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• Direct Action; in this issue...
• Aims of the Solidarity Federation
• England first: fascists' in new clothing
• Open all Borders
• Small but far from beautiful
• The State – its Historic Role
• Reviews - An Issue of Justice: Origins of the Israel/ Palestine Conflict, by Normal Finkelstein; Dreams of Freedom: a Ricardo Flores Magón reader, edited by Richard Chaz Bufe & Mitchell Cowen Verter; The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States, by Paul Avrich; Rebel Alliances: the means & ends of contemporary British anarchisms, by Benjamin Franks; Anarchist Voices: an Oral History of Anarchism in America, by Paul Avrich
• Prejudice & the Working Class
• Solidarity Federation
• Friends & neighbours

Solidarity Federation - International Workers Association

Direct Action is published by Solidarity Federation, British section of the International Workers Association (IWA). DA is edited and laid out by the DA Collective, and printed by Clydeside Press. Views stated in these pages are not necessarily those of the Direct Action Collective or the Solidarity Federation. We do not publish contributors' names. Please contact us if you want to know more.

Subscriptions
(for 4 issues – see page 13) Supporters – £10; Basic – £5 (Europe – £10; rest of the world – £15)

To contribute
If you would like to help out or contribute articles or photos, work is entirely voluntary. We welcome articles of between 500 and 1,500 words on industrial, social/community and international issues; on working class history; and on anarchist/anarcho-syndicalist theory and history. Articles may be sent as hard copy, on a disk or by email, and can only be returned if accompanied by a request (and SAE if appropriate).

Contact us
DA Collective, PO Box 29, South West PDO, Manchester, M15 5HW 079 84 67 52 81 da@direct-action.org.uk

Bulk Orders
AK Distribution, PO Box 12766, Edinburgh, EH8 9YE, Scotland 0131 555 5165 ak@akedin.demon.co.uk www.akuk.com or direct from the DA Collective

Direct Action ISSN 0261-8753

in this issue...

3-4 england first – fascists' in new clothing
4-9 open all borders – a rational alternative to the hatred pedalled by press and politicians alike
10-13 small but far from beautiful – workplace organisation in small businesses
14-19 the state: its historic role – why anarchists and anarcho-syndicalists are so vehement in our opposition to the state
20-21 reviews – recent titles from AK Press
22-26 closer look – prejudice and the working class – [the Labour Party, a class enemy]

Aims of the Solidarity Federation

The Solidarity Federation is an organisation of workers which seeks to destroy capitalism and the state. Capitalism because it exploits, oppresses and kills people, and wrecks the environment for profit worldwide. The state because it can only maintain hierarchy and privelege for the classes who control it and their servants; it cannot be used to fight the oppression and exploitation that are the consequences of hierarchy and source of privilege. In their place we want a society based on workers' self-management, solidarity, mutual aid and libertarian communism.

That society can only be achieved by working class organisation based on the same principles – revolutionary unions. These are not Trades Unions only concerned with ‘bread and butter' issues like pay and conditions. Revolutionary unions are means for working people to organise and fight all the issues – both in the workplace and outside – which arise from our oppression. We recognise that not all oppression is economic, but can be based on gender, race, sexuality, or anything our rulers find useful. Unless we organise in this way, politicians – some claiming to be revolutionary – will be able to exploit us for their own ends.

The Solidarity Federation consists of locals which support the formation of future revolutionary unions and are centres for working class struggle on a local level. Our activities are based on direct action – action by workers ourselves, not through intermediaries like politicians or union officials – our decisions are made through participation of the membership. We welcome all working people who agree with our aims and principles, and who will spread propaganda for social revolution and revolutionary unions. We recognise that the class struggle is worldwide, and are affiliated to the International Workers Association, whose ‘Principles of Revolutionary Unionism' we share.

england first

Thought I'd tell you about something I saw in the Lancashire Evening Telegraph. I hope Jack Straw gave one to our glorious ‘Great Big Toe', as it shows the future we could have if we only followed the ideas of the England First Party.

It's about some bloke who's been elected councillor for the party in Blackburn. He runs a pub plastered with England flags; his grandad came from Cameroon; he reckons Ian Wright is the most English person ever; he's been to an Asian wedding and he and his mam reckon he's definitely not racist…but.

The but is that the England First Party's website, also plastered with England flags, says only white people should play football for England; mixed marriages should be banned; aid to Africa should be stopped and immigration should be stopped too. Oh, nearly forgot – Johnny foreigner should bugger off home, especially if they're black. There's more – no Welsh football teams in English leagues; St Georges day to be a national holiday; compulsory national service for 16-18 year olds; England flags everywhere; hanging for everything (especially being a lefty). All this would make England first again.

The councillor and his leader say a lot of this has been put on the website by nutters and they don't go along with it – ‘cos they're not racist, of course. But I think they're wimps. Just think of the fun to be had by making England come first ‘by order'. We could ban foreigners from playing football (or make them play on one leg); only Tim Henman would be allowed to win at Wimbledon; foreign cricketers would have to play with one hand – we'd be top of the world.

To purify the place we can repatriate the foreign plants that have invaded the ‘blessed plot'. Dutch tulips, Japanese knotweed, that foreign grass at Old Trafford can bugger off. And all those animals too – Welsh corgis, Chinese dogs, Siamese cats Canadian geese and the rest. A big net above us; a fence around the coast; a new Hadrian's Wall; a massive moat between England and Wales – all to ensure we only breathe English air and eat English fish caught in English water.

Food, there's another thing. Not just Tandoori chicken – Starfucks can fuck off back to yankeeland; baguettes can be bags again; paninis can be football stickers again; no more olive oil or oranges. It'll be great with just roast beef, Yorkshire pud and cabbage (no chips as they're South American), all washed down with foaming ale from a ‘traditional tankard'. Tea can go back to China, lager to Germany and Australia, vodka to Russia and poncy water to France. We can make sure we only drink English water by building a big dome to stop foreign water contaminating ours.

