Learning Not to Labor
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
On the “Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists”
Bob Black Wooden Shoes or Platform Shoes?: On the “Organizational Platform of the Libertarian Communists” The Anarchist Library Organisational Platform of the Libertarian Communists. By Nestor Makhno, Ida Mett, Pyotr Arshinov, Valevsky & Linsky. Dublin, Ireland: Workers’ Solidarity Movement, 1989. It attests to the ideological bankruptcy of the organizational anarchists to- day that they should exhume (not resurrect) a manifesto which was already obsolete when promulgated in 1926. The Organizational Platform enjoys an imperishable permanence: untimely then, untimely now, untimely forever. In- tended to persuade, it elicited attacks from almost every prominent anarchist of its time. Intended to organize, it provoked splits. Intended to restate the anar- chist alternative to Marxism, it restated the Leninist alternative to anarchism. Intended to make history, it barely made it into the history books. Why read it today? Precisely because, poor as it is, it has never been surpassed as a program- matic statement of organizationalist, workerist anarchism. Not that latter-day workies deserve to be saddled with archaism like the Platformist policy toward the peasantry, to which many words are devoted. But much of the rhetoric is familiar — so much so that the formulations in circulation apparently cannot be improved upon. The Platform may have had great influence on those who have not had great influence. In language redolent of recent rantings against “lifestyle anarchism” — right down to the disparaging quotation marks — the Platform attributes the “chronic general disorganization” of anarchists to “the lovers of assertion of ‘self,’ [who,] solely with a view to personal pleasure, obstinately cling to the chaotic state of the anarchist movement.” The absence of organizational principles and practices is the “most important” reason why anarchism is weak (11). -
Social Ecology and Communalism
Murray Bookchin Bookchin Murray $ 12,95 / £ xx,xx Social Ecology and Communalism Replace this text Murray Bookchin ocial cology Social Ecology and Communalism and Communalism Social Ecology S E and Communalism AK Press Social Ecology and Communalism Murray Bookchin Social Ecology and Communalism Bookchin, Murray Social Ecology and Communalism Library of Congress Control Number 2006933557 ISBN 978-1-904859-49-9 Published by AK Press © Eirik Eiglad and Murray Bookchin 2006 AK Press 674–A 23rd St. Oakland, CA 94612 USA www.akpress.org [email protected] AK Press UK PO Box 12766 Edinburgh, EH8 9YE Scotland (0131) 555–5165 www.akuk.com [email protected] Design and layout by Eirik Eiglad Contents An Introduction to Social Ecology and Communalism 7 What is Social Ecology? 19 Radical Politics in an Era of Advanced Capitalism 53 The Role of Social Ecology in a Period of Reaction 68 The Communalist Project 77 After Murray Bookchin 117 An Introduction to Social Ecology and Communalism We are standing at a crucial crossroads. Not only does the age- old “social question” concerning the exploitation of human labor remain unresolved, but the plundering of natural resources has reached a point where humanity is also forced to politically deal with an “ecological question.” Today, we have to make conscious choices about what direction society should take, to properly meet these challenges. At the same time, we see that our very ability to make the necessary choices are being undermined by an incessant centralization of economic and political power. Not only is there a process of centralization in most modern nation states that divests humanity of any control over social affairs, but power is also gradually being transferred to transnational institutions. -
Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams
The Long Read: What Will We Do in the Post-Work Utopia? by Mareile Pfannebecker and J.A. Smith blogs.lse.ac.uk/lsereviewofbooks/2016/06/17/the-long-read-what-will-we-do-in-the-post-work-utopia-by-mareile-pfannebecker-and-j-a-smith/ The Refusal of Work: The Theory and Practice of Resistance to Work . David Frayne. Zed Books. 2015. Inventing the Future: Postcapitalism and a World Without Work. Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams. Verso. 2015. Find these books: There is today a preoccupation with the idea of ‘the end of work’: whether in chronicling the decline of permanent careers in the age of precarity; dystopian warnings that digitisation is about to bring a new age of mass unemployment; or utopian demands that we seize the opportunity to radically redefine our relationship to work. The most practical proposal of the latter is the campaign for a Universal Basic Income, an amount paid to every citizen without means- testing, the cost of which, it is argued, could be defrayed by a combination of savings in welfare bureaucracy and reductions in health spending. Until recently, UBI was spoken of as a ‘thought experiment’, but numerous countries are now witnessing campaigns and trials dedicated to making the policy a reality. In Britain, the Green Party, Labour and the SNP have expressed varying levels of openness to it, and there are also advocates on the libertarian Right. The basic annual amount of £3,692 proposed by UK campaigners may not keep the majority from pursuing further income, but such practical questions are less significant than the change that UBI represents to the very ontology of work. -
In Reply Refer to UODA
