💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › politics › SPUNK › sp000417.txt captured on 2022-03-01 at 16:22:09.
View Raw
More Information
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
WORKERS SOLIDARITY
Paper of the Irish anarchist group,
Workers Solidarity Movement
No 43 Autumn 1994 (electronic addition)
Part 1 (Intro & Shorts) 19K
Socialism & freedom
10 years of the WSM
Thats Capitalism
World Unemployment
Revolutionaries
letter from Serbia
*******************
SOCIALISM _AND_ FREEDOM
WHAT IS IT that most ordinary people want in
life? Is it something unreal or utopian?
No. The goals which most people have are
quite modest. A good standard of living and
freedom to live our lives the way we want
to.
Instead we have to put with unemployment,
low pay, insecure employment, drudgery. We
are pushed around, bullied or dominated by
bosses and faceless bureaucrats. All of
this to make a small group of people, the
ruling class, wealthy beyond most peoples'
wildest dreams.
Most of us want equality with our fellows in
the decision making and control that affects
our lives, and those of our families. We
want the security of knowing that the
necessities of life will always be there for
ourselves and our loved ones, and that we
will not have our world pulled from under us
by being thrown on the dole.
We want to enjoy the good things that go
make life both human and pleasant. We do
not want to denied this type of life because
lack of money makes it available only to the
wealthy. The working class creates all
wealth, we should be able to enjoy its
benefits.
In a world which can put people onto the
moon, cure most diseases, speak to people
thousands of miles away, and the thousands
of other scientific achievements this
century has produced, our goal is no fantasy
or utopia. It is achievable but only if we
are clear about what we are against and what
we are in favour of.
The "communist" world was not communist. It
was state capitalist and dictatorial. A
small elite controlled everything. The
"free" world is not free. In their lust for
power and profit the ruling class have given
us a planet where millionaires can have
whatever they want while the rest of us have
to make do with what's left over.
Whilst poverty, hunger, oppression and wars
continue to plague the people of this planet
there will always be people seeking an
alternative way to run society. Whilst the
division of people into bosses and workers,
rulers and ruled, continues there will be no
meaningful change. Anarchists want to
abolish, once and for all, the root cause of
such human suffering.
The alternative we work for is a world where
production is to satisfy human needs and
desires, not to make profits for a small
parasitic minority. A world where we can
all have a direct say in the decisions that
will affect us, where participatory
democracy is found everywhere. A world
where freedom is the rule and not the
exception.
***************
For Starters
TEN YEARS OF THE WSM
IN LATE September 1984 five anarchists,
three from Dublin and two from Cork decided
to launch the Workers Solidarity Movement.
This was certainly a major undertaking for
such a small number of people. Workers
Solidarity began publication five weeks
later. The first editorial introduced the
new organisation: "Are there not enough
organisations trying to change society?
What makes the Workers Solidarity Society so
different?
"We are different, very different. Unlike
so many others we do not believe the end
justifies the means. We say the means you
use will shape the society you create. We
want a free and socialist society, and we
have to organise in a like manner.
"We are anarchists. We are socialists. You
can't have one without the other because
they are one and the same thing. Socialism
is not a collection of reforms and minor
changes. It means a lot more than that. It
means building something completely new.
And you build everything from the bottom up
- socialism is no exception.
"We won't be trying to take over the state
structures. Government, the existing civil
service, police, army and so on are there to
meet the needs of a capitalist society.
They cannot be turned round to serve
socialism, they were not designed for that.
The state is only necessary when a minority
wants to rule.
"Workers will create their own structures to
bring a new society into being. Structures
that are efficient and geared towards mass
involvement and democratic decision making.
All of this is not just around the corner.
But unless we know what we want and how to
get it we will be stuck with the chaos and
inequality of the present system with its
continual series of crises."
