@tigerdaz @Radical_EgoCom
You are probably thinking of Valve Corporation, for one example. They moved to a flat, non-hierarchical organization and it's been interesting to watch. Still a capitalist corporate entity though.

A syndicate is a self-organized group for conducting a particular business or production. It can be the Mob or Lloyd's of London insurers or a worker's collective.

#Syndicalism is kind of the more radical side of international trade unionism. #AnarchoSyndicalism takes the self-organizing principle farther as a replacement for capitalism rather than as a balancing factor, and philosophizes about the nature of property and industrialization.

Interest in the area seems to be skewing into #solarPunk territory which seems like a natural progression to me.

The #fediverse is a fine case study for how difficult and amazing decentralized and federated social institutions can be. Here we are, working out some of the necessary skills for #Transition communities, including the economics.

It's complicated stuff and still just nascent, but look at the crazy complexity of the laws in nation-states, civil powers, municipalities. We will improve on that by removing economic and moral compulsions.

#directAction #decentralization #liberation #IWW

What is the radical Left?

The radical Left is united by a shared endeavor to address the foundational roots of social injustices. It seeks to overthrow—not simply tweak—capitalist social relations. Leftists work towards the common goal of a stateless, classless society characterized by collective self-determination, worker control of production, and individual freedom and dignity.

In my historical approach, I emphasize active participation in antisystemic movements over theoretical distinctions. Yet clarification of differences is also necessary. Anarchists are antistate or libertarian socialists who advocate the reorganization of society into voluntary federations based in social equality and individual freedom. Syndicalists, who overlap substantially with anarchists, believe that revolutionary unions should prefigure the new world and act as the vehicles to re-organize society. The labels of socialism and communism are at times used interchangeably; this paper will follow the general approach of classifying socialists as those who pursue reformist strategies whereas communists advocate revolutionary seizure of state power by a vanguard party.

An undogmatic radical Left acknowledges significant ideological differences but manages to collaborate on common projects and struggles. Dogmatism and sectarianism have long been the bane of the Left, but the transnational history discussed in this article reveals alternative currents of theory and practice that are unconstrained by both national borders and rigid ideological lines. Indeed, transnational networks have often enabled non-sectarian connections and collaboration at multiple levels, stretching from Caribbean anarchist networks in the early twentieth century to the “provocative cocktail” of political traditions represented in the Zapatistas and other new social movements of the late twentieth century.

Read more in my recent article in Left History, "Radical Americas: A Hemispheric History of the Left" https://lh.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/lh/article/view/39672

#history #anarchism #syndicalism #socialism #communism #radicalhistory

Here's the latest excerpt from my ongoing translation of Rudolf Rocker's memoirs. As promised a few weeks ago, this is the one where he is sent to an orphanage. His father died when he was five, and his mother remarried, but then she died when he was around 12 or 13. He continued living with his step-father, along with his younger brother and maternal grandmother, but once his increasingly abusive stepdad started a new relationship, the rest of them were out.

His stories from the orphanage are pretty interesting; this excerpt is just the beginning. Suffice to say that Rocker wasn't exactly a model resident and the guy who ran the orphanage really had his hands full with him. More on that later...

Anyways, enjoy!

https://joseph-k.medium.com/rocker-is-sent-to-an-orphanage-577e79f13f94

#rudolfrocker #anarchism #anarchosyndicalism #syndicalism

Here's the latest installment of my ongoing translation of Rudolf Rocker's memoirs. In honor of Independence (for White, Land-Owning Men) Day in the US, I've jumped out of sequence and posted an excerpt that I actually translated quite a few years ago. This is taken from a version of the memoirs that was published in Germany in the 1970s, but with lots of stuff cut out (which is why there are ellipses all over this thing). As the title implies, it's about anarchism in France in the early 20th c. and anarchists' demand for something more than bourgeois democracy.

As ever, please note that this is a draft, and may be further edited, revised, or chopped up before the final book version is published at some unknown time in the future by @pmpress. If this seems like a valuable project that you'd like to support, you are welcome to drop me a few bucks at the link below.

Without further ado, here it is: https://joseph-k.medium.com/rocker-on-the-anarchist-movement-in-france-ca28e5cd5f74

Fundraiser: https://gofund.me/37ad4bf6

#rudolfrocker #anarchism #syndicalism #anarchosyndicalism #Paris #France #translation #memoirs #Proudhon

Here's the latest installment of my ongoing translation of Rudolf Rocker's memoirs. In honor of Independence (for White, Land-Owning Men) Day in the US, I've jumped out of sequence and posted an excerpt that I actually translated quite a few years ago. This is taken from a version of the memoirs that was published in Germany in the 1970s, but with lots of stuff cut out (which is why there are ellipses all over this thing). As the title implies, it's about anarchism in France in the early 20th c. and their demand for something more than bourgeois democracy.