In reply refer to UODA U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR Manpower Administration Bureau of Employment Security Unemployment Insurance Program Letter No. 984 September 20, 1968 TO: ALL STATE EMPLOYMENT SECURITY AGENCIES SUBJECT: Benefit Determinations and Appeals Decisions Which Require Determination of Prevailing Wages, Hours, or Other Conditions of Work REFERENCES: Section 3304(a)(5)(B) of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act; Principles Underlying the Prevailing Conditions of Work Standard, September 1950, BSSUI (originally issued January 6, 1947 as Unemployment Compensation Program Letter No. 130) Purpose and Scope To advise State agencies and appeal authorities of the interpretation of the phrase "new work" for the purpose of applying the prevailing wage and conditions-of-work standard in section 3304(a)(5)(B) of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, particularly in relation to an offer of work made by an employer for whom the individual is working at the time the offer is made. This letter is prompted primarily by a current problem arising from a number of recent cases in which findings were not made with respect to the prevailing wages, hours, or other conditions of the work, because appar- ently it was not considered that "new work" was involved. Federal Statutory Provision Involved Section 3304(a)(5) of the Federal Unemployment Tax Act, the so-called labor standards provision, requires State unemployment insurance laws, as a condition of approval for tax credit, to provide that: "compensation shall not be denied in such State to any otherwise -
Sisyphus and the Labour of Imagination: Autonomy, Cultural Production, and the Antinomies of Worker Self-Management
Sisyphus and the Labour of Imagination: Autonomy, Cultural Production, and the Antinomies of Worker Self-Management Stevphen Shukaitis1 Abstract Is there any radical potential left in the notion and practices of worker self-management? What I want do in this essay is to try and see if it is possible to distill something of a radical kernel from the many difficulties and complications that confront it, particularly within fields of cultural production. How can self- management contribute to what Jacques Ranciere describes as a movement not of slaves filled with ressentiment, but of people living and embodying a new time of sociability and cooperation, creating resources and skills that can spread out from this, rather than being caught and contained by the conditions of is own creation? Drawing from my own experiences working in Ever Reviled Records, a worker owned and run record label, I want to ferret out--conducting something akin to an organizational autoethnography--hints as to whether or not self-management could be useful for radical social struggles today. Introduction Let us imagine, for a change, an association of free men working with the means of production held in common, and expending their many different forms of labour-power in full self-awareness as one single social labour force…. The total product of our imagined association is a social product…. This, however, requires that society possess a material foundation, or a series of material conditions of existence, which in their turn are the natural and spontaneous product -
The Temporary Autonomous Zone
THE TEMPORARY AUTONOMOUS ZONE "...this time however I come as the victorious Dionysus, who will turn the world into a holiday...Not that I have much time..." --Nietzsche (from his last "insane" letter to Cosima Wagner) Pirate Utopias THE SEA-ROVERS AND CORSAIRS of the 18th century created an "information network" that spanned the globe: primitive and devoted primarily to grim busi- ness, the net nevertheless functioned admirably. Scattered throughout the net were islands, remote hideouts where ships could be watered and provisioned, booty traded for luxuries and necessities. Some of these islands supported "intentional communities," whole mini-societies living consciously outside the law and determined to keep it up, even if only for a short but merry life. Some years ago I looked through a lot of secondary material on piracy hoping to find a study of these enclaves--but it appeared as if no historian has yet found them worthy of analysis. (William Burroughs has mentioned the subject, as did the late British anarchist Larry Law--but no systematic research has been carried out.) I retreated to primary sources and constructed my own theory, some aspects of which will be discussed in this essay. I called the settle- ments "Pirate Utopias." Recently Bruce Sterling, one of the leading exponents of Cyberpunk science fiction, published a near-future romance based on the assumption that the decay of political systems will lead to a decentralized proliferation of experiments in living: giant worker-owned corporations, independent enclaves devoted to "data piracy," Green-Social-Democrat enclaves, Zerowork enclaves, anarchist liberated zones, etc. -
Seeking and Accepting Suitable Work
SECTION VI – SEEK AND ACCEPT WORK / REFUSAL OF WORK VI-1 Definition of Seeking and Accepting Suitable Work VI-10 Search for Work (A) Commission Required Contacts (B) Lack of Transportation (C) Moving to Different Area (D) Newspaper Advertisements (E) Telephone Contacts Only (F) Undue Restrictions (G) Union VI-20 Refusal of Referral (A) Commuting Distance (B) Different Shift (C) Part-Time or Temporary Work (D) Personal Reasons (E) Relocation (F) Union Hiring Hall Referral (G) Unsuitable Work VI-30 Refusal of Employment (A) After Receipt of 50% of Benefits (B) Before Filing for Benefits (C) Child Care (D) Commuting Distance (E) Humiliation or Embarrassment (F) Job Offered to Deny Claimant Benefits (G) Medical Limitations (H) Same Job/ Different Shift (I) Seasonal Work (J) Undue Restrictions (K) Unsuitable Work (L) -1-2 Wages (M) With Former Employer SECTION VII- PROCEDURES FOR OBJECTIONS AND APPEALS SECTION VIII - MISCELLANEOUS SEEKING AND ACCEPTING SUITABLE WORK A claimant’s search for work and willingness to apply for and accept suitable work is a good indication of continuing availability for work as required in Sec. 2-205 and is closely linked to the adjudication of that issue. A claimant for UI benefits is expected to demonstrate continued availability for work measured by what one does in an attempt to become reemployed in a reasonable time. Reemployment of unemployed workers is an important part of the original mission of the Employment Security system; involving both the job placement/training and UI components of that system. The goal is to encourage and assist in that reemployment before the exhaustion of benefits in order to maintain or restore the economic security of the worker. -
Leaving the Left Behind 115 Post-Left Anarchy?
