble adjusting. Work will have to be readjusted, with whole categories of work, like most office work, lawyering, banking, and insurance thrown out. That means people learning new skills, like growing and distributing food in ways that are safe for people and the earth. It may mean making do living or working in buildings that were built in a stupid manner for the wrong purpose under the old system. It will certainly mean some people giving up status symbols like SUVs and other ecologically disastrous toys.

While there would be a great deal more freedom and the ability to delivery food and services according to need, not privilege, we will have to move rapidly towards an ecologically sustainable economy. This would mean voluntary birth control to begin reducing the world's population to a sustainable level. It would mean a greater emphasis on local food production using less (and later no) pesticides and minimal mechanization. So excess paper-pushers will join in food production, a task they have been taught to disdain, but that in practice is quite enjoyable. Farm workers deserve the best treatment in the new society: short work days and reasonable comforts.

There is no reason for long work days (except in exceptional circumstances) or long work weeks. There is no reason for sexual suppression as long as you have birth control and are careful about sexually transmitted disease. There is no reason for human cruelty in a society where people are free and no one is manipulating the economy for their own benefit.

We can restore our forests and other wild areas while retaining enough well-treated farmland to sustain a human society. We can restore our sense of wonder in the natural world. Life can go on without bosses. Sure, people will argue. Jealousy won't disappear. Children will test the limits set by adults, and some adults will be annoyed. Some people will tell stories of the good old days when you could drive to a mall in a SUV and by cheap junk made by wage slaves in third world nations. Problems will present themselves and need solving. Some people will try to shirk their share of the work. But governments, capitalists, and popes are not solutions to these problems. The bosses all multiply problems for most people in order to have easy lives for themselves. Happiness is never guaranteed by nature, but we'll be much better off without bosses.

In an anarchist society we will party! We'll have free time to have a good time. We can get enough rest to tackle the tasks that we have decided we need to do. We will be saying the truth when we say: Free At Last!

But given how screwed up things are now, how can we even begin to get there? How can we build an anarcho-syndicalist movement that will take us to an anarcho-syndicalist society?

Elements Of Salvation: Complex Communities And Unions

"Harmony in such a society is obtained not by submission to law or obedience to any authority, but by free agreements concluded between the various groups, territorial and professional, freely contributed for the sake of protection and consumption, as also for the satisfaction of the infinite variety of needs and aspirations of a civilized being." — Peter Kropotkin

Anarcho-syndicalist theory and practice has developed quite a bit during the 20th century. Throughout much of its early history anarcho-syndicalism did not take the environment into account. Anarcho-syndicalists claimed they could build more factories and cut more forests than capitalism could. One anarcho-syndicalist group even claimed they could build more and better nuclear reactors than the capitalists! Other areas of theory and practice have developed but kept the same basic commitments. For instance, anarcho-syndicalism has always upheld racial equality and the equality of women, but our understanding of those principles is far deeper now.

We have also moved beyond the belief that one particular structure, the industry-wide labor union, is the only basis for organizing. The industrial model was made necessary by the modern fragmentation of older community structures. In, say, 1890 it was not unusual for all the workers at a particular factory to live in the same ghetto or factory town. The geographical community and the industrial community coincided. That is seldom the case today. Industrial unions are still important, and an aspect of them must be international in character. A shoe factory in Taiwan and a shoe factory in Malaysia, both making shoes for the same international company, have workers that should be in contact with each other (in affiliated unions). But the factory workers in Taiwan have much in common with the other factory workers in their own city. And what of the workers who sell the shoes in stores in the United States? Should shoe store clerks belong to the international union that organizes shoe factory workers, or should they belong to the local, national or international union that organizes sales clerks? Or to the union of workers employed by the corporate conglomerate that makes things or sells services entirely unrelated to shoes?

That was a trick question. Unfortunately both anarcho-syndicalist and mainstream unions have fallen into disarray at times arguing over the choices presented. But fortunately we are learning to use a new model, the network. It does not replace previous models, but it allows them to work together to achieve genuine international solidarity for all people in the working class. With international solidarity we can defeat the capitalists and establish an economically and ecologically sound society. A network of anarcho-syndicalist unionists of all types will eventually become the old IWW ideal of the "One Big Union."

