(1928 - ) ~ Popluar Modern American Anarchist Author, Linguist, Scientist, and Historian : Though his stance on these issues is that of an admitted anarchist/libertarian, Noam Chomsky prefers to act as an analyst and critic of the state rather than a social theorist.... Chomsky continues to teach at MIT, where he holds an endowed chair in linguistics. (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "...international solidarity can take new and more constructive forms as the great majority of the people of the world come to understand that their interests are pretty much the same and can be advanced by working together. There is no more reason now than there has ever been to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws, not simply decisions made within instutitions that are subject to human will -- human institutions, that have to face the test of legitimacy and, if they do not meet it, can be replaced by others that are more free and more just, as often in the past." (From : "Profit Over People", by Noam Chomsky, page 62, ch....)
• "Systems of unaccountable power do offer some choices to citizens. They can petition the king or the CEO, or join the ruling party. They can try to rent themselves to GE, or buy its products. They can struggle for rights within tyrannies, state and private, and in solidarity with others, can seek to limit or dismantle illegitimate power, pursuing traditional ideals, including those that animated the U.S. labor movement from its early origins: that those who work in the mills should own and run them." (From : "Profit Over People", by Noam Chomsky, page 132, c....)
• "The enormous public relations industry, from its origins early in this century, has been dedicated to the "control of the public mind," as business leaders described the task. And they acted on their words, surely one of the central themes of modern history." (From : "Profit Over People," by Noam Chomsky, page 45, ch....)
This article appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the author. GREEN PERSPECTIVES Price:$1.00 A LEFT GREEN PUBLICATION Number 23 June 1991 P.O. Box 111 Burlington, VT 05402 A Critique of the Draft Program of the Left Green Network by Murray Bookchin and Janet Biehl Editors note: The Left Green Network is in the process of writing, developing and debating its program. The draft proposal for the program was published in the April/May 1991 issue of the Network's organizing bulletin, Left Green Notes, number 7. The following critique was written in response to that program. The proposed program will be debated at the upcoming continental conference of the Network, over the July 4 weekend in Chicago, Illinois. To receive a copy of t... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
(1902 - 1990) ~ Russian Emigre and American Anarchist Activist : He rode the rails for the Wobblies, sometimes as a gandy dancer (or maintenance man), or else hopping boxcars, and he always looked for the chance to stand in front of a crowd and, in that broken cello of a voice. (From : IWW.org.)
• "Society without order (as the word "society" implies) is inconceivable. But the organization of order is not the exclusive monopoly of the State. For, if the State authority is the sole guarantee of order, who will watch the watchmen?" (From : "The Relevance of Anarchy to Modern Society," by S....)
• "The very fact that autonomy, decentralization and federalism are more practical alternatives to centralism and statism already presupposes that these vast organizational networks now performing the functions of society are prepared to replace the old bankrupt hyper-centralized administrations." (From : "The Relevance of Anarchy to Modern Society," by S....)
• "The increasing complexity of society is making anarchism MORE and NOT LESS relevant to modern life. It is precisely this complexity and diversity, above all their overriding concern for freedom and human values that led the anarchist thinkers to base their ideas on the principles of diffusion of power, self-management and federalism." (From : "The Relevance of Anarchy to Modern Society," by S....)
(1890 - 1964) ~ IWW Activist, Founder of the ACLU, and US Communist Party Chairwoman : At the age of 17 she became a full time organizer for the IWW, and was consequently arrested 10 times. Although she was never convicted of any criminal activity, she was forced to leave the IWW in 1916 because of internal conflicts. In 1920 she helped found the American Civil Liberties Union, and began actively supporting Sacco and Vanzetti... (From : Spartacus Educational Bio.)
• ""The right to assemble; the right to speak" written in dead words in the Bill of Rights was written in live deeds by the people all over the United States." (From : Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, 1939.)
• "Defense of our civil liberties; for political prisoners; fighting against raids, wholesale arrests, and deportations of thousands of foreign-born workers – these were the big issues of 1918 and 1919. The boss class was terrified by the great Russian Revolution." (From : Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, 1939.)
• "...how they inspired us, how we revered them. French Communards, Russian revolutionists escaped from Siberia, Germans driven out by Bismarck, Garibaldians in their red shirts, Irish, Polish exiles. Oldtime Americans marching, telling of Haymarket, Homestead, Pullman. Men who knew Marx, Engels, Silvis, Parsons – patriarchs and prophets to us." (From : Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, 1939.)
(1869 - 1928) ~ Big Bill Haywood, Founder and Leader of the IWW : One of the foremost labor radicals of the American West, "Big Bill" Haywood became a leading figure in labor activities across the United States. (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "...the historians have not been much interested in what the working people have done, although they have done almost everything worth while in the world." (From : "Industrial Socialism," by Frank Bohn and William ....)
• "For the revolution to be successful, it will have to result in the ownership and control of the land, shops, mines and railroads by the workers." (From : "Industrial Socialism," by Frank Bohn and William ....)