Anarchy after Leftism 5 Preface . 7 Introduction . 11 Chapter 1: Murray Bookchin, Grumpy Old Man . 15 Chapter 2: What is Individualist Anarchism? . 25 Chapter 3: Lifestyle Anarchism . 37 Chapter 4: On Organization . 43 Chapter 5: Murray Bookchin, Municipal Statist . 53 Chapter 6: Reason and Revolution . 61 Chapter 7: In Search of the Primitivists Part I: Pristine Angles . 71 Chapter 8: In Search of the Primitivists Part II: Primitive Affluence . 83 Chapter 9: From Primitive Affluence to Labor-Enslaving Technology . 89 Chapter 10: Shut Up, Marxist! . 95 Chapter 11: Anarchy after Leftism . 97 References . 105 Post-Left Anarchy: Leaving the Left Behind 115 Prologue to Post-Left Anarchy . 117 Introduction . 118 Leftists in the Anarchist Milieu . 120 Recuperation and the Left-Wing of Capital . 121 Anarchy as a Theory & Critique of Organization . 122 Anarchy as a Theory & Critique of Ideology . 125 Neither God, nor Master, nor Moral Order: Anarchy as Critique of Morality and Moralism . 126 Post-Left Anarchy: Neither Left, nor Right, but Autonomous . 128 Post-Left Anarchy? 131 Leftism 101 137 What is Leftism? . 139 Moderate, Radical, and Extreme Leftism . 140 Tactics and strategies . 140 Relationship to capitalists . 140 The role of the State . 141 The role of the individual . 142 A Generic Leftism? . 142 Are All Forms of Anarchism Leftism . 143 1 Anarchists, Don’t let the Left(overs) Ruin your Appetite 147 Introduction . 149 Anarchists and the International Labor Movement, Part I . 149 Interlude: Anarchists in the Mexican and Russian Revolutions . 151 Anarchists in the International Labor Movement, Part II . 154 Spain . 154 The Left . 155 The ’60s and ’70s . -
“Bifo” Berardi Marco Deseriis Theory & Event, Volume 1
Irony and the Politics of Composition in the Philosophy of Franco “Bifo” Berardi Marco Deseriis Theory & Event, Volume 15, Issue 4, 2012. Abstract By analyzing Franco Berardi’s reflections on irony as an extension of his political praxis, the article first examines the multifaceted functions of this rhetorical device in the contexts of the late-1960s social struggles against factory work in Italy, the communication experiments of the Autonomia movement, and the information overload of the contemporary mediascape. In the second part, the text addresses Berardi’s attempt to reconcile Jean Baudrillard’s theory of simulacra with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s theory of desire to end with a reflection on how his distinction between irony and cynicism may offer a counterpoint to Slavoj Žižek’s critique of ideology. Keywords Irony; class composition; Italian workerism; social movements; subjectivity; autonomy. Born in Bologna in 1949, Franco “Bifo” Berardi has participated in four major anti-capitalist movements in the past four decades: the 1968 as a member of the Marxist revolutionary group Potere Operaio (Workers’ Power); the movement of Autonomia in 1977; the alter-globalization movement in the late 1990s-early 2000s; and the current European movement against austerity measures, the precarization of labor conditions, and the budget cuts to public education. Berardi has combined this personal engagement with an ongoing experimentation with social movement media such as the magazine A/Traverso, the experimental community radio Radio Alice, both founded in Bologna in the mid-1970s. In the late 1990s, he launched the e-mail list Rekombinant and, in the early 2000s, the community TV Orfeo TV. -
The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery
The afterlife of reproductive slavery This page intentionally left blank Alys Eve Weinbaum The afterlife of reproductive slavery Biocapitalism and Black Feminism’s Philosophy of History duke university press | durham and london | 2019 © 2019 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of Amer i ca on acid- free paper ∞ Designed by Julienne Alexander Typeset in Quadraat Pro and Scala Sans Pro by Westchester Publishing Ser vices Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data Names: Weinbaum, Alys Eve, [date] author. Title: The afterlife of reproductive slavery : biocapitalism and Black feminism’s philosophy of history / Alys Eve Weinbaum. Description: Durham : Duke University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers:lccn 2018035543 (print) lccn 2018047129 (ebook) isbn 9781478003281 (ebook) isbn 9781478001768 (hardcover : alk. paper) isbn 9781478002840 (pbk. : alk. paper) Subjects: lcsh: Womanism— United States. | Human reproduction— Political aspects— United States. | Surrogate motherhood— United States— History. | African American women— Social conditions— History. | Women slaves— Atlantic Ocean Region. | Slavery— United States— History. | Slavery— Atlantic Ocean Region. Classification:lcc ht1523 (ebook) | lcc ht1523 .w44 2019 (print) | ddc 306.3/620973— dc23 lc rec ord available at https:// lccn . loc . gov / 2018035543 Cover art: Senga Nengudi, Per for mance Piece, 1978. Nylon mesh and artist Maren Hassinger. Pearl C. Woods Gal- lery, Los Angeles. Photo by Harmon Outlaw. -