As for clothes, let's go back to woollen underpants and vests – no cotton as that's foreign too. All this Nike shit, Dolci doings and Gucci whatsits can go. Clear out the Italian suits and French knickers, let's get back to bloomers and bodices. We could repatriate all them hoovers, hair dryers, washing machines along with all those Golf GTI's that don't do under 150 mph. Everything should be made in England instead, as it was when Britannia ruled the waves. Morris Minor cars, BSA bikes and Norton motorbikes are what we need.

England would be just like those pictures of lovely thatched cottages surrounded by roses, of pubs with rosy-cheeked country folk waving foaming tankards.

I nearly forgot the people. To make everything pure again we'd have to get all them convicts of English stock back from Australia (minus the Fosters of course), America, Canada and all the other places, like Torremolinos, they were forced to go to. They'd make the place great again. Just think of all those wonderful people with true English blood in their veins coming ‘home'; people who do wonderful things – like George Bush. Anyone here who's not got pure blood, like the councillor, could have the tainted blood removed by transfusion and replaced with pure ‘English'.

But the real solution is to send all foreigners and their descendants ‘home'. The England First Party stop short of this and that's why I think they are wimps. They're worried that Phil the Greek and his German wife would be out and Lulu would be off back to Scotland. All those with Irish blood would have togo too. But why stop there? Got Norman ancestors? – get the ferry back to France. Descended from Vikings? – then Scandinavia's where you belong.

What's more, the English themselves would have to go back to Germany and Denmark. That's the ‘home' of the Angles and Saxons who invaded Britain centuries ago, raping, pillaging and nicking beer. But that would mean the England First Party would have to change its name back to the BNP – as we'd then be Britain, not England – and everyone would recognise them for the fascist bastards they really are.

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Open all Borders

People are on the move... Direct Action says ‘Why Not'

Not so long ago, one of Thatcher's brownshirts said ‘get on your bike' in response to the unemployed of Britain. But when the world's poor turn up for a job, it's a different story. Humans have always moved around to make a living, so what's different now?

The world's poor are on the move and heading for western Europe and North America. The Global Commission on International Migration estimates that 200 million people migrated in 2005, compared half that number in 1980. The commission's director, Rolf Jenny, estimates the annual figure could rise to 1 billion by 2015.

Predictably, increasing migration has been greeted with a chorus of nationalist outrage from the press and politicians both in Europe and the USA. In Britain the newspapers have been particularly venomous, spewing out anti-immigrant propaganda at every opportunity. Head-lines such as, “Migrants get Brits Pay Slashed by 50%” (Sun), “Cheers, we're Coming to Rip you Off” (People) and “New Fagins are Bringing Child Slavery Back to Britain” (Sunday Telegraph) are just a few examples of the relentless, racist campaign of hatred and bigotry being waged by the British press.

Yet the reality is that both the USA and Europe need immigrant workers. In Europe, the most pressing problem is an ageing workforce; the ratio of people working to retirees is set to fall from its current 4 to 1 to less than 2 to 1 by 2050. If nothing is done, Europe faces not only economic decline but a virtual collapse in welfare provision, as those working will simply not be able to service the welfare bill. The French Institute of International Relations argues that only by admitting at least an extra 30 million people by 2020 can Europe avoid failing economic performance.

The need for more immigrant labour has not stopped western governments using their usual anti-immigrant rhetoric. Far from welcoming and thanking immigrants for their help in saving us all from poverty in our old age, US and European politicians have chosen to incite hatred and ‘talk tough' on immigration, introducing ever more draconian controls. Why? Because it is a cheap and easy way to win votes (or at least quell the effects of other lies and deceit) – it also has the added advantage of cementing relations with the virulently anti-immigration press.

Such acts of political cowardice by western governments may win them short term electoral gain but in the long term it will do little to stave off the brewing economic crisis. Nor will it stop the flow of migrants from the developing world. There are much stronger mechanisms at work driving economic migration than are likely to be stopped by empty right wing rhetoric about Johnny Foreigner.

The biggest single reason for growing economic migration is, quite simply, that the rich countries have taken all the wealth. There is an ever widening gap in global living standards. Globalisation, more appropriately termed ‘enhanced first world exploitation', is driving down incomes in the poor south and east, forcing people to seek a better life in the rich north and west.

As global inequality increases, more and more people will migrate. Moreover, world inequality is not the only force likely to drive greater immigration. As the effects of global warming gather pace, water shortages and natural disasters will have a devastating effect on third world economies, triggering further movement. Western governments are well aware of this fact, and are already turning to greater militarisation of their borders to stop immigrants entering Europe and the US. This is despite plenty of evidence from the US that attempting to close off borders simply does not work.

The US government has spent the last fifteen years trying to seal the Mexican border, using an astounding array of control technologies and the deployment of vast amounts of military material, the annual budget for which (the Immigration and Nationality Service) rose from $200 million in 1996 to $1.6 billion in 2005. Numbers of border control officers increased from 2,500 in the early 1980s to around 12,000 today, making it the largest arms-bearing branch of the US government outside the military itself.

As a result, the US-Mexico border is the most militarised in the world between two countries not at war. The net result has been continued growth in the unauthorised immigrant population, fewer arrests, and a sharp increase to US taxpayers in the cost of each arrest. In the early 1980's the Mexican population in the US stood at around a million; today the number of Mexican “illegal” immigrants living in the US is estimated to be between 6 and 7 million. Before 1992, the cost per arrest along the border was $300; by 2002 this had risen by 467% to $1,700. In the 1980s, the probability that an undocumented migrant would be detained while crossing was 33%; by 2000 it was 10%.