Over the last decade the WSM has grown and
developed policies based on its anti-
authoritarian and socialist views. A lot of
time went into discussing and debating the
sort of society we want and how to achieve
it. We certainly did not want to copy the
"shepherd & sheep" model used by so many
Leninist groups. We were determined that
there would be no reliance of one or two
leaders for ideas, that every member would
be genuinely able to influence the course of
the WSM. Our goal was to to popularise
anarchism and fight for the creation of a
society based on its principles: individual
freedom, collective management of society by
its workers, participatory democracy.
Those aims remains the same. Producing
Workers Solidarity, publishing pamphlets and
hosting public meetings is part of our
activity. But we are not mere advocates of
a better world, we are involved in the
struggles to make things better right now.
That is why WSM members have supported
strikers at Pat the Baker, UCD, Dunnes
Stores, the ESB and many others. That is
why we helped to form the Dublin Abortion
Information Campaign which brought enough
people onto the streets in 1992 to defeat
the government's injunction against "X" and
led to the successful referenda against
restrictions on abortion information and
womens right to travel. We have been
involved in many struggles, many more than
there is_space to list here.
Anarchism is the only realistic alternative
to capitalism. What passed for alternatives
in the past have lost most of their appeal.
Stalinism is terminally ill, only hanging on
by its finger nails in North Korea and Cuba.
It is finished as a movement. Leninism and
Trotskyism are being swept along with it
into the dustbin of history. Social
democracy and its Labour Parties are
disgraced throughout much of the world.
Within Ireland republicanism has retreated
from the verbal 'socialism' it adopted in
the 1980s.
While opposing the presence of the British
Army and the continuing partition of the
country, we have always said that the
politics and methods of nationalism are
wrong. We have to oppose imperialism and,
at the same time, oppose the clerical
nationalist laws in the South which ban
divorce and abortion. We have to oppose
Orange bigotry while at the same time
campaigning for the complete separation of
Church and State.
We do not fight for a united capitalist
Ireland, neither as a 'step in the right
direction' or as an end in itself. Joining
the six to the twenty six counties offers
nothing to working class people in either
state. We have no interest in re-dividing
poverty on a more 'equitable' basis. The
only Ireland worth fighting for is a Workers
Republic where every working class person
stands to gain. The way towards such a new
Ireland is the way of class struggle and
mass action, taking control of our own
struggles and doing it in our own class
interests. This is the road to freedom.
Liberty, workers control, anti-
authoritarianism... if these are the sort of
aims you have, then you should find out more
about anarchism and the Workers Solidarity
Movement.
*****************
THATS CAPITALISM
In 1977 part-time women workers in Britain
earned 83% of the full-time hourly rate for
women. By 1992 they earned only 73% of the
hourly rate.
In the Indonesian archipelago only 7% of
land has a clear owner. Most is communally
owned and administered by villages and
families. That's no good for capitalism
says the World Bank. they are working with
the Indonesian Government to change things
by compiling a register of land owners. In
the next 25 years they hope to register 54
million parcels of land.
If you are 17 or under in the U.S.A. you
cannot go out at night alter 11pm. (midnight
at the weekends). Those are the curfew
regulations being adopted by a growing
number of American cities in order to
"fight" crime. So far Baltimore, Santa
Monica, Phoenix, Dallas and Atlanta have
adopted the idea. New Orleans and Washington
are considering.
When Mary Robinson went to India last year
she hailed the economic changes there.
Speaking on our behalf she praised the move
"to liberalise and globalise its economy"
declaring it to be one of the "most
auspicious development of recent years." The
changes she said would release "the energies
and skills of its people". What these new
economic changes are all about was
underlined by India's budget in February.
The Corporate tax rate was cut from 58% to
44% and the top individual tax band was also
from 45% to 40%. The IMF applauded the
budget.
A survey of earnings in Los Angles in 1993
showed that the average wage for an actor
was just $12,500. A far cry from money
commanded by the likes of Julia Roberts or
Robert DeNiro. But there was an even bigger
difference. The head of Disney, Michael
Eisner, earned $203,950,000 in the same
year. That's 16,316 times the wage of the
average actor.
