1. Tue, 12/01/16

    Lines of (Dis)Continuity: Forms and Methods of Labour Struggle in Croatia 1990-2014

    Tracing the continuity and discontinuity of workers’ struggles from the times of socialist Yugoslavia by observing phenomena such as workplace occupations and the engagement of civil society.

    When assessing the importance of individual cases of company occupations by the workers it is necessary to take into account both the period in which such actions took place and the historical legacy of socialist self-management. The entire decade of the 1990s was permeated with strong nationalist resentments characterized by a deep hostility towards organizations, institutions and practices perceived as part of the Yugoslav socialist project. read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: 
  2. Sun, 10/01/16

    The Castoriadis-Pannekoek Exchange (1953 - 1954): First letter

    The two theorists, following different trajectories, reached a common conclusion: that the real content of socialism is the complete control of labour by the workers themselves.

    I offer you many thanks for the series of eleven issues of Socialisme ou Barbarie that you gave to comrade B… to give to me. I read them (though I haven’t yet finished) with great interest, because of the great agreement between us that they reveal. 

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  3. Wed, 06/01/16

    The Institute for Workers’ Control

    A chronicle of the founding of the IWC in the 1960s, at a time when major trade union struggles were being waged against a capitalist reorganisation involving mergers, takeovers and closures.

    In the year 2003, Ken Coates collected together and had published a number of articles which he had written in the 1960s and 70s on industrial democracy and entitled the book, Workers’ Control – Another World is Possible. He obtained contributions from the newly elected leaders of two of the largest unions, Derek Simpson of the Engineers’ Union and Tony Woodley of the Transport & General Workers, together with supporting introductory messages from five other unions, the journalists, the firemen, the communications workers, the bakers, and public and commercial services unions.

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    Theorists: Geographical: Era: Topic: 
  4. Wed, 06/01/16

    The Way Forward to Workers' Control

    This is the first in a series of pamphlets published by the Institute for Workers Control since the late 60s, arguing in favour of the workers assuming control of the british industry.

    The whole question of workers' control is once again becoming an important issue in the British Labour Movement. In some ways, the situation today is analogous to that before the First World War. Expansion of Industry, coupled with inflation, in the years up to 1914, provided the basis for aggressive union action and the growth of ideas concerning workers' control, culminating in a historic pamphlet, the 'Miners Next Step'. It provided the impetus for the growth of the Shop Steward Movement, which arose during the war years itself. read more »

    Theorists: Geographical: Era: Topic: 
  5. Sat, 02/01/16

    Self-Management and Requirements for Social Property: Lessons from Yugoslavia

    This paper evaluates the role of self-management in achieving equity and efficiency drawing from the experience of Yugoslavia, an economy at least nominally self-managed on a system-wide scale.

    Problems with transitions in Eastern Europe have focused attention on alternatives to both central-planning and unregulated markets. Naive enthusiasm for the market has already begun to wane in the face of growing economic chaos and inequality, precipitating a search for more humane and stable forms of organization. Theoretically and in practice, worker self-management is being advocated as a system able to produce efficiently and at the same time distribute goods and power equitably.
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  6. Sat, 02/01/16

    The Social Innovations of Autogestión in Argentina’s Worker-Recuperated Enterprises: Cooperatively Reorganizing Productive Life in Hard Times

    An essay that sketches out the most common microeconomic and organizational challenges that Argentina's recuperated workplaces face and maps out the “social innovations” being spearheaded by them.

    Argentina’s  worker-recuperated enterprises emerged out of the unraveling of the country’s neoliberal experiment circa 1997. With traditional union tactics proving incapable of addressing workers’ immediate needs, some workers took matters into their own hands by occupying and reopening their bankrupted or failing firms as workers’ cooperatives under the auspices of autogestión (self-management).

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  7. Sat, 02/01/16

    Worker self-management in historical perspective

    A 2002 essay that surveys the great potentialities of worker self-management and draws up some lessons from historical experiences during the 20th century.

    Introduction

    Worker self-management (WSM) has re-emerged as a major movement in Argentina, particularly this year with over 200 factories organized and controlled by their workers and a national co-coordinator of self-managed enterprises in the process of being organized. read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: 
  8. Sat, 02/01/16

    Self-Management in Agriculture, Industry and Public Services during the 1936 Spanish Revolution

    Excerpt from the book "Anarchist Economics".

    Spanish anarcho-syndicalism from its inception had adopted an initial programme not only of wage demands, the right to work, improvements in conditions, but also the realisation of Libertarian Communism. Before 19 July 1936 the anarchists had proclaimed the anarchist Social Revolution in many places in Spain such as Casas Viejas, Alto Liobregat and Gijon, all of which were areas which had a large anarcho-syndicalist following. In all these villages or towns property registers were burned, money abolished and Libertarian Communism made reality. read more »

    Geographical: Era: Topic: 
  9. Fri, 01/01/16

    Self-Management: Dangers and Possibilities

    Some currents argue that the experience of small-scale self-management under capitalism is useful preparation. However, self-management is impossible without real socialist democracy.

    The political formation of revolutionaries of my generation and the one immediately preceding it was deeply affected by our experience of the Russian revolution. For the first time in history the working class of a vast country had taken power, abolished the domination of capital, and begun to construct a new society – a society which, before the eyes of the world proletariat, could become a new society, a socialist society. read more »

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  10. Fri, 01/01/16

    Art and Immaterial Labour: Metamorphoses

    An attempt to to situate historically the concept of plastic and figurative art in relation to the development and structure of modes of production.

    To begin with, let us try, from a materialist standpoint, to situate historically the concept of plastic and figurative art in other words, the definition of its historically determinate link, if there is one, to the development and structure of modes of production. Can this be done? Obviously, once we're obliged to speak of art and immaterial labour, this is a useful thing to do; read more »

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