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The information in this file was recently published in FREEDOM - the fortnightly anarchist journal published by FREEDOM PRESS: FREEDOM PRESS (IN ANGEL ALLEY) 84B WHITECHAPEL HIGH STREET, LONDON E1 7QX GREAT BRITAIN Do write for a sample copy or for a copy of our booklist of publications. We will be putting more of this information out so watch this spot... ITALY Italy has recently seen much debate within the anarchist movement about the question of self-management. Here we bring you a contribution to this debate. We feel sure that the Milan group would be interested in hearing from readers of Freedom interested in and/or involved in this area... The experiences of the last few years have allowed us to conclude that the established or institutionalised left is totally incapable (on either a theoretical or practical level) of responding concretely to the needs and demands of the people. The rugged debate around the themes of federalism and use of language by groups who have nothing to do with such concepts and the continual attempt to present oneself as 'new' in order to cover up past skeletons provide us with the general framework within which has fermented the experiences and movements which, over the years, have started to redefine, in practice and with a self- managed development, new ways to face up to the demands of daily life. In this way people began to turn to craft, agricultural and entertainment activities which either used modern technology or reproduced more traditional modes of production, but always had as their final objective the effective control of people's work and their lives. Social centres, alternative banks, self-managed schools, squats, producer or consumer co-operatives, self-managed musical productions... such are some of the phenomena which have been adopted by the self-management method. In the 80s, such practices were recognised by a denial of the "projectual' and political dimension to which was opposed a kind of minimalism which can be summed up in the small is beautiful slogan. Over the following years these groups began to realise that shutting yourself off in your own cocoon was pointless; in fact it ran the risk of bringing with it a progressive implosion that would wipe out or denaturalise the experience, giving ground to market forces and those of profit (or quite simple extinction). In addition a long and painful process was begun (still today in its early stages) of confronting and opposing to similar groupings which had usurped the self-management label. It was in this way that the first exchanges began, the first contacts: we were painfully seeking to escape from the margins, a kind of ghettoisation to which the dominant society would send these ideas which in the long run could put the organisational terms and conditions of the state in jeopardy, which in itself reveals a fragility and more and more clearly an incapacity to answer to, in an acceptable fashion, the demands of ordinary people. Thus, after a meeting which took place in Bologna, over the last few months we sought to verify in a concrete fashion the potential for a movement both divided and contradictory but also full of energy and potential. That is to say that we thought the value of this exchange, of concrete experiences as abstract elaborations, would be that it could provide a new springboard for expansion and bring about the opportunity for further exchanges and the spreading of the movement. Moreover, if the economic crisis (and above all the question of employment) brings to light the inability of capitalism to answer to the primary needs of a large part of the planet... then it seems to us that the moment has arrived for us to begin to set up the opportunities for dialogue between the different tendencies which exist amongst those concerned with self-management. In essence, our ambition is to develop an atmosphere in which the different groupings concerned can be put in contact with one another so that opportunities for dialogue can be brought into being and nurtured concerning the fascinating if difficult area of concrete utopias. This is a necessary first step for those who wish to escape from the marginality of the ghettos into which those with power would condemn us, contributing towards the opening up of new political and social spaces of co-operation and exchange outside of the market. LE MONDE LIBERTAIRE October 94