Europe

Sat, 02/01/16

Self-Management and Requirements for Social Property: Lessons from Yugoslavia

This paper evaluates the role of self-management in achieving equity and efficiency drawing from the experience of Yugoslavia, an economy at least nominally self-managed on a system-wide scale.

Problems with transitions in Eastern Europe have focused attention on alternatives to both central-planning and unregulated markets. Naive enthusiasm for the market has already begun to wane in the face of growing economic chaos and inequality, precipitating a search for more humane and stable forms of organization. Theoretically and in practice, worker self-management is being advocated as a system able to produce efficiently and at the same time distribute goods and power equitably.
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Sat, 02/01/16

Worker self-management in historical perspective

A 2002 essay that surveys the great potentialities of worker self-management and draws up some lessons from historical experiences during the 20th century.

Introduction

Worker self-management (WSM) has re-emerged as a major movement in Argentina, particularly this year with over 200 factories organized and controlled by their workers and a national co-coordinator of self-managed enterprises in the process of being organized. read more »

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Sat, 02/01/16

Self-Management in Agriculture, Industry and Public Services during the 1936 Spanish Revolution

Excerpt from the book "Anarchist Economics".

Spanish anarcho-syndicalism from its inception had adopted an initial programme not only of wage demands, the right to work, improvements in conditions, but also the realisation of Libertarian Communism. Before 19 July 1936 the anarchists had proclaimed the anarchist Social Revolution in many places in Spain such as Casas Viejas, Alto Liobregat and Gijon, all of which were areas which had a large anarcho-syndicalist following. In all these villages or towns property registers were burned, money abolished and Libertarian Communism made reality. read more »

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Fri, 01/01/16

Living Utopia

A documentary film about the generalised anarcho-syndicalist collectivisation and self-management of the economy during the 'Spanish Revolution' of 1936.

Living Utopia (Original, 1997: Vivir la utopía. read more »

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Fri, 01/01/16

Toni Negri: an intellectual among the workers

The author recounts his experience of autonomous proletarian organisation in the period of intense working-class struggle that gripped Italy in the 60s.

I deliver here an account of my lived experience of Marghera, roughly between 1960 and 1969. Is this the story of a Bildung [education]? This notion is perhaps too charged with cultural resonances; it would be better to use the English training, which allies practical education with intellectual discipline. In reality, I do not know the appropriate manner by which to name this extraordinary apprenticeship – a decade long – in class struggle.  read more »

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Fri, 01/01/16

The Commune: Paris 1871

A 1971 libertarian appraisal of the Paris Commune by members of Solidarity UK.

We can now examine the Paris Commune in a new light - in the light precisely of the rich experience of Bolshevism and of Trotskyism. We mean, more specifically, in the light of their failure. Stated more concretely, the proletarian revolution of 1871 must now be re-evaluated in the light of the degeneration of the Russian Revolution and of the positive lessons of the revolutionary struggle of the Hungarian Workers' Councils in 1956 against a bureaucratic society in which the means of production were completely 'nationalised'. read more »

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Fri, 01/01/16

Foreword to 'The Bolsheviks and workers' control: the state and counter-revolution' by Maurice Brinton

A 1996 introduction by the libertarian marxist 'Solidarity' group to Brinton's chronicle of how the bolshevik party undermined soviet power in Russia during the October Revolution.

This pamphlet has two aims. It seeks to contribute new factual material to the current discussion on 'workers' control'. And it attempts a new kind of analysis of the fate of the Russian Revolution. read more »

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Wed, 30/12/15

Los Fralibos - A song by and for the workers of Fralib

The workers of Fralib sing about their struggle.

"Thé de l'Eléphant was born in Provence, it must stay in Provence"

The workers of Fralib (the Elephant Tea) in Géménos spent 1336 days of struggle against Unilever, the giant multinational behind the Lipton brand. Their collective strength finally managed to make the multinational cave in, and thus SCOPTI coop was born. Their struggle is recounted here by the workers themselves, in French, to the rhythm of the Los Fralibos protest song. 

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Wed, 30/12/15

Social Waste - "At utopia's fiesta"

A video clip by Greek militant hip-hop collective Social Waste, filmed at the recuperated factory of VIOME.

Captions available in English, Spanish, Italian, Greek. read more »

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Wed, 30/12/15

Occupy, Resist, Produce – Officine Zero

The second in a series of short documentaries on the recuperated factories of Europe.

Officine Zero, former RSI (Rail Service Italia) was dedicated to the maintenance and repair of sleeping cars. When in December 2011 Italian train services decided to stop the night train service and invest in fast track trains, RSI closed. Some 20 workers out of the almost 60 employees strong work force did not accept the closing and took up the struggle. They found support among the activists from the nearby social center, “Strike.” In February 2012 they occupied their work place. Together they started a laboratory on reconversion, organizing public assemblies attended by hundreds of people. read more »

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