• "...I want to urge upon the working class; to become so organized on the economic field that they can take and hold the industries in which they are employed. Can you conceive of such a thing? Is it possible? What are the forces that prevent you from doing so?" (From : "The General Strike," by William D. Haywood, 1911.)
Published: New Masses, May 2, 1939. HTML: for marxists.org in March, 2002. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, renowned labor organizer, surveys her memories of thirty-three May Days in America. The glorious pageant of American working-class solidarity. Thirty-three May Days have come and gone since my activities in the American labor movement began. In memory I view them – an endless procession of red banners, flying high and wide, in the eager hands of marching, cheering, singing workers. Banners of local unions and AFL central labor councils; three-starred IWW banners; banners of Amalgamated, of International Ladies Garment Workers, furriers, pioneers of unionism for the “immigrants and revolutionists"; banners of craft unions, independe... (From : Marxists.org.)
1. Anarchism was built up and invented by the working class to meet with specific problems in working class organization and to point the way to a society free from oppression. It differed from Marxism or authoritarian socialism in that it saw that copying bourgeois forms of organization or government was a mistaken tactic; also that government could form a new tyranny. It was not generally realized at the time that there could be two forms of aspirants to tyranny - capitalists and bureaucrats could take over a new government, but prior to that the middle classes were also divided in their attitude to socialism. The middle class as defined by Marx - the profit making class ^^ had a corollary in the mandarin class aiming at power and its cla... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
This article appears in Anarchy Archives with the permission of the author. On "Remaking of the American Left" Murray Bookchin STANLEY ARONOWITZ has written a generally admirable and important work in Socialist Review, "The Remaking of the American Left," that deserves widespread discussion. For the present, I would like to focus on what I regard as a core issue of the article, notably Aronowitz's distinction "between the ideological left of socialists, communists, libertarians of various sorts . . . and the popular left" which in past decades consisted of movements for redistributive justice," by which I take Aronowitz to mean the traditional labor, agrarian, and unemployed movements of the 1930s and earlier periods. While these movements ... (From : Anarchy Archives.)
(1854 - 1929) ~ British-American Anarchist and Magonista Editor : William C. Owen was a British-born Anarchist who was active in California with Ricardo Flores Magón.
William Charles Owen (1854–1929) was a British–American anarchist best known for his activism during the Mexican Revolution and English-language translations of Mexican anarchist Ricardo Flores Magón. (From : Wikipedia.org.)
(1853 - 1942) ~ IWW Founder, Anarchist Activist, and Labor Organizer : In addition to defending the rights of African-Americans, Lucy spoke out against the repressed status of women in nineteenth century America. Wanting to challenge the notion that women could not be revolutionary, she took a very active, and often militant, role in the labor movement... (From : IWW.org.)
• "I learned by close study that it made no difference what fair promises a political party, out of power might make to the people in order to secure their confidence, when once securely established in control of the affairs of society that they were after all but human with all the human attributes of the politician." (From : "The Principles of Anarchism," by Lucy E. Parsons.)
• "...we are willing to work for peace at any price, except at the price of liberty." (From : "The Principles of Anarchism," by Lucy E. Parsons.)
• "The land and all it contains, without which labor cannot be exerted, belong to no one man, but to all alike." (From : "The Principles of Anarchism," by Lucy E. Parsons.)
Sabotage - by Elizabeth Gurley Flynn Originally published as SABOTAGE, THE CONSCIOUS WITHDRAWAL OF THE WORKERS' INDUSTRIAL EFFICIENCY, in October, 1916, by the IWW publishing bureau, in Cleveland, Ohio. It was later withdrawn from the IWW's official litearture. The pampahlet originally sold for 10 cents. Disclaimer: The following document is presented for historical purposes and in the interest of the freedom of speech. The IWW takes no official position on sabotage (i.e. the IWW neither condones nor condemns such actions). Workers who engage in some of the following forms of sabotage risk legal sanctions. Elizabeth Gurley-Flynn's Introduction: The interest in sabotage in the United States has developed lately on account of the case of Frederick Sumner Boyd in the state of New Jersey as an aftermath of the Paterson strike. Before his arrest and convictio...
(1879 - 1943) ~ IWW Leader and Enemy of Big-Business-Owned, Yellow Unions : Though he started as a Socialist, Tresca died an Anarchist. He edited a number of papers which stood up for workers' rights and denounced the hypocrisy and corruption of those in power. One of his favorite targets was the clergy who he attacked relentlessly. (From : Anarchy Archives.)
• "Come redeeming socialism, come. Only then will the mine cease to be what it is today, a rich tomb created for men by the cruel and blind improvidence of capitalism." (From : "Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel," by Nunzio Per....)
• "It is necessary to see these slaves as I have seen them. Then no one would repeat the lie that work ennobles; rather, as a reproach to capitalism, they would say that work brutalizes and kills." (From : "Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel," by Nunzio Per....)
• "The army is the most monstrous, immoral, degenerate organism of brutal force." (From : "Carlo Tresca: Portrait of a Rebel," by Nunzio Per....)