This abject lesson in wasting money is bad enough, yet it pales into insignificance alongside the effects on people. In the past the majority of Mexican migrants were seasonal workers returning back home within a year. Tougher border controls have led to little choice but to stay and look for permanent employment in the US. This has created a whole army of illegal immigrants open to ever greater exploitation by US capitalism. Another side-effect of the militarised border is that migrants are forced to cross in more remote and dangerous places, resulting in far more deaths (over 500 people were killed last year alone). Worse still, they have been forced to turn to people traffickers to help them gain entry, many being charged relative fortunes and having to sell themselves into virtual slavery in order to pay off the debt.

The US experience has shown the utter futility of attempting to close borders in the face of the economic desperation caused by capitalist exploitation. Militarisation of borders does not stop immigration; it just creates an army of “illegal” workers who are preyed upon by both capitalists and criminal gangs.

Failure has a tendency to lead to more failure. And as militarisation has failed, so the calls for greater military spending have increased, to the extent that Bush has recently announced the dispatch of 6000 troops in order to “secure” the southern border against Mexican immigration. Militarisation of the European boarders may not have reached the levels seen in the US, but beefing up border security is increasingly seen as the solution to the immigration “problem”. European leaders increasingly talk of illegal immigration as one of the biggest threats facing Europe and are calling for more military hardware to secure borders.

It is not hard to see why western governments continue to take the increased security approach. It is politically risky in the short term to come clean and state that immigration is going to increase dramatically anyway and that it is to everyone's advantage. Politicians prefer short termism to short term risk-taking. They are in the business of getting and keeping power; far better for them to jump on the easy anti-immigration bandwagon and forget the long term consequences. As increasing military spending on immigration ‘fails' to control it, they can turn to outright right wing nationalism – after all, media-led “public opinion” will be calling for ever-tougher action. The result will be more racism, which the extreme right can exploit to their advantage. Already, self-appointed groups of vigilantes armed to the teeth are patrolling the Mexican border, as US right wing groups exploit the ‘failure' of state militarisation.

If this continuous shift to the right is to be prevented, there is a growing need to start challenging anti-migration bigotry by celebrating the economic and cultural benefits of immigration. Calling on governments to exercise compassion will achieve nothing. There is every possibility that western governments will allow limited legal immigration, but strictly on their own terms – such as in Australia. Such state imposed immigration controls are never fair and are invariably racist. In any case, they will quite rightly be ignored by immigrants who, like any sane people, reject the absurd notion that human beings can or should be classed as ‘illegal'.

Challenging anti-immigration bigotry must be based in the everyday reality that immigration is increasing. The point is that freedom of movement is a basic right and migration to escape poverty is completely legitimate. Calling for fairer immigration controls is a big mistake; it implies that trying to stop or limit migration can be condoned under certain circumstances, when it should not. Moreover, the aim should be to prevent immigrants from being exploited once they have arrived, not to enter a debate about which ones are ‘OK'.
The fight against the exploitation of immigrants should not be seen in isolation, but as part of the wider struggle against the growing exploitation of all workers. Campaigns against increased casualisation have a vital role to play in this. They can unite all workers against the attempts by capitalism to drive down wages and conditions in society as a whole. Such campaigns can break down false barriers between workers and make a mockery of the attempts by the media to portray immigrants as alien scroungers, terrorists and criminals.

Connecting with anti-capitalism in such a way makes the struggle against exploitation of immigrants central to the wider struggle against capitalism. Mass economic migration, and all its accompanying human misery, has been a central feature of capitalism since its birth. Capitalism depends on creating inequality, and some form of forced mass migration is the inevitable and continual result. Only in a future society which is based on freedom and equality will the need to move home in order to escape poverty come to an end.

In order to challenge the nationalist chauvinism, intolerance and racism that lies at the heart of anti-immigration rhetoric, it is necessary to embrace an alternative set of values. A sense of internationalism, of solidarity and of common humanity must underpin the struggle against the exploitation of immigrants. With these values, we are not only helping to bring about a more humane world in the here and now, we are also laying the foundations for a future society in which forced economic migration will finally be brought to an end as capitalism is replaced by a future, fairer society.

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Small but far from beautiful

small business is exempt from most workplace legislation – how can workers fight back?

The decline of workplace organisation in this country has meant that working class concerns have been largely removed from Britain's social, economic and political agendas. The world today is more than ever dominated by the middle class, their lifestyles and their problems. As a result the major political parties vie constantly for the votes of middle England to the extent that both the Labour and Tory parties have now become the parties of the middle class, a situation that is reminiscent of the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States.

Meanwhile the unskilled, the low paid the part-time and casualised workers in general have all disappeared from view as far as the makers and shakers are concerned. They have becomea forgotten, powerless and invisible grey mass which is excluded from the glitz and excitement of Blair's brave new Britain.

The bedrock of this new world is comprised of the small businessman and woman. Praised by all and sundry, they are portrayed both as the heroes of the new economy and as the backbone of middle England's honest hard working dynamism. The embodiment of traditional English values, they transcend both the old and the new economies as well as the politics of left and right. For the Guardian they are young trendy entrepreneurs actively changing the face of British society; for the Daily Mail they are the essence of traditional England struggling heroically in the face of overbearing state inefficiency.

Championed by all, the small business sector therefore exercises a disproportionate amount of power within society. One consequence of this is that Britain has been consistently prepared to alienate itself within the European Union in order to resist a whole raft of legislation which has been aimed at alleviating the worst abuses in the continent's working conditions. This Labour government continues to set the minimum wage at an appallingly low level out of fear of upsettng small businesses while their much heralded legislation giving workers the legal right to union representation excludes those companies that employ twenty workers or less. Even health and safety legislation virtually exempts those businesses with a workforce of less than five workers.

Those who work within small firms are never consulted. The power of small business is such that even in the act of bitterly resisting any social legislation they are championed as the heroes of the workers, not by the workers themselves, it must be added. Small businessmen and women are never seen to resist social legislation because they are reactionary, but only because their main concern is to protect workers' jobs. By the same token, even moderately progressive legislation is widely viewed as actually putting at risk the jobs of the very workers it is supposed to help. And of course all of this tosh currently passes without the merest hit of a challenge in the press and media in general Criticism of small businesses is just not allowed – and on this all shades of ‘mainstream' opinion can agree.

A survey of those workers going to Citizen Advice Bureaux in the North East has managed to cut through this information blackout revealing the true nature of these small capitalists. It revealed a catalogue of intimidation and bullying by managers. Examples abound. For instance there was the case of care workers who, after receiving a rise to coincide with the introduction of the minimum wage, found that £9 had been deducted for the tea breaks and for the milk they used to brew up with.

Another case that was highlighted concerned workers in a florist who had the audacity to persistently enquire about their entitlement to the minimum wage. When they sought advice the owner responded by stating ‘I can do anything I like with my part-timers: finish them, cut their hours, basically I can treat them like shite'. Further research in CABs across the north as a whole revealed similar stories. Stories like the cleaners who were granted the minimum wage but were then given a form stating that they were self-employed. If they signed then it would terminate their employment; if they did not sign they would be sacked.

Commenting on the report the TUC, ever anxious to appear even-handed and careful not to damage their well-cultivated pro-business approach, stated that while many companies are cooperating with the minimum wage legislation it would appear that many companies are bending the rules. The Millfield House Foundation, not being bound by the pro-business ethic of the TUC, were a little more forthright in their comments. They stated that the research provided a ‘disturbing insight into the working lives of people in low paid jobs...In wealth and income, Britain is one of the most unequal societies in the advanced world'.

The foundation called for greater enforcement with more raids on work premises by teams from the Inland Revenue. Such a scenario is highly unlikely to be accepted by a government that sees deregulation of the labour market and the freeing up of small business as the best way to bring down unemployment. It somehow believes that the best way to help low paid workers is to cut benefits and relax restrictive labour law; and that the best way to empower workers is to drive them into jobs where they can be exploited, intimidated and generally treated ‘like shite'.

Although, as anarcho-syndicalists, we realise that fundamental change will not come about through legislation, we nevertheless welcome any legislation that would bring a modicum of protection to the low paid – some 40% of the working population, not including those slaving away in the black economy.

Work is a social activity. Within the social relations that exist between workers and their boss, if the management's power is allowed to go unchecked, then they will always use intimidation and bullying to get around the law. The threat of the sack is a powerful means of intimidation. The only way to redress the balance of power within the workplace is through the unity that comes with organisation. Once organised, workers can challenge the manager's right to manage, a direct challenge to the source of their power.

For much of the post war period it was through such workplace organisation that workers' concerns were forced on to the wider agenda. Through the power of their organisation they could not be ignored. They were highly visible and the appearance of shop stewards in the media giving voice to their demands was almost a daily occurrence. Only through a return to a culture of such workplace power and resistance will the working class become visible again.

Legislation may help but it is never a substitute; it does not redress the balance of power within the workplace; it neither changes nor challenges social relations based on power; above all, legislation takes the struggle away from the workplace and into the courts, out of the hands of workers and into the hands of lawyers. Once a dispute gets into the courts workers become mere bystanders in a legal charade.

Power only comes through confidence. For workers this confidence can only be gained from taking control of our own struggles and confronting the bullying boss directly.

anarchist thought: against the state

The State – its Historic Role

A look at anarchist opposition to the state and our differences with marxist brands of socialism

From its earliest manifestation, anarchism with its critique of power has opposed the idea of the state and state power, advocating its elimination along with all power-based relationships. This is one of the fundamental ideas that distinguishes anarchism from other revolutionary socialist movements.

At the time of the First International anarchists and Marxists both sought the same egalitarian society but proposed very different methods for achieving it. The anarchists opposed the purely political programme of Marxism that aimed at capturing state power. They rejected outright the idea that workers should support parliamentary candidates and campaign for political reform. They also rejected the notion of political revolutions aimed at establishing workers' states.

The anarchists held that political rights, such as freedom of association, should not be isolated from the economic struggle. These rights, they argued, could only be guaranteed through economic struggle. Therefore they rejected purely political struggle like the formation of workers' political parties. Instead, they advocated workers' self-organisation into economic organisations (unions) which would use direct action to fight for economic and social change based on collective ownership.

The aim of these unions was to constantly link the day-to-day struggle for improvements to the wider struggle against capitalism. In the short term, they would organise strikes and other direct actions against capitalism. In the longer term, this constant struggle would lead to the social general strike, during which capitalism would be overthrown and replaced with a society in which the working class would control their industries and communities.

Anarchism's ultimate aim is the victory of the working class over capitalism and the abolition of the state – all states – to be replaced by a general federation of local associations based on equality and freedom.

Freedom is an important notion that lies at the centre of anarchist thinking. It also distinguishes anarchism from Marxism. Although anarchists accepted Marxist economic arguments, they argued that not all inequality is rooted in economic inequality. It could also stem from unequal power relations under which an individual, or groups of individuals, could coerce others.

To the anarchists, the essence of a future society would be the ability of people to come together voluntarily, on equal terms, to decide what is best for them as a whole. They argued that if society was not based on free association, and if human relations were not conducted freely, equally and without coercion, then an unequal society based on unequal power relations would develop. Any new society, rather than being administered from the top down, must be administered directly by the working class from the bottom up. In other words, people must come together on equal terms to decide their collective needs and how best to meet them. If this process were not to be followed, and power were to remain in the hands of a few, then social inequality would persist. In arguing that not all inequality originated from the economic system, the anarchists challenged Marxist economic determinism.

At the heart of the Marxist argument was Marx's idea that ‘the conquest of political power is the first task of the proletariat'. They argued that this would lead to workers taking control of the state, through which capitalism would be abolished. The Marxists' main aim, therefore, was the formation of political groups to capture state power. Once in control of the state, the workers would use this power to expropriate land and industry from the capitalists and landowners. The economy would then be administered by the state for the benefit of the working class. If the workers could not win control through elections, then there must be a political revolution to seize state power, establishing a government based on ‘dictatorship of the proletariat'. At the centre of Marxist thinking was the notion that social revolution could only occur after the political revolution of winning control of the state.

Anarchists then and now reject the idea that the state could be used as a tool for workers' emancipation. For anarchists, the fact that a capitalist parliament would have been eliminated was not enough to guarantee that the state would act in the interests of the working class. They argued that state control, by its very nature, was based on the rule of the minority over the majority. Moreover, the anarchists scorned Marx's view that under the ‘people's state' that he envisaged, ‘the proletariat would be elevated to the status of the governing class'. If the working class, the overwhelming majority, were to become the governing class then who, the anarchists asked, would they be ruling over?

For the anarchists, the prospect of the state abolishing market capitalism and private ownership did not mean the state would bring about social equality. They dismissed as naive and patronising the Marxist idea that under the new workers' state, ‘learned socialists' would administer society on the workers' behalf. Instead, they predicted, the ‘learned socialists' would be more likely to use their power to form a new ruling elite and so the Marxist state would not be based on the dictatorship of the proletariat, but on the dictatorship over the proletariat of a new privileged ‘political-scientific' class of learned socialists.

According to the anarchists, while the current state exercises power over the majority based on their ownership of the economy, the new socialist dictators would also base their power over the majority on their ultimate control of the economy. The result would be that social equality would remain a dream. The anarchists believed that state power, whether based on a constitutional assembly or a revolutionary dictatorship, was the rule of a minority over a majority, and was therefore undemocratic. No matter what form the state took, those appointed to run and administer it would function as a ruling class, assuming the power and privilege of a ruling class. As such, the state would not be merely the agent of the particular class that happens to own the means of production. Rather, the state was viewed as a class in itself, acting on its own behalf. Furthermore, a ruling class based on state control would have the means to become one of the most powerful elites in history, for the Marxist state would not only control the economy, but the whole state apparatus, including the army and police.

The core beliefs in rejecting state power and emphasising free association which now characterise anarchism were developed at the time of the First International. As a result, opponents have claimed that anarchism is nothing more than a radical form of liberal individualism, placing individual liberty before the needs of society as a whole. This misrepresents anarchism.

The anarchist view of individual liberty was based on ideas put forward during the 1848 revolution in France, the rallying cry of which was ‘the slavery of the least of men is the slavery of all'. Individual liberty was based on collective liberty. Because human beings can only confirm their humanity within society, so the freedom of others is merely a reflection of one's own freedom. In short, it is impossible to be free unless all others around you are free.

The anarchists dismissed the liberal notion of the individual, which, they argued, was rooted in the Christian idea that people were not created by society, but by God, outside of and apart from society. Accordingly, liberal social democratic thinking saw humans as pre-dating society – it was not society that created humans, but humans who created society. Within this thinking, society is merely a loose collection of individuals who come together to perform specific functions, such as work, etc. The most important function of society for the liberal is to limit the freedom of the individual. This is because our free will, motivated by pure self-interest, would lead us to attack others to meet our immediate needs. To ensure this, a ‘social contract' between humans was observed and enforced, and so the state was created as an ‘outside authority' to regulate human relations.

Should this authority be taken away, so the theory goes, we would return to our natural state and chaos would ensue. Thus, liberal social democratic thinking based on individualism viewed society as a contract not to rip each other apart.

Anarchism, however, puts forward a very different view of human development, one that sees humans as a product of society, without which they could not exist. Anarchists contend that humans only emerged from a state of brutality through collective organisation and labour, by which they were able to create the conditions that allowed their mutual emancipation. In other words, humans were only humanised and emancipated by forming a society. Humanity was therefore created by society and it is only in society that we become human.

Placed outside of society we would not be human – alone, able to speak and think, but conscious only of (one)self. Humans only become conscious of their humanity within society and only by the collective action of the whole of society. We are freed from the burden of external nature only by collective and social labour, which alone can transform our environment to be suitable to the development of humanity. Education and training are pre-eminently social. Isolated individuals cannot possibly become conscious of their freedom.

The idea that social revolution could come about through state control relied heavily on the Marxist doctrine of economic determinism. This is based on the premise that the nature of an economic system determines the nature of society as a whole. As such, political and social conditions are determined by the economy. To change the latter one has only to change the former and so the very act of the workers abolishing capitalism and taking control of the economy would automatically end exploitation and bring about social and political equality.

Determinism also extended to Marxist theories of the state. The state was seen as the agent of the dominant economic class, administering society on its behalf. Once capitalism was abolished and the economy was under collective ownership, the state would become the tool of the workers, and could begin to administer the economy on their behalf. A further Marxist argument was that the economy would have to come under state control initially, as workers did not have the expertise to run society. They saw this ‘dictatorship of the proletariat' as purely a ‘transitional period', during which workers would be trained to take over the running of society. The state under socialism would eventually become redundant and ‘wither away'.

Marxist ideas on the state have developed over the years from the crude determinism of the 19th Century that led the German Social Democratic Party to state in their programme, ‘the conquest of political power was the indispensable condition for the economic emancipation of the proletariat'. They have had to develop, especially after the Russian Revolution brought about the conquest of state power by a highly organised Marxist political party. What happened then simply confirmed all the worst fears of the anarchists as a totalitarian state was established that eventually collapsed due to its own internal contradictions.

This has led Marxist theorists to come up with all kinds of variations and qualifications to the original Marxist idea. From Lenin right through to modern thinkers they have tried to square the circle and explain how in the future it could not happen again. But the basis of their ideas is still the unshakeable concept that state power needs to be gained one way or another. And for this a political party is needed.

As an alternative to the political party and gaining state power, and contrary to the criticism that anarchism has proposed no viable alternative, anarcho-syndicalists developed the idea of building an alternative movement based on the same principles of solidarity, equality and freedom that were envisaged in a future society. The state and capitalism needed challenging but this was to be done through an organisation that combined, not separated, the economic and political struggle.

In an anarchist society, the full development of the individual would depend on the collective provision of the necessary means, and on full social and economic equality. However, the continuation and development of the collective society would depend on the individual being able to participate in it fully and equally, with the aim of developing their full potential. Without individual liberty, social equality would be unattainable, and without social equality, there could not be individual liberty. Anarchists have sought a form of society where the conditions are continuously being created for every individual to reach their full potential. In reaching their full potential, they would expand the sum of human knowledge which would, in turn, expand the potential of the individual.

Anarcho-syndicalism therefore proposes that the revolutionary union should be the basic organisation of struggle. Within the union the working class would develop the ideas and means of bringing about change. It would confront the state and capitalism head on in a continuing economic and political struggle. At the same time it would allow its members to operate in an alternative cultural and social formation in which the ideas of the new society are fermented.

For the anarchists the starting point from which conditions of equality could be created was the overthrow of capitalism. From the initial onset of the revolution, society had to be run on democratic principles with the aim of seeking social equality. Rather than the revolution leading to state control based on inequality, the working class themselves should take over the practical running of society.

reviews

An Issue of Justice: Origins of the Israel/ Palestine Conflict

by Normal Finkelstein – CD – £14.98

In this thoughtful and illuminating talk, Finkelstein, the son of two Holocaust survivors, focuses on the ideologies Israel has adopted during its history to justify its policy in Palestine. Like a razor, he cuts through the heated rhetoric and political murk surrounding the conflict to focus on the facts: an ill-conceived policy of Arab expulsion in Israel's early years that developed, with support from Britain and the US, into an apartheid-like occupation of Palestine. While his criticism of Israeli policy and US complicity is as cutting as ever, Finkelstein strongly advocates an abandonment of divisive anti-Zionist/pro-Palestinian rhetoric, championing instead the courageous words and deeds of those who struggle to bring Justice to Palestine.

reviews

Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón reader

edited by Richard Chaz Bufe & Mitchell Cowen Verter – 420 pages – £12.00

Along with such figures as Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, Ricardo Flores Magón was one of the primary forces behind the Mexican Revolution. Born in 1874, Magón was a tireless activist and journalist under the Diaz military regime. Through his widely read newspaper Regeneración, which suffered continuous government suppression, he boldly criticised the injustices of the country's dictatorship and worked to build the popular movement which would eventually overthrow it. Exiled to the US, Flores Magón remained one of the most influential agitators for the Mexican Revolution. Both governments responded with harsh repression and Leaven-worth Penitentiary finally murdered him in 1922.

This book presents Magón's passionate, revolutionary writings in English for the first time. It includes a lengthy biographical sketch that places his work in historical context, a comprehensive chronology, bibliography, and an introduction by Benjamin Maldonado.

reviews

the Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States

by Paul Avrich – 434 pages – £13.95

In 1901 Francisco Ferrer founded La Escuela Moderna with a curriculum based on the natural sciences and moral rationalism, freed of all religious dogma and political bias. Although students received systematic instruction, there were no marks, exams or prizes, indeed no atmosphere of competition, coercion, or humiliation. The classes were guided by the solidarity and equality. For this he was executed in 1909.
Outraged by Ferrer's execution and influenced by his teaching methods, anarchists and others carried on his work. Up to 1960 anarchists across the US established more than twenty schools where children might study in an atmosphere of freedom and self-reliance in contrast to the formality and discipline of the traditional classroom. These ‘Modern Schools' sought to abolish all forms of authority, political and economic as well as educational, and to usher in a new society based on the voluntary cooperation of free individuals. Their object, during an era of war, social ferment, and government repression, was to create not only a new type of school, but also a new culture, a new life, a new world.

Among the participants in the Modern School Movement were anarchists Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, feminist Margaret Sanger, authors Will and Ariel Durant, and ground breaking artists Robert Henri, George Bellows, and Man Ray. Based on extensive interviews with former pupils and teachers, this book is a seminal and important investigation into the potential of educational alternatives.

reviews

Rebel Alliances: the means & ends of contemporary British anarchisms

by Benjamin Franks – 473 pages – £15.00

Rebel Alliances offers an applied philosophical perspective on contemporary class struggle anarchism in Britain. It identifies the main principles distinguishing this tradition from competing Leninist, liberal and social democratic groupings. From these key characteristics, Franks constructs a consistent anarchism, which both shares characteristics with politically engaged post structuralisms and has a distinctive ethic. The theory and practice of contemporary groups are then assessed against this ideal-type anarchism. Many of the central themes of anarchism are consequently subject to original scrutiny: the nature of the revolutionary subject; workplace and community organising; violence and pacifism; the meaning of direct action; and propaganda by word and deed.

reviews

Anarchist Voices: an Oral History of Anarchism in America

by Paul Avrich – 574 pages – £16.00

Through his many books on the history of anarchism, Paul Avrich has done much to dispel the public's conception of anarchists as terrorists. This book contains 180 interviews conducted by Avrich over a period of thirty years, interviews that protray the human dimensions of a movement much maligned by the authorities and contemporary journalists. Most of the interviewees were active during the heyday of the movement, between the 1880s and 1930s. They represent all schools of anarchism and include both famous figures and minor ones. Their stories provide a wealth of personal detail about such anarchist luminaries as Emma Goldman, Rudolf Rocker, Sacco and Vanzetti, and those involved with anarchist Modern Schools and Free Colonies.

The interviews are grouped in six sections organised around individuals or major aspects of the movement. Each section begins with an explanatory essay, and each interview with a biographical note. This book is an invaluable resource not only for anyone interested in anarchism but also for those with an interest in immigration, ethnic politics, the history of education, and legal and labour history.

to order any of these titles or for a complete AK catalogue contact:
AK Press, PO Box 12766, Edinburgh, EH8 9YE;
or visit: www.akuk.com

closerlook: class and prejudice

Prejudice & the Working Class

Prejudice is said to occur when people cast judgements and opinions on others, which are biased and have no real foundation in fact. This might be at the level of calling people ‘sad bastards' because of a particular pastime or hobby.* But this is only name-calling. The reality of prejudice often means discrimination against some people, while others are hounded, injured and even killed.

The most obvious form of prejudice is racism. Even though there's a variety of skin colours across the world; even though the supposed differences were invented hundreds of years ago; even though it's been proven time and again that there is as little genetic difference between black and white people as there is between people with the same skin colour, some cretins still cling blindly to this prejudice.

For example, Christians are supposed to believe that God made us all in ‘his' own image, so no one is inferior or superior. But when Europeans started taking over bits of the planet, robbing and killing the natives and using Africans as slaves they justified their exploitation by re-interpreting the bible.

Apparently Noah's son, Ham, took the piss out of Noah when he saw him bollock naked after a night on the razzle. So Noah kicked him off the ark and all descendants of Ham were said to be black and bad. Where he set foot when everything was supposed to be flooded is hard to imagine, but that's the logic of prejudice for you. Again, Cain was kicked off the ark too and all his descendants are supposed to be black and bad as well. This kind of nonsense was spouted in the mind-warping popular press and pulpit of the time and hey presto, you get loads of people willing to go killing and enslaving ‘blackamoors'. It became part of the psyche, common sense, so that even now, ‘rednecks' of all descriptions spout this rubbish and God becomes white and black becomes evil.

By the nineteenth century, the enlightenment, rationality and the appliance of science had backed all this up. Darwin's evolution stuff showed forever that some species are more evolved than others, so some people applied this to the idea of race. Blokes like Herbert Spencer came out with the term ‘survival of the fittest' to justify white superiority. Others ‘scientifically proved' (i.e. they made it up) there were three races, Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid – white, yellow and black – each genetically different from the other, each with a different value to the world. White on top, yellow in the middle and black on the bottom, they all had different origins and were totally separate ‘races'.

This is racism and it was pushed in the new schools of the time, in boy's comics, and in storybooks, including Enid Blyton's ‘golliwogs'. The idea that blacks were on the planet to serve whites, that Europeans had a duty to suppress and tame ‘the savages' became part of the psyche too. It's the sort of stuff that was used to justify the ‘scramble for Africa' from the 1870's onward. It's the same stuff Hitler used to justify mass murder of and part of the reason why many Germans went along with it.

Just in case you're thinking this couldn't happen now with that nice, professional, middle class, ‘Big Toe' Blair running the show – well, it could. I say this not only because he and the ‘Bush Baby' are pushing christian and liberal capitalist values throughout the world on pain of death, but also because ‘scientific' racism is still with us.

A bloke called Rushton peddled it in the 1980's when he measured brain and genital sizes, worked out how many kids people had, along with loads of other things. He divided these into categories based on the same old black/ white/yellow division and again, hey presto, black people fall into a less evolved ‘r' category, whites are in a superior ‘k' category, with yellow/brown people in the middle.

In the 1990's two more maniacs, Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein, wrote a book called The Bell Curve, that ‘proved' black people have the lowest IQ's in the world. Murray was one of Maggie Thatcher's darlings and still gets articles in the Times, but I'll come back to that.

In the meantime you might say that all this explains racism among the people that fall for it, but what about the prejudice between white and white, black and black, pink and pink, ‘Manc' and ‘Scouse'?

You've only got to look at the northern bit of Ireland to see prejudice at work. Then there's the Balkans, Indonesia, Rwanda and a host of other places, many of them suffering the effects of attempted genocide and ethnic ‘cleansing'. It all makes the rivalry between both ends of the East Lancs Road look soft and tame.

The argument about why all this happens and why some people say ‘I'm not racist but I wish all those foreigners would bugger off' is based on culture. When ‘scientific racism' was defeated by science and reason and when it was found that all human beings have the same origins (the ‘Eve theory'), people looked to culture to explain divisions between different groups. They argued that people develop different ways of life depending on the climate, available food and resources and so on. Sometimes different religions emerge, different laws (e.g. polygamy v monogamy etc), languages, dress codes, eating habits and loads of other things that seem to make one culture, or ethnicity, alien to another. This doesn't seem to matter that much until there's migration. According to the argument people forget that beneath the superficial differences of dress, food, etc, we have similar behaviour patterns (or cultural universals) as each other – we laugh, cry, quarrel and make up, among loads of other things, in similar ways. People forget, or don't notice, because of the everyday battle for survival.

When there's a scarcity of jobs, houses, benefits and health, immigration brings a ‘culture clash' which is fuelled by the popular press. To combat this you get the better off middle class, who aren't affected as much, advocating ‘multiculturalism'. This is the idea that if we all learned about other cultures it would make us all more tolerant, as they are. So we get ‘saris, samosas and steel bands' in the education system along with Diwali and Eid.

The problem is that all over Europe, America and other places, multiculturalism is getting a negative reaction. In this country (helped by nationalism latching on to the world cup) there's the rise of the likes of the England First party and the idea that ‘our' culture is being swamped. Politicians of all ilks read the Daily Hate Mail and latch on to ‘popular', unfounded sentiments to look tough and gain votes. There's Tory talk of banning Scottish MP's from voting in the ‘English' parliament, while Blair is talking tough about Muslims and advocating tests for ‘Englishness' in schools. What this actually is doesn't really matter, it panders to people's prejudices just like Tebbit's old chestnut about all immigrants having to pass the so-called ‘cricket test' (i.e. people of Pakistani descent having to stick up for England). So, the multicultural thing backfires and people become antagonistic to ‘political correctness', it becomes a dirty word soundbite.

Others would argue that all this is because some of the middle classes have a tendency to ‘withhold the truth' from the lower orders, in order to maintain their position in the middle. We aren't told that immigration is encouraged by Blairs of all descriptions to undercut wages and make up for the shortfall in ‘respectable' people having kids – they'd rather have more foreign holidays and bigger cars. We aren't told that many of the problems in Africa and elsewhere that people are escaping from, are caused by the West putting maniacs in power and training them to keep supplying cheap resources and cheap labour. We aren't told that our minds are being manipulated to support wars here and there that secure certain ‘interests', such as the supply of raw materials and sources of wealth. We aren't told that there's been a history of ‘divide and rule' that's fed through schools and, now, through mind-numbing TV. The poor whites are ‘only a pawn in their game' as Bob Dylan used to sing.

Their game is power and they play it by controlling the limits of our thoughts through any method they can. Which brings us back to Charles Murray who I mentioned earlier. Not only are divisions fostered between black and white, between one culture and another or one religion and another, people like Murray also foster divisions among the working class. He wrote in the Times earlier this year, advocating physical separation between what he calls the ‘underclass' and the rest of us fine upstanding citizens. This means separate housing and other facilities. His idea that these people are products of a ‘disease' due to interbreeding between people with low IQs who are prone to misusing drugs, getting pregnant, committing crime, not working and generally looking a mess, has caught on. Now people are routinely called ‘socially excluded' and dismissed as ‘thick scrotes', and council estates are seen as dens of iniquity.

Other reasons for this state of affairs, like the Thatcher years of mass unemployment to keep inflation down and cheap ‘smack' to keep the riff raff from thinking, are totally dismissed in today's ‘understand a little less, condemn a little more' way of thinking.

More than this, prejudice, in the form of ‘classism', is promoted and seen as the way ‘forward'. Old prejudices against the working class are again coming to the fore, just as with the nineteenth century, teetotal puritans. Legislation banning tabs in pubs, standing around having a natter in ‘gangs' of more than two, standing up and singing at football matches, falling over drunk, farting and laughing – anything these classist bastards don't like – will have a law against it.

The ‘citizenship' and ‘English-ness' that are being promoted, is only done so on the basis that there's a ‘high', acceptable culture and that ‘low', working class, culture should be dumped. This could be because we are now all supposed to be consumers rather than producers, and there's a blurring of class distinctions. Which means that ‘rough types' might end up in the same Bistro, drinking the same red wine and getting pissed and laughing instead of sipping it and spitting it out in a bucket while talking about it's ‘nose', ‘bouquet' and their next big pay rise.

In the meantime this form of prejudice goes unnoticed and will continue to do so while the ‘lower orders' are encouraged to believe in IQ's and dick size and to blame ‘Johnny Foreigner' for the shit they're in. The task for anarchists is to cut through all this bullshit.

* An example of this is the subject of a booklet by the author of this article. Entitled 'Sad Bastards' about folk who go fishing, it is an interesting and funny read showing anglers to be highly intelligent, sensitive and thoughtful. For a copy send £2, c/o Direct Action.

SolFed-IWA

Solidarity Federation

national contact point, PO Box 29, South West PDO, Manchester, M15 5HW; 079 84 67 52 81; solfed@solfed.org.uk; www.solfed.org.uk

Birmingham – c/o Northampton (below); 077 76 11 51 97; brumsf@solfed.org.uk
Solidarity Bristol – c/o SF contact point (above); solidaritybristol@solfed.org.uk
Edinburgh – c/o 17 West Montgomery Place, Edinburgh, EH7 5HA; 078 96 62 13 13; edinburghsf@solfed.org.uk
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South Herts – PO Box 493, St Albans, AL1 5TW
South London – PO Box 17773, London, SE8 4WX; southlondonsf@solfed.org.uk
South West Solidarity – c/o SF contact point (above); sws@solfed.org.uk
Yorkshire – PO Box 75, Hebden Bridge, HX7 8WB

Catalyst (freesheet) – c/o The Blackcurrent Centre, 24 St Michael Avenue, Northampton, NN1 4JQ; 077 76 11 51 97; catalyst@solfed.org.uk
Education Workers Network – c/o News From Nowhere, 96 Bold St, Liverpool, L1 4HY; ewn@ewn.org.uk; www.ewn.org.uk; email list: ewn@lists.riseup.net
Public Service Workers Network – c/o Solidarity Bristol
SelfEd Collective – c/o Preston; selfed@selfed.org.uk; www.selfed.org.uk - ‘A History of Anarcho-syndicalism' – 24 pamphlets, downloadable FREE

Catalyst
SolFed freesheet – issue 15 out now – for single copies or bundles see contact details above

The Stuff Your Boss does not want you to know - Leaflet
know your rights at work; updated version available now – bundles from the SF contact point (see above) for free/donation.

Stuff Your Boss Mugs – £3 including post & packing; contact Preston SF (see above)

Friends & neighbours

to get listed here contact DA – see inside front cover for contact details

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Freedom – anarchist fortnightly; 84b Whitechapel High St, London, E1 7QX; www.freedompress.org.uk
www.libcom.org – online libertarian community and organising resource for activists in Britain
Organise! – Working Class Resistance freesheet/info; PO Box 505, Belfast, BT12 6BQ
Resistance – Anarchist Federation freesheet; c/o 84b Whitechapel High Street, London, E1 7QX; www.afed.org.uk
Stuff your Boss – anti-casualisation campaign in NW England; stuffyourboss@lists.riseup.net; SYB, c/o PO Box 29, SW PDO, Manchester, M15 5HW
ToxCat – exposing polluters, pollution and cover-ups; £2 from PO Box 29, Ellesmere Port, CH66 3TX

Kate Sharpley Library
full catalogue: BM Hurricane, London, WC1N 3XX; www.katesharpleylibrary.net
Elias Manzanera – the Iron Column: testament of a revolutionary – 30 pages – £3
Martyn Everett – War and Revolution: the Hungarian anarchist movement in world war 1 and the Budapest Commune (1919) – 28 pages – £3