Costa Rican plantation workers have filed
suits in the USA against Shell Oil, Dow
Chemicals, Standard Fruit and the owners of
Chiquita brand bananas on foot of sterility
problems encountered by workers picking
bananas sprayed with a pesticide banned in
the US in 1979. Over 16,000 workers are
affected not just in Costa Rica but also
Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras and the
Philippines. The workers have proof that the
chemicals in question, marketed as Nemagon
or Fumazone, were shipped for use outside
the US after the ban there in 1979. No
health hazard warnings were ever included
with the shipments despite the ban in the
US. The workers were never warned of the
dangers.
The Drug Enforcement Agency in the USA
netted a ring of cocaine money launders in
Florida earlier this year. Among those
arrested were the vice-president of Merril
Lynch in Panama and another senior executive
from the same company.
Russian bosses are catching on fast. The
independent miners union in Vorkuta, on the
Arctic circle, recently highlighted some
novel ways of doing business. The coal being
mined by the workers was sold to a local
company, owned by the mine director, for
just $3 a tonne. The mine director sold it
abroad for $30 a tonne. All legal and above
board.
The number of empty homes in Britain has
risen by 30% in ten years, reports the Empty
Homes Agency, a charity. The number of
homeless families has more than doubled over
the same period.
According to the Roman Catholic development
agency, Trocaire, 16,442 Brazilian workers
were actually in slavery in 1992.
- **************************
If you think the system is working
...ask someone who isn't
NEARLY ONE out of three workers in the
world's labour force either has no job or is
earning too little to live decently, the
International Labour Organisation reports.
The United Nations organisation calls the
situation "the worst global employment
criosis since the Great Depression of the
1930s". The ILO said 120 million people are
registered as unemployed around the world
and millions more are either tired of
looking for work or never bothered to
register.
"Practically half of the 35 million
unemployed workers in Western Europe have
been off the employment rolls for a year or
more", said ILO Director General, Michael
Hansenne. His report estimates another 700
million are underemployed, earning less than
needed to support a minimum standard of
living.
According to UN figures, the average income
of the world's 5.5 billion people may have
fallen slightly in 1993 - for the fourth
year in a row.
Source: Industrial Worker
*********************
Thinking about anarchism
REVOLUTIONARIES
I may not have any chains around my feet,
but still, I am not free. In modern society
- capitalism - our bosses and leaders have
invented new methods to chain us. According
to the propaganda we are supposed to live in
a free, democratic society, yet all of us
experience limitations in our lives.
Everyday more of us are being flung on the
dole, families are being thrown out on the
streets, our pay packets are shrinking and
prices keep going up. Politicians care
about little else except their popularity.
In truth, we all know that this free,
democratic society doesn't exist on the
streets where we live.
We must change the system which forces
us to live under it's heel. The only way to
take the power back from the bosses and
place it in the hands of the people is via
Revolution. Capitalism now operates
globally. If you are serious about fighting
them then there is a glaring need to
organise and co-ordinate. It is in answer
to this need that revolutionary
organisations spring.
To be led is to be DEAD.
Anarchists have an acknowledged respect for
individual freedom. We believe that
anarchist ideas and principles are those
which will bring about a successful
revolution.
We are not interested in changing our
leaders. We wish to change the system so
that there is no leaders just real
democracy. We therefore believe in the need
to develop individually. Socialism doesn't
exist without freedom. What we want is a
society where we are free to exercise
control over our own lives.
Ideas are our lifeblood
Just as there are major differences between
Marxists and Anarchists in politics so there
is in the way we organise. We do not have
leaders and led. Anarchists believe that
ideas are the lifeblood of a revolutionary
movement. We wish to be the educators and
instigators of our class but not the
leaders. The working class has been led
down enough 'cul de sacs' to not be bothered
with the journey.
