Posted by Phil Dickens on 31/08/2010 · 3 Comments
The third part of a series exploring anarcho-syndicalism, its aims and principles, and the practicalities of enacting them in the real world. Although it isn’t limited to workplace struggles as traditional syndicalism is, industry remains an important battleground for anarcho-syndicalism. After all, it is here that the working class create the wealth of the world, … Read more
Filed under What is anarcho-syndicalism? · Tagged with anarchist communism, anarcho-syndicalism, bread-and-butter issues, bureaucracy, casualisation, disposable workforces, FAU-B, general strike, industrial disputes, IWW, Kronstadt, mass meetings, mikhail bakunin, Paris Commune, revolutionary unionism, Russian Revolution, scabs, Solidarity Federation, Spanish Revolution, Starbucks union, striving for the impossible, trade unions, workers' assemblies, workers' self-organisation, ZSP
Posted by Phil Dickens on 18/07/2010 · 1 Comment
Media pundits, politicians, and the outraged chattering classes often go on about the “underclass.” Faced with levels of crime, poverty, and social anger that they are neither willing nor able to understand, the term is one of blame and accusation. It’s a useful catch-all for the long-term unemployed, welfare recipients, the homeless, petty criminals, drug … Read more
Filed under Capitalism · Tagged with Abahlali baseMjondolo, ANC, BNP, Capitalism, chavs, Communist Manifesto, dregs of society, EDL, Fascism, Frederich Engels, Homeless Workers' Movement, immigrants, Independent Working Class Association, IWCA, Jade Goody, Jeremy Kyle, Karl Marx, Kerry Katona, Landless People's Movement, lazy workers, LCAP, Leon Trotsky, London Coalition Against Poverty, lumpenproletariat, middle class, mikhail bakunin, Movement for Justice in El Barrio, Raoul Moat, reactionary, scum, South Africa, Take Back the Land, The Daily Mail, The Sun, underclass, Western Cape Anti-Eviction campaign
Posted by Phil Dickens on 27/06/2010 · 8 Comments
The fundamental difference between anarchist communists and any other kind of communist (Leninst, Trotskyist, Titoist, whatever) can be boiled down, ultimately, to two sentences from Karl Marx; Between capitalist and communist society lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in … Read more
Filed under Debate and discourse, The state · Tagged with Alliance For Workers' Liberty, Anarchism, Bolsheviks, communism, democratic centralism, dictatorship of the proletariat, International Workingmen's Association, Josef Stalin, Karl Marx, Kronstadt, Leninism, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, mikhail bakunin, Militant Tendency, Piotr Archinov, Pol Pot, POUM, revolution from below, self-organisation, Socialist Party, Socialist Workers' Party, Spanish Civil War, Stalinism, transitional state, Trotskyism, vanguard of the proletariat, Vladimir Lenin, workers party
Posted by Phil Dickens on 27/05/2010 · 17 Comments
Anarcho-primitivism, according to advocate John Moore, is “a shorthand term for a radical current that critiques the totality of civilization from an anarchist perspective, and seeks to initiate a comprehensive transformation of human life.” In essence, it is a form of anarchism that is against the very foundations of civilisation itself. It is for this … Read more
Filed under Anarchism · Tagged with anarcho-primitivism, Andrew Flood, Capitalism, civilisation, doomsday theories, Emily Schultz, genocide, Green anarchy, Jason Godesky, John Moore, John Zerzan, LibCom, lifestyle anarchism, mass die-off, mass society, mikhail bakunin, Murray Bookchin, nuclear war, Oklahoma bombing, peak oil, Robert Lavenda, technology
Posted by Phil Dickens on 27/04/2010 · 4 Comments
Emma Goldman, writing Anarchism: what it really stands for, pointed out that there were three main strands of hierarchy that anarchists opposed. “Religion, the dominion of the human mind; Property, the dominion of human needs; and Government, the dominion of human conduct, represent the stronghold of man’s enslavement and all the horrors it entails.” In … Read more
Filed under Religion · Tagged with An Anarchist FAQ, Anarchism, atheism, Bible, Budhism, Catholic Worker, Catholicism, child abuse, christian anarchism, coercion, Emma Goldman, faith, freedom of worship, hierarchy, Islam, Jesus, Judaism, Leo Tolstoy, libertarian, mikhail bakunin, organised religion, Pagan, Paganism, Peter Kropotkin, secularism, Starhawk, terrorism, theocracy, violence
Posted by Phil Dickens on 23/03/2010 · 7 Comments
Anarchists are against hierarchy and coercion, and as such oppose the structures of the state. From this simplistic premise, there are those who find it hard to comprehend anarchist support for public services and the public provision of welfare. Right-wing “libertarians” and “anarcho”-capitalists are the most vocal in their criticisms of such a stance. Murray … Read more
Filed under Anarchism, Capitalism · Tagged with An Anarchist FAQ, Anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, Capitalism, collectivism, communism, consumers, Diego Abad de Santillan, dogma, free market, Hans Hermann Hoppe, homestead principle, Kevin A Carson, laissez-faire, libertarianism, liberty, Ludwig von Mises, market socialism, mikhail bakunin, murray rothbard, mutualism, neo-liberalism, Noam Chomsky, Peter Kropotkin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, private monarchy, private property, private sector, public sector, public services, scoial welfare, social democracy, Steve Millet, usury, welfare state, workers
Posted by Phil Dickens on 05/12/2009 · 4 Comments
In September 1869, Mikhail Bakunin delivered a Report on the question of Inheritance to the Basel Congress of the International Working-Men’s Association. In it, he posed the following question; But what separates property and capital from labour? What distinguishes the classes economically and politically from one another, what destroys equality and perpetuates inequality, the privilege … Read more
Filed under Capitalism · Tagged with Anarchism, anarcho-capitalism, Capitalism, economic inequality, heredity, mikhail bakunin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, propertarianism, Property rights, socialism, the right of inheritance, wealth accumulation