The Autonomy of Struggles and the Self-Management of Squats: Legacies of Intertwined Movements Miguel A
Interface: a journal for and about social movements Article Volume 11 (1): 178 – 199 (July 2019) Martínez, The Autonomy of Struggles The autonomy of struggles and the self-management of squats: legacies of intertwined movements Miguel A. Martínez Abstract How do squatters’ movements make a difference in urban politics? Their singularity in European cities has often been interpreted according to the major notion of ‘autonomy’. However, despite the recent upsurge of studies about squatting (Cattaneo et al. 2014, Katsiaficas 2006, Martínez et al. 2018, Van der Steen et al. 2014), there has not been much clarification of its theoretical, historical and political significance. Autonomism has also been identified as one of the main ideological sources of the recent global justice and anti-austerity movements (Flesher 2014) after being widely diffused among European squatters for more than four decades, which prompts a question about the meaning of its legacy. In this article, I first examine the political background of autonomism as a distinct identity among radical movements in Europe in general (Flesher et al. 2013, Wennerhag et al. 2018), and the squatters in particular—though not often explicitly defined. Secondly, I stress the social, feminist and anti-capitalist dimensions of autonomy that stem from the multiple and specific struggles in which squatters were involved over different historical periods. These aspects have been overlooked or not sufficiently examined by the literature on squatting movements. By revisiting relevant events and discourses of the autonomist tradition linked to squatting in Italy, Germany and Spain, its main traits and some contradictions are presented. Although political contexts indicate different emphases in each case, some common origins and transnational exchanges justify an underlying convergence and its legacies over time. -
Dies-Non: Refusal of Work in the 21St Century P
University of Washington Tacoma UW Tacoma Digital Commons Urban Studies Publications Urban Studies 2019 Dies-Non: Refusal of Work in the 21st Century P. Mudu University of Washington Tacoma, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/urban_pub Recommended Citation Mudu, P., "Dies-Non: Refusal of Work in the 21st Century" (2019). Urban Studies Publications. 131. https://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/urban_pub/131 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Urban Studies at UW Tacoma Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Urban Studies Publications by an authorized administrator of UW Tacoma Digital Commons. 1 GENDER, PLACE & CULTURE https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2018.1551780 2 3 4 5 Dies-non: refusal of work in the 21st century 6 7 Pierpaolo Mudu 8 Department of Urban Studies and Department of Interdisciplinary Arts & Sciences, University 9 of Washington-Tacoma, Tacoma, WA, USA 10 11 ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY 12 My comments aim to cast light on a specific political pro- Received 17 September 2017 posal that can arise from a discussion of the topic of the Accepted 27 April 2018 13 ‘refusal of work’ and its implications for a social radical KEYWORDS change. Autonomist, anarchist and feminist activism, have 14 commons; feminism; been and are the main sources of a long-term conceptual 15 neoliberalism; radical needs; and empirical work on the refusal of work. Refusal of work refusal of work; squatting 16 is a very complex concept that has traversed history and 17 is reduced for uncritical dominant common sense to unemployment, laziness, idleness, indolence but it is in 18 reality one of the basic foundational qualification to think 19 any radical change.