The WSM
The WSM, as our organisation, must reflect
the type of society we wish to create. All
our members are active in the work and
decision making of the organisation. Each
member carries out the tasks of writing,
paper selling, and preparing educational
talks. We are all involved in campaign work
and in our trade unions. Here we address
the issues and try and win people to our
politics in both heat and mind.
Party Versus You
There are no power positions within the WSM.
Any position held within the organisation is
electable, recallable and entails
administrative work. The Leninists
demonstrated that power when wielded in the
name of the working class means the
precedence of the party over the people.
There will always come a time when there is
a clash between the party and the people.
This is because it is the party making the
decisions on behalf of the people and not
the people making and exercising their own
decisions.. We say that Anarchism has no
place for power unless it is in the hands of
the workers themselves.
The need for efficient co-ordination
and decision making in a post revolutionary
period shall be dealt with by the workers'
own organisations. The history of struggle
is also the history of self-organisation.
>From the Paris Commune through the original
Russian Soviets to the workers' self-
management in 1930's Spain, people have
automatically sought to organise themselves
and create their own decision-making organs.
Democracy either involves decisions being
taken by the people being effected or it is
not democracy. Such self-organisation will
provide the structure for our future free
society to be built on.
"Only the Truth is Revolutionary"
The WSM are not players in a game called
politics. For us politics is the fight
forward for a better future. Anarchism will
either be the creation of a free and
politically aware working class.....or it
will not be anarchism.
It is the role of a revolutionary
organisation is to get our class to a stage
where we take on the might of the state,
destroy it and replace it with workers'
councils. There is no room for leaders or
parties doing it on our behalf. There is
only room for the working class being in
control and in power. When the working
class are in charge of society then it will
only be run in our interests.
Dermot Sreenan
****************
LETTERS
Dear comrades,
We have received your magazine Workers
Solidarity so we've decided to write to you
and inform you about the growth of anarchism
in new Yugoslavia [ed. Serbia, Kosovo etc.].
The Anarchist movement started to grow at
the end of 1993. Before that there were
only anarchist zines and groups of people
who did not function as anarchist/political
groups but only carried out direct actions
against war, fascism and government. Now
there are three organising groups and some
sections in several towns all over Serbia.
Unfortunately, we could not do much until
now because of the very bad economic
situation but hopefully we are starting some
good work. In February this year, together
with comrades from Croatia and with
financial support of comrades from the
anarchist group 'Germinal' from Trieste,
Italy we've published a bulletin called
"Over the walls of nationalism and war".
8,000 copies were printed. It was a big
success in our anti-war and anti-nationalism
projects and it was reviewed in some big
official newspapers and even on TV.
Name & address with editor
- the letter has been edited to reduce its
length and clarify the language.
************************
Part 2 (Ireland & Imperialism)
It was always time to go..Troops out now!
When British army chiefs refused to obey orders
Nationalism...No Thanks
When the Falls & the Shankill fought together
Part 3 (Drugs)
In this section
Legalise it
The heroin menace
Part 4 (Campaigns & Struggle in Ireland)
TEAM workers told not to expect a decent job
Lets get together
Anti-Water charges campaign gets off ground
Reasons to bin the bill
Part 5 (A rotten world)
Interview with Italian anarchist
Ireland..The land of a 1000 welcomes?
Hicksons chemical spill
37% illegally underpaid
***********************
Workers Solidarity currently comes out four
times a year. For subscription details write
to WSM, PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland.
Also appearing in the near future will be a
theoretical magazine called Red and Black
Revolution.
*****************
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The Workers Solidarity Movement can be contacted at
PO Box 1528, Dublin 8, Ireland
or by anonymous e-mail to an64739@anon.penet.fi
Some of our material is available via the Spunk press electronic archive
by FTP to etext.archive.umich.edu or 141.211.164.18
or by gopher ("gopher etext.archive.umich.edu")
or WWW at http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/spunk/Spunk_Home.html
in the directory /pub/Politics/Spunk/texts/groups/WSM