As ever, please note that this is a draft, and may be further edited, revised, or chopped up before the final book version is published at some unknown time in the future by @pmpress. If this seems like a valuable project that you'd like to support, you are welcome to drop me a few bucks at the link below.

Without further ado, here it is: https://joseph-k.medium.com/rocker-on-the-anarchist-movement-in-france-ca28e5cd5f74

Fundraiser: https://gofund.me/37ad4bf6

#rudolfrocker #anarchism #syndicalism #anarchosyndicalism #Paris #France #translation #memoirs #Proudhon

So many #Chicago storefront #theatre is disappearing, largely due to financial instability and fallout from the pandemic. It seems like every month, we lose another company.

I posit that this is the direct result of adhering to old capitalist models of art creation. Rigid corporate-like hierarchies and reliance on wealthy benefactors isn’t going to cut it anymore. We need to turn to an alternative system: one based on equity and cooperation.

I wrote about it more here: https://antiblog.ericmatthewrichardson.com/posts/punktheatre/

#anarchism #syndicalism #punk #DIY

Here's the latest from my ongoing translation of Rudolf Rocker's memoirs. I missed the past two weeks because I've been pretty overwhelmed with other work, which seems reasonable enough, but I really hate to say I'm going to do something (e.g., post weekly updates) and then not do it. So my apologies to anyone who's actually keeping up with this.

At any rate, this one deals with adolescent Rudolf and his earliest forays into socialist literature in his beloved uncle's apartment in Mainz. This is a short excerpt, but it says some things about the value of a culture that can foster a political imagination and pass on political ideas and experiences from one generation to the next. Both of these functions are often sorely lacking in our current moment (the latter in particular, given the enduring state of inter-generational rancor).

At any rate, enjoy it. As I've said before, this is a draft and may be edited before publication of the actual book (parts may even be deleted altogether). I should be back on schedule next week.

https://joseph-k.medium.com/young-rocker-discovers-socialist-lit-103f2066982c

#RudolfRocker, #syndicalism, #socialism, #socialdemocrats, #radicalliterature, #anarchism,

Here's the latest from my ongoing translation of Rudolf Rocker's memoirs. I missed the past two weeks because I've been pretty overwhelmed with other work, which seems reasonable enough, but I really hate to say I'm going to do something (e.g., post weekly updates) and then not do it. So my apologies to anyone who's actually keeping up with this.

At any rate, this one deals with adolescent Rudolf and his first discoveries of socialist literature in his beloved uncle's apartment in Mainz. This is a short excerpt, but it says some things about the value of a culture that can foster a political imagination and pass on political ideas and experiences from one generation to the next. Both of these functions are often sorely lacking in our current moment (the latter in particular, given the enduring state of inter-generational rancor).

At any rate, enjoy it. As I've said before, this is a draft and may be edited before publication of the actual book (parts may even be deleted altogether). I should be back on schedule next week.

https://joseph-k.medium.com/young-rocker-discovers-socialist-lit-103f2066982c

#RudolfRocker, #syndicalism, #socialism, #socialdemocrats, #radicalliterature, #anarchism,

Radical Reprint: Image of an alternate past
A speculative work by two prominent French anarcho-syndicalists, Emile Pouget and Emile Pataud, Syndicalism and the Co-operative Commonwealth (How We Shall Bring about the Revolution), was prominently reviewed in the pages of the June 1913 issue of Freedom.

Pouget is today the better known of th
https://freedomnews.org.uk/2023/06/25/radical-reprint-image-of-an-alternate-past/
#books #CGT #EmilePataud #EmilePouget #RadicalReprint #Syndicalism

'Direct Action', by Émile Pouget
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emile-pouget-direct-action

"Direct Action... means that the working class, in constant rebellion against the existing state of affairs, expects nothing from outside people, powers or forces, but rather creates its own conditions of struggle and looks to itself for its means of action."

#syndicalism #DirectAction #anarchosyndicalism #union #ClassStruggle

Синдикализм, катастрофы и кризисы

https://liberadio.noblogs.org/?p=1439

#text #translation #belgium #crisis #revolt #ruediger #syndicalism #work

After years of delays, I am once and for all plowing through what I think will be an fairly important and meaningful project: translating Rudolf Rocker's memoirs for @pmpress.

For the uninitiated, Rocker (1873–1958) was a labor organizer, orator, and leading early theorist of anarcho-syndicalism. His contribution to both anarchism and labor organizing was tremendous, yet the only substantive text about his life that is available in English is The London Years, which is an excellent book, but it only covers a relatively brief period of his life. The project I'm working on will fill in a lot more details about his commitment to the social democrats in his youth (at a time when social democracy was illegal in Germany), his disillusionment with party politics, his discovery of anarchism, and his repeated flight from various countries in Western Europe, among other things.