Consider the communities a woman working at a shoe factory in Taiwan might belong to. She is a citizen of her neighborhood, city or town and nation. The factory itself is owned by a national or international corporation that specializes in manufacturing; she is part of the community of workers for it. The shoes she makes are a name brand designed and marketed by a different international corporation; she is also part of the community of workers who work for this corporation. She is herself a consumer, who may buy foods grown on American farms and ride a bus to work running on gas produced by Arabic oil refinery workers. She may have children and thus belong to the worldwide community of mothers and working women; she is likely to have an extended family. She may belong to a religious group that transcends national borders, or other groups of people based on something besides commercial production.

The core of a person's community are the people who can be seen face to face, whom one can trust as friends based on experience. That would tend to be family members, friends you grew up with, neighbors, and people you actually work with regularly. These are the networks most working people have without consciously trying to build them. At larger workplaces and in smaller communities it is not uncommon to find groups of workers who are family members, neighbors, or were friends already prior to their employment.

In the past anarcho-syndicalism theory has tended to focus on industry-wide (industrial) unions and ignored other networks and communities. Yet in practice families and friends have been just as important in the actual organizing of anarcho-syndicalism education and labor groups, as a study of events leading up to the Spanish Revolution illustrate.

Recall that anarcho-syndicalism unions are not the top-down hierarchies that people are so used to being subjected to in AFL-CIO unions, religions, businesses, and governments. An international union of shoe factory workers, in the anarcho-syndicalism model, might not even have a central office. If it had a central office it would be primarily to facilitate communications between the locals of the union so that they could work together on an international basis and work as well with related groups, like a consumers union and a shoe store workers union.

In ability to deliver immediate substantial material solidarity when needed, it is the members of your community who are in your geographic area that count the most. When numbers of conscious anarcho-syndicalists are relatively small, all of them in a city might meet or otherwise communicate on a regular basis. When a good portion of the population have become anarcho-syndicalists, neighborhood groups might come into existence. A neighborhood might send workers to several or even dozens of workplaces; whatever the workplace dissimularities, the neighborhood (and even extended families) as a community can provide the knowledge and solidarity to help with any problems that arise. Given the recent rapid decrease in the cost of international communications, especially by Internet, a local group or union can more easily solicit international solidarity as well. Was a union organizer fired? Consumers and salespeople, factory workers and community organizers might know that a few hours later!

To summarize, anarcho-syndicalism needs to have flexible organizing tactics. This requires a flexible organizing structure, the network. An anarcho-syndicalist might belong to a workplace union, to a geographically based group, and even to special interest groups (people interested in feminist issues, people united to save the rainforests, etc.) Groups are connected in a network fashion, by communications rather than by a system of authority. Groups and local unions in a particular industry will probably want to have an international union for that industry, but are not required to do so. Network interconnections occur at multiple levels, notably at the level of the individual person, the workplace union, and the international union. An anarcho-syndicalist union can be any group of like-minded people working together for their own liberation, the liberation of people around the world, and the good of the earth we all depend on for life.

In addition, there is still need for the pre-network anarcho-syndicalist organizing structure, the federation. Federations are more formal structures than networks. In a federation a local group joins with other local groups that have a common purpose by sending delegates (usually this is done at regular intervals, such as once a year) to an assembly that makes recommendations back to the local groups. Some more active federations might have permanent offices. Sometimes there is more than one level of federation, as in the IWW model where each industry local belongs to an international industrial union (organized by type of industry), and at the next level all the industrial unions meet together to consider overall policies. Problem solving that involves geographical regions usually requires a different federal structure, with local groups of all unions federating to tackle local problems, and then further federating with other localities to deal with regional or even international problems.

Getting There: Anarcho-syndicalism In Your Core Community

"I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do something I can do." —Helen Keller (IWW member)

As this essay is being written the number of people belonging to anarcho-syndicalist organizations is not large (it is probably between 30,000 and 200,000, world-wide, depending on how you count) . There are two international anarcho-syndicalist organizations, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW; the Wobblies) and the International Workers Association (IWA; in Spanish, AIT). There are some local and national organizations like the SAC (Central Organization of Swedish Workers) that are not affiliated with the IWW or IWA. There are many organizations and unions that are influenced by or organized somewhat along anarcho-syndicalist lines.

But most people working consciously for anarcho-syndicalism, even if they join the IWW or IWA, will begin as relatively isolated individuals or as a very small group of friends. Taking the most conservative estimate that as the 20th century ends there are 10,000 conscious, active anarcho-syndicalists and 6 billion people in the world, there is only one anarcho-syndicalist for every 600,000 people. How can anarcho-syndicalism reach enough people to save humanity and indeed nature itself from calamity? Even most people reading this essay will be just finding out about anarcho-syndicalism, rather than being committed to showing how it works to other people.

Fortunately the experiences that lead to Anarcho-Syndicalism are the experiences of the entire human species. Everyone has some experience that can be connected in some way to the theory and practice of anarcho-syndicalism. Of course everyone will also have many ideas and experiences that are contradictory to anarcho-syndicalism. As a teacher and organizer you will show people how to build on the good that is already there.

Syndicalism implies working together with people. Most people like that, especially when the group is creating something that the individuals themselves can enjoy. Capitalists tell us we cannot work together in a union for higher wages, safe working conditions, and human dignity. Yet they themselves work together, as groups of stockholders, groups of managers, etc. People can work together in their neighborhoods to make them better places, more sanitary, and safer. People can also act as individuals, if that suits them. Groups may not be good in and of themselves: gangs of criminals, like gangs of capitalists, may do far more harm to people than individual criminals or capitalists. However, you should learn to point out examples of where people work together voluntarily for the common good. This should be contrasted with groups of people being bossed around, whether for a good reason or not.

Anarchism implies being able to make decisions without a boss. Most people have been trained to believe that only by following the bosses' orders can society function. Yet Neo-Liberalism, the philosophy of the capitalist bosses, proclaims that anarchy is the best policy. Neo-Liberalism theorizes that if each person acts selfishly in the marketplace, without any interference from government or ethical considerations, free market forces will create a robust economy where everyone is better off. We know that these beliefs are hypocritical, a mere justification for a system in which the rich get richer and almost everyone else becomes poorer. There is no such thing as a free market. All markets have costs; all markets consist of people making decisions, some with much more power than others. But yes, people can work together well without a boss. They do this through consensus, the process of communicating with each other and doing work in the real world and seeing the results. Through experience the group can learn to work together in an efficient and effective manner. We know from experience that we can do better if we get the bosses off our backs.

This is all well and good, and as you become more experienced with anarcho-syndicalism and with the world you'll be able to become increasingly effective at talking to people about anarcho-syndicalism theory and practice. You'll learn to illustrate principles in terms of people's own experiences.

But each individual has only limited time and energy; how can you best get the ball rolling? Should you start in your workplace, or in your neighborhood, or perhaps with your friends or family?

Your first investment should be in yourself. Spend some time evaluating what you know, perhaps even finding out about things that you aren't clear on. Make sure you are already walking your talk: that you insist on human dignity, that you think of all men and women as equals, that you are helpful and community spirited. Listen to what people have to say; encourage them to talk to you, especially about any complaints they have and about their hopes for the future.

Based on that, decide which individuals you know are most likely to become conscious anarcho-syndicalists with the least amount of effort on your part (which may be quite a bit of effort!). Don't be surprised if your initial results are not encouraging. Most working people have been discouraged and disappointed by politics in the past. Most know that union and community organizers are punished by businesses and governments, especially in the United States. In the long run anarcho-syndicalism is necessary for our survival and prosperity, but in the short run its main benefit is dignity, its main result harassment by the bosses.

It is good to start a formal group as soon as you have 3 or 4 people wanting to work with you. No doubt the best place to be able to start is in a workplace, but if you start a neighborhood group that will set you up to choose who to educate and organize next. In some circumstances an ecological group organized on anarcho-syndicalist principles is a good starting point; this is often true of students or when a community is confronting poisoned water, air, or food. Sometimes a specific project will provide your initial focus, such as a project to stop ethnic harassment or improve the dignity of women. Practical project like cleaning up a neighborhood, or providing necessary services, can also form a good nucleus for further organizing.

Go to Part II