Three weeks after our article More of the State You’ve Got, the UK government has accepted, as in Italy and elsewhere, that containment and the still to be widely available use of testing kits along the lines of World Health Organization advice is a better strategy to allow health services to cope. But so much was already known globally earlier in this century with similar coronaviruses MERS and SARS. These outbreaks required global collaboration to stop their spread between people and to protect healthcare workers.
As the death rate in UK has been doubling every 3–4 days and the number of confirmed cases is doubling every 6 days at the time of writing, massive field hospitals are being built in exhibition halls with basi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Throughout the centuries that have fled since man crawled forth from his cave an ignorant savage, there has been some form of organized government under which somebody has been oppressed. During all these unknown ages the people have had but little voice in the affairs of nations. For a long time the source of authority was not in this world at all. The king sat on his throne by the will of god, and therefore was not accountable to the people for his acts. He commanded — the people obeyed. He was lord of their bodies, and his partner, the priest, was master of their souls. The government of earth was a duplicate of the “kingdom of heaven.” God was the supreme despot above, the king was his faithful imitator below. Between ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Talk given at the Poetry Center, New York City, Feb. 16, 1970. This classic talk delivered in 1970 has never seemed more current. In it Noam Chomsky articulates a clear, uncompromising defense of the libertarian socialist (anarchist) vision.
I think it is useful to set up as a framework for discussion four somewhat idealized positions with regard to the role of the state in an advanced industrial society. I want to call these positions:
classical liberal,
libertarian socialist,
state socialist,
state capitalist,
and I want to consider each in turn.
Also, I’d like to make clear my own point of view in advance, so that you can evaluate and judge what I am saying. I thin... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Once again, the threat of a government shutdown looms over the capital. Politicians exchange barbs, pundits wag their fingers and wring their hands, and the rest of us get up and go to work like we do every day. The news anchors demand to know: whose fault is it? What labyrinthine eleventh-hour compromise will they devise to avoid it? The rest of the nation yawns with indifference.
But we want answers! What if the government does shut down? Who will funnel our taxable income to military contractors? Who will tap our phones and read our email? Who will raid 7-Elevens and deport people? Who will indoctrinate our children? Who will stop people from driving while black? Who will build the wall?
It doesn’t sound all that bad, actually. U... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
In the course of those polemics which arise among anarchists as to the best tactics for achieving, or approaching the creation of an anarchist society - and they are useful, and indeed necessary arguments when they reflect mutual tolerance and trust and avoid personal recriminations - it often happens that some reproach others with being gradualists, and the latter reject the term as if it were an insult.
Yet the fact is that, in the real sense of the word and given the logic of our principles, we are all gradualists. And all of us, in whatever different ways, have to be.
It is true that certain words, especially in politics, are continually changing their meaning and often assume one that is quite contrary to the original, lo... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
One day some children found, in a ravine, a thing shaped like a grain of corn, with a groove down the middle, but as large as a hen's egg. A traveler passing by saw the thing, bought it from the children for a penny, and taking it to town sold it to the King as a curiosity.
The King called together his wise men, and told them to find out what the thing was. The wise men pondered and pondered and could not make head or tail of it, till one day, when the thing was lying on a window-sill, a hen flew in and pecked at it till she made a hole in it, and then every one saw that it was a grain of corn. The wise men went to the King, and said:
'It is a grain of corn.'
At this the King was much surprised; and he ordered the learned men to find out... (From: Wikisource.org.)
In a polemic against the syndicalists, Antonio Gramsci argued that the syndicalists were wrong in maintaining that unions were capable of being organs of workers’ revolution. He said this confused a marketing organization of labor within capitalism — the trade unions — with an organization for running production in a socialized economy — the workers councils. Because the function of a union is to affect the terms and conditions of the sale of labor to the employers, he argued, it is an organization specific to a capitalist society.
However, if we look at the actual functions of the Turin shop councils, as described in the Shop Stewards’ Program, we find that much of their actual function is the organizat... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The birth of the workers’ movement in Mexico was profoundly influenced by anarchism. This movement proclaimed independence from the political parties and the State. Yet in 1915 a pact was signed with the Constitutionalists led by Carranza. Organize! Looks at why this might have happened.
The workers’ movement in Mexico was relatively young and inexperienced. At the time the population counted 11 million who lived in the countryside as opposed to 4 million who lived in urban centers a comparison with Russia during the 1917 Revolution could be made).
The first two decades of the 20th century were marked by a radicalization of the Mexican workers’ movement, with an influx of Spanish immigrants, bringing with the... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Many years passed. Sisyphus wearied of heaving his boulder to the crest of the mountain, only to see it roll back down again.
“Rock, old friend,” he said to himself, one night, at the end of a long day’s work, “I’ve been thinking.”
“Yes?” answered the rock.
“What if we just go part way up the mountain? Just up to the first bend?”
“You know,” said the rock, “We could just not go up at all.”
“Hmm,” said Sisyphus, rubbing his chin. “Not go—at all?”
“Just stay down here. Do something else.”
“Hmm,” said Sisyphus. He thought about the blisters, the incline, the sweat in his eyes. Thankless, interminable ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The Great Anarchist Trial:
The Haymarket Speeches
As Delivered On The Evening Of The Throwing Of The Bomb, At Haymarket Square, Chicago, May 4, 1886,
By:
August Spies
and
Albert R. Parsons
1886
Published by the Chicago labor press association Room 17, No, 76 and 78 Fifth Ave., Chicago
NOTE.
The Chicago Times of August 10 contained the following statements, among others, in regard to the great trial:
"The climax in the Anarchist trial was reached yesterday. Schwab, Spies and Parsons told their respective stories to the jury from the witness-chair, to a spell-bound audience of spectators, an amazed jury, and a surprised judge. * * * Parsons was composed and eloquent. * * * His brother, General W. H. Parsons... (From: Anarchy Archives.)
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