September 2011 publications from Zabalaza Books
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Monday November 14, 2011 21:56 by Zabalaza Books - ZACF
All publications from Zabalaza Books for the month of September
The World Crisis and an Anarchist Response
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/28/the-world-crisis-an...onse/
Author: Wayne Price
PDF file size: 263 KB
Facing an economic crisis of world historical proportions, the worst since the Great Depression, the United States has already responded with striking political changes, particularly the election of the first African-American president. What is likely to happen in the future and what should be the response of revolutionary class-struggle anarchists?… Economically, what has begun is either a deep, lengthy, world-wide, recession — or a collapse into a second Great Depression, possibly worse than the first. Either way, large numbers of workers and their families are suffering and will face more suffering, from unemployment, under-employment, losses of their homes, the loss of the equity they had in their homes, and an inability to afford healthcare (a life and death matter)….
Posted in Anarchism
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Anarcho-Syndicalism, Technology and Ecology
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/27/anarcho-syndicalism...logy/
Author: Graham Purchase
PDF file size: 219 KB
In an anarchist society, the absence of centralised state authority will permit a radically new integration of nature, labour and culture. As the social and ecological revolution progresses, national boundaries will become cartographical curiosities, and divisions based upon differences in geography, climate and species distribution will re-emerge. This essay addresses the question of what role unionism will play in these changes.
Posted in Ecology and Animals, Labour
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Technology, Capitalism and Anarchism
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/27/technology-capitali...hism/
Author: Anarcho
PDF file size: 246 KB
Technology has an obvious effect on individual freedom, in some ways increasing it, in others restricting it. However, since capitalism is a social system based on inequalities of power, it is a truism that technology will reflect those inequalities, as it does not develop in a social vacuum. No technology evolves and spreads unless there are people who benefit from it and have sufficient means to disseminate it. In a capitalist society, technologies useful to the rich and powerful are generally the ones that spread. This can be seen from capitalist industry, where technology has been implemented specifically to deskill the worker, so replacing the skilled, valued craftsperson with the easily trained (and eliminated!) “mass worker.”
Posted in Anarchism, Ecology and Animals
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Bakunin vs. the Primitivists
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/27/bakunin-vs-the-prim...ists/
Author: Brian Oliver Sheppard
PDF file size: 276 KB
The pamphlet is a critique of so-called “primitivism,” an anti-technological current mainly based in Western countries. It has a degree of influence amongst a sector of anarchists, but the author is incorrect to use the term “anarcho-primitivist,” as this suggests “primitivism” is a form of anarchism. It is not. As the author himself notes, Bakunin’s ideas are the key reference point for anarchism, and radically at odds with “primitivism”
Posted in Analysis and Critiques
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“Separate and Equal”?: Mujeres Libres and Anarchist Strategy for Women’s Emancipation
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/26/separate-and-equal-...tion/
Author: Martha A. Ackelsberg
PDF file size: 665 KB
In May 1936, a group of anarchist women founded Mujeres Libres, the first autonomous, proletarian feminist organisation in Spain… Its goal was to end the “triple enslavement of women, to ignorance, to capital, and to men.” While some of the founders were professional or semi-professional women, the vast majority of its members (who numbered approximately 20,000 in July 1937) were working-class women. The women of Mujeres Libres aimed both to overcome the barriers of ignorance and inexperience which prevented women from participating as equals in the struggle for a better society, and to confront the dominance of men within the anarchist movement itself….
Posted in Revolutionary History, Women’s Liberation
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[Leaflet] What is Direct Action?
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/21/leaflet-what-is-dir...tion/
Author: Organise! (Ireland)
PDF file size: 122 KB
From the black bloc ‘having a go’ to going on marches, from smashing up a McDonalds’ to attending a picket, from throwing bricks to going to fundraising concerts for single issue campaigns – all of these activities have had the term ‘direct action’ applied to them.
Posted in Leaflets, Organisation
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Give Up Activism: A Critique of the Activist Mentality in the direct action Movement
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/20/give-up-activism-a-...ment/
Author: Andrew X
PDF file size: 343 KB
In 1999, in the aftermath of the June 18th global day of action, a pamphlet called Reflections on June 18th was produced by some people in London, as an open-access collection of “contributions on the politics behind the events that occurred in the City of London on June 18, 1999”. Contained in this collection was the article ‘Give up Activism’ which has generated quite a lot of discussion and debate both in the UK where it first appeared and internationally, being translated into several languages and reproduced in several different publications.
Here we republish the article together with a new postscript by the author addressing some comments and criticisms received since the original publication.
Give Up Activism is an important critique of the activist mentality in the direct action movement.
Posted in Analysis and Critiques, Organisation
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[Leaflet] The Need of Our Own Project: On the Importance of a Program in the Libertarian Political Organisation
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/20/leaflet-the-need-of...tion/
Author: Organisación Socialista Libertaria (Argentina)
PDF file size: 87.3 KB
We that believe in the construction of a libertarian political organisation, of an anarchism that as a revolutionary project has real impact in the class struggle, see the need of adopting a clear program of action that is the fruit of collective discussion and express our principles and revolutionary objectives and that determine the tasks to be realized in each step taken. The importance of anarchists having such a program is expressed by Bakunin when he stated that “one should never renounce the clear established revolutionary program, not in what concerns to its form, not in what concerns its substance”….
Posted in Leaflets, Organisation
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[Leaflet] Less Talk, More Regroupment: A Piece on Revolutionary Strategy and getting organised
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/19/leaflet-less-talk-m...ised/
Author: Jasper Conner
PDF file size: 85 KB
Platformists and especifists have made their point, it’s been written a million different ways. Its time to move beyond advocating for the anarchist organisation, and get to it. The task of this tendency is not to convince others with words, the task is to actually build the organisation and develop its politics… most people in this debate have given little time to what would actually be the strategic orientation of such an organisation, other than it’d be an especifist/platformist organisation…. Its time we got our shit together and actually started discussing the ins and outs of an anarchist organisation that has real strategic and tactical unity.
Posted in Leaflets, Organisation
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[Leaflet] Moving to Action: Workplace Organising beyond Recipes
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/14/leaflet-moving-to-a...ipes/
Author: Scott Nappalos
PDF file size: 89.5 KB
When a revolutionary begins organising in a shop, the first step is typically to agitate one’s co-workers. In our minds we see a step-by-step process wherein our agitation leads to other opportunities, recruitment, committee building, until we have power and an organisation. The problem is that for most workplaces, this way of thinking gives the wrong impression. In some workplaces, particularly in production, there’s a state of constant agitation and actions burst out before committees ever get built. In other workplaces agitation just never seems to take hold. What do we do in these situations? What do we do when agitation takes years without much visible result, or in places where workers are clearly in the retreat or a passive state?….
Posted in Leaflets, Organisation
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[Leaflet] End Poverty and Unemployment
http://zabalazabooks.net/2011/09/12/leaflet-end-poverty...ment/
Author: Soundz of the South
PDF file size: 71.2 KB
The reason why millions and millions of people, especially young people, are unemployed and live in poverty around the world is because of the capitalist and state systems. Capitalism and the state lead to all sorts of problems including unemployment, inequality and the oppression of workers, women and people of colour….
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