andyh wrote:
dogsmilk wrote:
andyh wrote:
Its just a circlejerk for your own benefit to somehow convince your twisted mind that its OK to be a useless socialist wimp who needs someone else such as the govt to fix it for him.
The loony left are just as bad as the extreme right, they're no better than hadaka jimmy and his perfect benevolent dictator.
Andy, you are well aware I spent a lot of time on the DIF defending and promoting anarchism and I've spent this entire thread defending the principles of anarcho-syndicalism. .
No you've spent a load of time trying to say its about some kind of union movement and said that co-ops are a waste of time because they'll never achieve anything and that self employment is a complete waste of time and its best left to the elite.
Andy I have said
repeatedly I think co-ops are a good thing. I mean -
I’ve already said think co-ops are a good thing. I think they are a much better way of doing things. But they are limited in what they will ever achieve.
Yes, co-ops should be encouraged and are a positive step. But the are not going to save the world.
I have at no point on the thread anywhere said they are a "waste of time". Why are you misrepresenting what I've said?
Additionally, I have at no point said self-employment is a "waste of time". But it is not radical, revolutionary and is never going change a goddam thing. Ask David Cameron is you should be self employed and he'll say "yes good idea - the more entrepeneurs starting small busineses the better". And that's all there is to it. Self-employment is a component of the capitalist system - end of.
But if it works for you and you're happy doing it - that's great. If you pay the bills by doing something that makes you happy, that's good. As long as it's not arms dealing or something!
The advocates of anarcho-syndicalism take the view that trades unions or labour syndicates should not only be concerned with improving the conditions and wages of their members, although this is an important part of their activity. They should take on a more positive role and have an educational as well as social function; they should become the 'most fruitful' germs of a future society, the elementary school of 'socialism in general'. By developing within the shell of the old society, the syndicates should threfore establish institutions of self-management so that when the revolution comes through a general strke the workers will be prepared to undertake the necessary social transformation. The syndicates should in this way be considered the means of revolution as well as model of the future society
Peter Marshall,
demanding the impossible - a history of anarchism p.9
I can quote stuff all day. You don't appear to be able to get your head round the glaring fact anarcho-syndicalism is about
radical workers unions -
not Unison or GMB or Unite or whoever. Where do you think unions came from? Unions are originally the product of labour organising to stick up for itself. Of labour recognising its own mass power. Of its ability to organise itself and when you get to anarchism ultimately overthrow the bosses for good. The fact it's all Dave Prentice's cash cow getting a 2% pay rise now doesn't mean that's what unions were originally about. Back in the day in America, you'd get armed men protecting scab labour to break a strike. There was practically a war going on. People got killed. Alexander Berkman who I previously mentioned, Emma Goldman's soulmate and a noted anarchist writer, got sent to prison after unsuccessfully trying to assassinate one of these bosses who'd hired armed men in his strikebreaking efforts. These were crazy times.
And like why do you think May Day is important?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haymarket_affair
Anarcho-syndicalism was developed over 100 years ago - people weren't all setting up their own IT businesses back then you know. It came to exist in the first place when most of the population was working in factories and mills. Whereas now it's supermarkets and call centres. Its development was defined by an era where relationships between the bosses and the worker were an enormous issue - and an era when lots of the employment rights now being eroded were being fought for - alongside the struggle for radical social change - and anarcho-syndicalism is interested in both.
You can't just make up your own idea of what a long established political philosophy is about and where it came from. It's a bit like me suddenly deciding fascism is about multiculturalism and arguing with anyone who disagrees.
Who in its heyday, was the largest, most powerful and for a short period most successful anarcho-syndicalist organisation in history? It was a fucking confederation of radical labour unions that still exists today.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confederaci%C3%B3n_Nacional_del_Trabajo
And for a brief time they took over the factories and ran them themselves collectively.
Hells bells, one of the standard criticisms of anarcho-syndicalism is thats it's always been so heavily focused on the labour movement.