The full manuscript clocks in at some 2,000+ typewritten pages, so I am studiously reading the whole thing and editing it in the hope of producing a book that will be somewhere between 300-500 pages. So far, I've gotten through about the first 300 pages, or ~15% of the total.

I plan on posting draft excerpts on Medium no less than once a week to keep people up to speed on the progress I'm making, to keep myself accountable, and to hopefully generate some interest in what I think will be a valuable and meaningful text. The first installment is at the link below.

However, this project is a ton of work, so if you've got a few ducats lying around and you don't know what to do with them, I'd be grateful if you would kick in a small donation at the link below.

Please pass it on! More soon...

The first installment:
https://joseph-k.medium.com/introducing-the-memoirs-of-rudolf-rocker-5f8ecb1a1423

The fundraiser:
https://gofund.me/37ad4bf6

#rudolfrocker #anarchism #syndicalism #anarchosyndicalism #Mainz #translation #memoirs

This one's a song composed by a Finnish-American artist by the name of T-Bone Slim.

I think a huge chunk of Finnish history is kinda lost to us, as over here we're not always aware of how Finnish migrants fared overseas after each emigration push.

Especially the one after our civil war.

But quite a large number of them were wobblies, which makes me happy. :3

#IWW #Wobblies #Anarchosyndicalism #Unions #Finland #Finnish #MayDay #Strike #Socialism #Syndicalism

https://youtu.be/QNSq0dBmWuY

'Syndicalism: Its strengths & weaknesses', by Alan MacSimon
https://libcom.org/library/syndicalism-its-strengths-weaknesses

'A Reply to Syndicalism: Its Strengths and Weaknesses', by Tom Wetzel
https://libcom.org/library/reply-syndicalism-its-strengths-weaknesses

#platformism #syndicalism #anarchism

Ещё (не)много Р. Рокера

https://liberadio.noblogs.org/?p=1253

#text #translation #anarchism #link #revolt #rocker #syndicalism

Today in Labor History March 6, 1925: Miners in Cape Breton, Canada, struck against the British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO). They’d been striking against BESCO regularly for the past 5 years over wage cuts. The 1925 strike lasted 5 months. Company police killed one miner, William Davis. BESCO eventually went bankrupt. These strikes were part of the Canadian Labour Revolt (1918-1925) led by the One Big Union. The Vancouver General Strike (1918) and the Winnipeg General Strike (1919) inspired the OBU and subsequent strikes of the Labor Revolt. The OBU was also influenced by the IWW, the Spartacist Uprising in Germany and the Communist Revolution in Russia. The OBU was a syndicalist labor union that sought to overthrow capitalism and replace it with a socialist system based on worker control of the workplace.

#WorkingClass #LaborHistory #CapeBreton #steel #strike #GeneralStrike #winnipeg #vancouver #spartacist #IWW #communism #OneBigUnion #socialism #syndicalism

Anarcho-Syndicalist Rat

#anarchy #syndicalism #art #ratsofmaston #szczurposting #zwierzenasloniu

We are excited to announce that we are working with the Marie Goldsmith Project to publish the first two books in their project!

The first book will be a fully translated and annotated version of Goldsmith’s Revolutionary Syndicalism and Anarchism: Struggle with Capital and Power (1920). It will contain a Foreword by Prof Ruth Kinna and cover art/spot illustrations by the incredible @nobonzo

This book will also include a detailed introduction from Søren Hough @sorenhough and Chris Coquard broadly covering Goldsmith's biography to help contextualize her writing in Revolutionary Syndicalism.

The second book, provisionally titled Marie Goldsmith: Titan of Anarchism, will be a robust, scholarly footnoted compilation of essays by and about Marie Goldsmith. The title comes from a eulogy for Goldsmith delivered by Nestor Makhno.

Now it’s all hands on deck to keep pushing to afford the remaining printing, research, and translation costs! https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/marie-goldsmith-project

#anarchism #anarchisthistory #syndicalism

Isabel Ruiz, 'Federica Montseny'

Federica Montseny (January 12, 1905 - January 14, 1994)
died 29 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federica_Montseny

#art #anarchism #anarchocommunism #anarcha #feminism #anarchafeminism #orator #revolutionary #novelist #essayist #writer #author #WomenInArt #syndicalism #syndicalist #antiStalinist #SocialRevolution #libertarian #CNT #Catalonia #Catalan #Spain #France #antifascist #antifascism #exile #TradeUnion #female #minister #painting

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federica_Montseny

#art #anarchism #anarchocommunism #anarcha #feminism #anarchafeminism #orator #revolutionary #novelist #essayist #writer #author #WomenInArt #syndicalism #syndicalist #antiStalinist #SocialRevolution #libertarian #CNT #Catalonia #Catalan #Spain #France #antifascist #antifascism #exile #TradeUnion #female #minister #photography

Federica Montseny, died 29 years ago today, speaks at the historical meeting of the CNT in Barcelona on 1977, the first one after 36 years of dictatorship in Spain: