From the ideas & action print magazine archives……

The print version of ideas & action began publication two years before the Workers Solidarity Alliance (WSA) was organized in November 1984. Over the course of the next 15 years we published 17 issues of a high-quality magazine.

Over time, we will be posting articles which originally appeared in the printed magazine.

In our magazine’s first introduction, “For Openers,” we laid out our perspectives and goals:

“What you have in your hands is a discussion journal, a forum for ideas and analysis, from a libertarian syndicalist socialist point of view. The basic framework is provided by the ideas of direct action and anti-statism, anti-parliamentarianism and anti-partyism, international worker solidarity and revolutionary unionism, and the ideal of a society run collectively by working people through face-to-face democracy, free of top-down control.”

As to the journal’s rationale, here is a quote from a letter that was sent out, inviting participation in this project:

“To have an effective anarcho-syndicalist movement, we need something more than isolated activists and groups. Libertarian ideas are likely to have more influence on the real world if numbers of people are pulling in the same direction.  … Discussion has to be a shared activity. Because we learn from each other’s arguments and experiences, raising the understanding of the movement as a whole. And we develop an approach towards the struggles of our class that is shared, with collective agreement on what needs to be done. The more who participate, the more communication and sharing of ideas take place”

The Libertarian Workers Group leaflet, “Reaganism Is Not the Problem” originally appeared in the Summer 1982 (#2) print issue of ideas & action.

Special thanks go out to Juan Conatz for transcribing the text.

Reaganism isn’t the problem – capitalism is!

The following leaflet was distributed at an anti-Reagan rally in New York in March 1982.

Clearly the policies of the Reagan administration are meant to hurt working people, to impose austerity on us for the sake of the continued functioning of the economic system. It is also clear that as workers, students and unemployed we must fight to maintain and improve our material conditions of life, whether it is “good for the economy” or not.

Where does the current economic problem come from? The problem does not come from bad leaders and bad policies, as some would tell you. They would claim that the right leaders with the right program would turn the current wave of cut-backs, lay-offs and inflation around and run the economy for the benefit of everyone, not just the rich and powerful. Sounds good at first, and it might just work for a while.

But there’s something they either don’t know or aren’t saying. You see, ultimately it doesn’t matter if it’s Reagan, Carter, Kennedy or whoever. The system of profit and accumulation called capitalism is so full of contradictions and internal flaws that it inevitably falls into crisis after crisis. At best, they can alternate between inflation and recession. Worse for us, we can wind up with both, as we have today.

This is so fundamental to the system that no politician can change it. Nor can they, in the long run, convert defense spending into spending for human needs, not as long as the system of international conflict called imperialism exists. A president or Congress may reduce war spending for a time, but as long as there are governments they will compete for world power, and they will require arms and soldiers to do so.

So of capitalism, and not Reaganism, is the problem, what then is the solution? Certainly not the bureaucratic monstrosity of the system, mistakenly called “socialism”, which exists in Eastern Europe, China , Cuba, etc. If Poland proves anything, it is that bosses are still bosses, whether they call themselves capitalist or Communist.

While as working people we need to get rid of private ownership and profit in industry, the last thing we need is to hand it over to the governments to run for us. We should instead seek to manage and run the means of production and distribution democratically and collectively, without private ownership or state managers.

We, the members of the Libertarian Workers Group*, are workers and students from all over the New York metropolitan area. We are anarchists because we have learned from our experiences in all sorts of struggles that working people must shake off all the self proclaimed “leaders” who try to direct our struggles and instead run them ourselves. To do this we need new types of organization -  councils, assemblies, free unions -  organizations that can serve as a model of a new society without bosses   or bureaucrats, without exploitation and domination. Without that kind of movement we will be doomed to fighting one Reagan after another, without ever having gotten to the heart of the problem – the capitalist system all over the world.

Taken from ideas + action (Summer 1982)

*The Libertarian Workers Group (formed in 1978) was one of the two Workers Solidarity Alliance    founding groups.

Julio is an anarchist youth organizer with the Youth Justice Coalition and RiseUp LA, radical groups that run out of Chuco’s Justice Center in Inglewood, CA. He is a student at Free LA High School at Chuco’s where he is studying to get his GED. Julio is prominent in the LA punk scene, organizing and promoting DIY shows, and encouraging the politicization and education of kids in the scene.

This past Saturday, Julio was hosting a Cinco de Mayo party at his house. When he noticed that someone had stolen his laptop, he shut down the party and told everyone they needed to leave, but a group of them refused. Julio knocked on the side of their car to get them to leave, but rather than drive away, the group called 911. The Sherriff’s deputies arrived and arrested Julio for vandalism. He was taken to Men’s Central Jail where he is currently detained. Julio’s family posted bail for him on Sunday, but ICE put an immigration hold on him and will not allow him to be released until the hold is resolved. If the immigration hold is not dropped, Julio will be transferred to an ICE detention facility and then be deported to Mexico, where he has not lived since his infancy.

Just this past week on May 1st Julio was marching next to us in the streets waving the red and black. Now after being taken in by the cops on bogus charges he is being held captive with his future hanging in the balance. His friends and comrades across LA have been mobilizing to organize his support and get him out. We’re asking everyone to begin by taking the simple steps of calling ICE and signing a petition on his behalf to encourage ICE to do the easy thing and let him out.

Please sign this petition for Julio:
http://action.dreamactivist.org/california/julio/

Please call these ICE numbers and encourage others to call:

1. Call ICE National
John Morton, Director National Headquarters
(202) 732-3000
2. Office of Principal Legal Advisor
Debra Workeneh, Acting Chief Counsel
(213) 894-2805
3. Enforcement and Removal Operations
Los Angeles Field Office
Phone: (213) 830-7911
4. Office of Professional Responsibility
ICE Office of Professional Responsibility
Assistant Special Agent in Charge-Los Angeles
(562) 980-3170
5. A branch of homeland security that deals with removals
ERO: 213-830-7911

Sample Script: “I am calling to urge ICE to lift the immigration hold on Julio Rodriguez (case # 205-311-867) so he can be released from Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles County, California. Julio is 22 years old and has been living in the U.S. from a young age. He is DREAM Act eligible and a valued member of his community. Release Julio from Men’s Central Jail.”

We will do everything we can here in Los Angeles to make sure that Julio goes free!

Recently, there has been an explosion of articles about a certain graphic depicting a unicorn biting the head off of a cop, most notably from The Blaze, which uses it as evidence for  ”a disturbing increase in calls for violence from certain Occupy organizers” in two articles.

The Pundit Press explains the situation succinctly:

To accompany their rally, Occupy Wall Street has created a propaganda poster to show what they are all about. The poster is of a pink unicorn ripping the head off of a police office, while a rainbow shines in the background:

On the unicorn’s left leg, the acronym “WSA” can be seen. WSA stands for the anti-capitalist organization the Workers Solidarity Alliance. For some reason, the police officer has “Work” written over his groin. Apparently, the WSA is planning on using unicorns to kill work?

As a WSA member, I would like to clear up any confusion here and set the record straight about this image.

First, contrary to a suddenly popular conception, WSA is not Occupy Wall St.  I cannot explain why most of these articles say Occupy Wall St made the image, later to find out through their detective work that WSA made it, then still say Occupy Wall St made it.  I just can’t.  It’s absurd. But I’ll tell you what’s not absurd: Unicorns killing work.

The General Strike is simply a test of our unicorn.  The unicorn is our secret weapon, we failed to harness its power for the homosexual agenda but now we are more prepared.  The unicorn, in short, will kill work, but what does this all mean?

We know now, after years of struggle, that capitalism can only be abolished through the power of Friendship.  Friendship, WSA’s first unicorn, is indeed the unicorn depicted beheading a police officer in our graphic. Friendship was given to us by a close comrade; we originally wanted to name it Bo after our donor’s dog, but ultimately the name was George Soros’ decision.

You see, each of WSA’s 8 unicorns have been bred to fight a certain evil of capitalism and create a new world of glitter and kisses from the bottom-up.  Friendship has gained the power of killing work, Flowers is being trained to create a communist chocolate hellhole, and Snuggles is making sure there will be free cookies for all. 

Happiness, destroyer of Mondays

Some will have you believe Occupy Wall St is a leaderless movement.  This is not true.  During the May 1st General Strike, Friendship, using his majestic rainbow as a war flag, will charge into capitalism and lead us in a day of killing work. It will be a slaughter, not even school or chores will be spared by our deadly sparkles and fierce hugs.

Why kill work?  Because, we wish to go beyond the pony-based economy of Vermin Supreme to a unicorn-based economy (what we at WSA call solidarity unicornism).  Work is but one aspect of a unicornless economy that we seek to abolish (some other aspects include exploitation, boringness, and lack of sparkles) and replace with solidarity unicornism.  Harnessing the power of rainbows and democratic self-management, we plan to move beyond the scarcities of capitalism, smash the state (which almost never gives us hugs), and have no rulers or bosses besides our unicorn overlords.  In the past, such a unicorn-based society has been attempted to be made from the top down in a system widely known as Rainbow Communism.  We have learned that Rainbow Communism is inherently flawed, only by abolishing work from the bottom up with Friendship can we achieve a better world.  We can only achieve social justice by replacing capitalism with solidarity unicornism; as long as the existing unicornless economy survives, unicorns cannot prevail and we can never become dancers.

Hugs and Kisses,

Adam Quinn

Secretary of Unicorns

Workers Solidarity Alliance

Zanon Demands Enforcement of the Law

Source: Lavaca (Argentina); originally posted August 12, 2011; translated by Steve Fake (corrections welcome)

The workers of the recuperated Argentinian business, Zanon, and the Ceramics Union of Neuquén decided to go to the streets to enforce the law. For two years they waited for implementation of the expropriation approved by the provincial legislature. Without the regulation, which is the responsibility of the provincial executive, the plant is exposed to a legal limbo which, among other things, seriously complicates their commercial activity and “jeopardizes the source of work for 130 families,” according to a statement. The text states: “This August 12th marks two years since the historic day when the Legislature of the Province of Neuquén approved the Zanon expropriation law sent to Governor Sapag, as a political decision to safeguard our source of employment, a product of the enormous consensus in the community backing our struggle.”

Zanon demonstration

Suspicious Delays

Zanon workers explain: “The Sapag government has constantly delayed the completion of the process of expropriation. A simple procedure, like presenting the law together with the agreements of the creditors with privilege in the bankruptcy, filed in the court which is also handling the bankruptcy of Zanon Group, still took 9 months.”

As a consequence, “We cannot access credit so that we may renovate our technology for future projects. Furthermore, in recent weeks, factories that were expropriated in 2005, such as Motta (also in the Zanon group) and the emblematic Recuperated Hotel Bauen, were put to auction in order to evict the workers with the same rationale that we denounce – abandonment of the law by the provincial government.”

The Zanon workers provide the context: “On October 1^st, we complete 10 years of workers’ management, and we have seen how, over the years, the same process of emptying and shuttering our sources of work has deepened, affecting companies in the same industry, such as Valle and Stefani. The only ceramic factory which continues under the direction of the bosses has received loans from banks and the provincial government and has nonetheless been placed in receivership with debts of more than 20 million pesos.”

To reclaim the effectiveness of expropriation, the workers conduct outreach activities in different parts of the city of Neuquén with demonstrations, radio announcements, and marches.

###

Zanon: Happy Expropriated Birthday

Lavaca, originally posted September 26, 2011

On 1 October it will be 10 years since the workers took their factory, Zanon, in Neuquén. They will celebrate it on October 8^th in Zanon with Bersuit Vergarabat, Arbolito, and local bands from Neuquén, while the bankruptcy judge upheld the Expropriation Act passed by the Neuquén legislature two years ago, which the provincial government still has not implemented. Raul Godoy tells Lavaca: “That is central to being able to renovate the technology in the plant.”

It has already been two years since the Neuquén Legislature approved the expropriation of the Zanon ceramics factory, without the law being implemented. Godoy comments, “As there was no movement, the Zanon family began to appear, along with people from the old bureaucracy that were displaced from the ceramics union. What they did was to ask that the Expropriation Act be ruled unconstitutional.”

The scam that saved the workers

Judge Valeria Perez Cazado did not find in favor of the employer’s claim. Raul Godoy explains: “She rejected the idea of overturning the law and suggested that after attempting to sell the factory, vacate it, or auction it off, the owner never could because it was occupied by workers, and all attempts to end this situation caused social and political conflict at the provincial and national level. Therefore, the only thing to do is to implement the law.” The judge also endorsed the sum agreed upon: 23 million pesos to creditors, mainly the World Bank and SACMI. Godoy says, “We do not agree, in part because the bankruptcy was fraudulent. The creditors have a responsibility for the emptying of the factory, a scam for which his own family has come out against him. But hey, that’s a government arrangement with the creditors, while we remain on the sidelines.”

Technological renovation and workers’ control

The expropriation leaves the factory in the hands of the FASINPAT Cooperative (Factory Without a Boss). A proposal for nationalization under workers ‘control, sought by the workers, is, for now, the only viable option: a cooperative run by assembly, which leaves the factory under workers’ control, and facing the possibility of growth. Godoy explains, “In the ceramics industry, it is known that every five years it is necessary to renovate a facility’s technology to modernize the plant and improve production. We have survived 15 years without being able to do so – the last 5 years under the bosses’ reign (from 1996 to 2001) with all the depletion, and the 10 years after we took charge of the factory. We have no access to credit because everything is always subject to the question of final ownership of the factory. This can give us another chance.”

4,000 per month, and more

This would also affect the income of each worker at Zanon, which now hovers around 4,000 pesos a month. “We did not come to fail; we believe we can increase that number and continue to grow, given that we are using 40% of the capacity of the plant.” And all with no other capital than human capital, which, as can be seen, is crucial.

Expropriation would only require workers to prioritize the state in sales of tiles for public works. “I wish we could always do it. We’d love to build more and more homes, more schools and hospitals with Zanon materials.” The factory under workers’ control has been donating materials for social and community projects.

A party and a memory Lavaca-Zanon

On October 8 at 6PM, Zanon doors will open for a party and concert to commemorate 10 years in existence, with Bersuit, Arbolito, and local bands. Godoy comments that, “The presence of Bersuit is special because it was the first band that came to support us in 2002. It is a return: they told us that they supported us, and they can see where we are now.”

For Raúl, the coincidence of birthdays awakened another memory: “From the beginning we always called Lavaca, and I remember chatting with my compañeros because we didn’t know what it was, and we had no Internet. We’re talking 10 years ago because you were from the beginning.” Two ceramics in Mu, Punto de Encuentro (Lavaca’s movement cafe) dedicated by Zanon, a cover of Lavaca’s periodical Mu (issue #15, Zanonizate), several programs on Decí Mu (Lavaca’s radio program), and serving as the inspiration for the title of the first book produced by Lavaca, Sin Patrón, are just a few examples of the shared experiences of this generation.

The text below is adapted from a gorgeous flier created by WSA – Southern California. This post is part of a series that ideas & action will publish in the run up to May Day 2012.

Queers have always had to fight for our rights, our dignity, our survival. It’s time to step up; it’s time to push the 1% out of the way and make Los Angeles ours.

Occupy Los Angeles has called for a mass strike, boycott, walkout and day of action on May 1st. This is our time to shine.

Queers are the the 99% and the 99% is queer! Despite what the leadership of the HRC  looks like or what the characters on Bravo look like, most queers are not white and middle class. Class society was built on top of the divisions and oppression of gender and normative sexuality. Queers and gender rebels have felt the brunt of the attacks from the 1%, being pushed to the bottom of the economic pile since the very beginning. This makes it impossible to separate our struggle as queers from our struggle as the working class. And while wealthy, white gays and lesbians—the queer 1%—may have made advances into American capitalist consumerism, most of us remain on the outside, still dealing with the struggles that confront us as queer members of the 99%: the struggles to end discrimination against transfolk in the workplace, for better wages and more desirable jobs, for an end to the homelessness of queer youth, for affordable medical support for AIDS patients, for sex worker rights and organization, for immigration rights for our same-sex partners, to stop youth suicides… our list of demands is as long as our history of struggle.

The way we win our demands as the queer 99% is by recognizing the common political thread that unites every one of our individual fights: the struggle of the 99% to regain control of our lives from the 1%. Every one of us in the 99% is struggling to take the 1% out of the equation and start living our lives for ourselves and for our neighbors, not for our bosses and all the others who steal all of our waking hours from us. And getting rid of the division between the 99% and the 1% means getting rid of the divisions of gender and sexuality, and of race, class, and all the other things that make the 1% the 1%.

This is why we are participating in the May 1st general strike. The general strike brings together the struggles of all the members of the 99%—queers, workers, immigrants, students, prisoners, disabled, unemployed, parents…—while leaving us the space to organize autonomously. We pull ourselves together into one punch that builds power for all of us and brings all of us closer to meetings our needs, and closer to a future of queer liberation.

Call us!
occupymay1st@gmail.com
socalwsa.contact@gmail.com

Urban Planning is neither boulevards for conquerors, nor a landscape for the palaces of the rich, nor an opportunity for land speculators, nor a design opportunity for artists, nor a conspiracy for social engineers.

Urban planning is conducted to promote the health, safety, and well-being of people living together in urbanized areas; to enable people in urbanized areas to use scarce resources efficiently (all natural resources are “scarce”: supply and demand equals scarcity); and to mitigate the impact of population growth on the health of the planet.

Under capitalism, planning has been used to service the interests of the rich who own property [real estate] and the means of production. Under Anarchism, these will be “socialized”: expropriated, collectively “owned” by the Free Commune / Community, used and self-managed by workers and residents, non-transferable, and non-salable. People will be able to make the land use decisions which meet their needs and make their lives better. There will be no “property values” or land speculation.

Why are there urban centers?

Since the stone age (around 12,000-9,000 B.C.), urban centers are the manner in which people work together to survive and improve their lives by storage, manufacturing, transportation, trade, security and knowledge of people, resources and goods. Centers were permanent population settlements located where there was water and food (plant and animal domestication), so they were places to store food and resources.

They were also places where people had the time to manufacture tools, pottery, baskets, clothing, weapons and other goods. They traded their surpluses with other centers. Extended families would intermarry with other centers for healthy blood lines and trade relations. Some centers were near transportation routes like waterways. So they were centers of trade and transportation.

All culture is based on trade, beginning with language. Centers were a place of security from wild animals (surrounded by a wall or fence), but they also had to be a place of security where people felt safe carry on their activities without being robbed, killed or otherwise molested. So residents agreed to conduct themselves cooperatively in the interest of the community and come together in its defense or an emergency like a fire. Later on, workers associations would each have a militia that shared part of their common defense.

Lastly, centers were places where knowledge was accumulated and shared; eventually, using writing. Writing also allowed the keeping of records like agreements and economic activity. Centers with knowledge, culture and trade are “civilization” and civilization is inevitable (but not necessarily the one we live in today: many were non-hierarchical and did not waste resources building large structures or monuments of stone).

Urban centers have been shaped by the invention of the State (originally, a professional military), technology and economic changes, but their function is the same.

What is urban planning?

Modern urban planning resulted from the failures of Capitalism addressed in 3 social reform movements: (1) The Progressive Era produced zoning and building codes to regulate land use development and structural safety; (2) Social Democracy produced the idea of public goods which could not be produced efficiently by Capitalism, but must be produced socially through public works projects and services (infrastructure, employment and health); and (3) Ecology introduced the idea of The Limits to Growth (e.g., scarce resources, pollution and economy) and produced regulations for environmental health, energy efficiency and adequate infrastructure capacity.

I have tried to encapsulate these into 9 principles of urban planning. I have described some of the cases where Capitalism has deviated from these principles. However, I expect these principles to apply to a new society based on Anarcho-Syndicalist organization, worker self-management and the abolition of social classes.

1. To separate incompatible types of land use, so that people do not have to live in, about, or near dangerous or unhealthy activities. By contrast, the capitalist class system has historically located the housing of poor, immigrant, colored, and working class peoples near to industrial areas.

2. Planning originated to promote health [e.g., insure proper ventilation to prevent disease, non-lead pipes and paint to prevent lead poisoning], structural integrity and fire safety [e.g., proper electrical wiring, fire walls, fire escapes]; especially, walk-up tenement apartments like the overcrowded apartments of the poor. It is also intended to provide adequate affordable housing for people with working class incomes and special housing needs.

Under capitalism, housing speculators build for the rich and leave the oldest and poorest quality housing for the working class and the poor. “Affordable” rents for the working class often exceed 50% of income; forcing households to under-consume housing (use less than they need) and live in overcrowded or severely overcrowded conditions [based on US Government Dept. of Housing and Urban Development definitions: “overcrowded”=1 to 1.5 persons per habitable room, excluding bathrooms and hallways; “severely overcrowded”= over 1.5 persons per habitable room; many households exceed 2 persons per habitable room according to US Government Census]. Unhealthy and dangerous slum housing for the poor is common and anti-slum laws are rarely enforced and lightly penalized. Livable apartments are often left unoccupied by speculators who “landbank” the property by writing off any costs on their taxes and waiting to develop the property or sell it until it becomes profitable to use it to benefit rich people.

Housing in immigrant, non-white, and working class neighborhoods is also penalized by a racial and class discrimination practice called “redlining”. Until 1961, banks, insurance companies and the government literally drew lines around areas they would not serve, based on a standard banking practice adopted by the welfare state of not permitting loans that would allow people from different races or ethnic groups to live in the same neighborhood. This also set aside areas where the poor and working classes were expected to live in apartments or single room occupancy hotels [where liquor stores, drug addiction, religion, cops, and social welfare could be concentrated to keep the poor under control]. Later, the poorest families were given rent subsidies or housed in “public housing” projects. Unemployment, police profiling and gang activity now lead a lot of poor people to being imprisoned or killed at a young age.

3. All new economic, residential and public/civic development must provide adequate infrastructure and be supported by adequate unused infrastructure and treatment capacity. Capital improvements (public/civic infrastructure construction) requires several years to forecast demand, design, and build—they must be functioning when a new development is completed to service the people and activities which will take place there (e.g., streets, water, electricity, sewers, telecommunications); including the construction of regional scale public generators, treatment plants, and recycling. These activities support life, transport resources, and manage waste externalities (organic, byproducts, pollution) to protect the health of the community.

4. Land use decisions should be made by community residents who will be affected by them (and take into consideration the workplaces/jobs which will also be affected). Under capitalism, government is a Plutocracy (rule by the wealthy). Appointed power-elite “commissions” manage the bureaucracy (the State) and claim that bourgeois “citizen advisory groups” provide public input into laws and policy-making (aka., C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite). Land use decisions are made to protect the “private property rights” and profits of capitalists, speculators, and bourgeois’. Political machines try to corrupt and control “grass roots activists” in working class communities, so their residents can be more easily exploited and pacified.

Land use decisions should also consider public safety (e.g., fire protection, emergency medical services, and physical security). Capitalists use police violence to protect the rich and maintain the class system. Capitalism is the principle cause of social malaise (poverty, illness, social violence/”crime”, etc.). Night lights and open spaces can be laid out so that people and residents are visible and more safe from “crime” or they can be chained from public use. Concrete barriers and fences have been used to protect children at schools, parks, and in child care from gun fire or abduction. An egalitarian socialistic society will make social violence and exploitation unnecessary—we should not adopt, OR TOLERATE, the methods of our exploiters.

5. People are products of their environments. Each neighborhood should be landscaped and provide basic “public goods” within walking distance (facilities, services, resources—schools, parks, libraries, etc.; also, grocery stores, drug stores, clothing stores, clinics, cafeterias, and other basic social needs). Under capitalism, working class and poor neighborhoods are underserved or discriminated against (e.g., school districts buy books for schools in rich neighborhoods—at working class schools they use the same money to buy security guards, metal detectors, and drugs to sedate and control “problem students”). Working class students have to go to overcrowded schools or are bussed.

Trees (“urban forest”) help mitigate the “urban heat island” effect of paved urban areas. Minimizing impervious paved surfaces, xeroscape (plants needing little irrigation), and building groundwater settling basins helps to mitigate urban runoff water pollution. Reclaimed water can be used instead of fresh water for irrigation. The upper classes develop hostile fire, earthquake and flood-prone environments to suit their vanity and profits. Landscaping with fire-resistant plants and requiring fireproof housing materials can help mitigate brush fires. In a classless society, urban sprawl would not be economically practical, and these areas would be more suitable for conservation due to safety or ecological concerns.

6. Public goods should be socially (publicly) owned and benefit the entire community. The burden of financing public goods should be borne equally like mutual aid by the community. Under capitalism, existing residents vote and have come to scapegoat the impact of growth on newcomers who are then billed for it through environmental impact fees or “proffers” (“voluntary contributions” as a condition of approving a development=government extortion). Similarly, older wealthy residents and capitalists have resisted public good spending not directly beneficial to them and called it “pork barrel”. The result was a lack of maintenance on public facilities like schools, staff service cuts, and work speed-ups of service and infrastructure workers.

In a socialistic society, the definition of what is a public good may change; especially, in counties with very low salaries. The society is responsible for the health and well-being of all its peoples. The rich currently benefit from labor but do not pay for the full value of that labor as part of the cost of production. Under worker self-management, those costs will be shared by workplaces—the equivalent of subsidizing water, electricity, housing, food, clothing, health care and other basic necessities to assure a productive workforce is nominal compared to the wasteful consumption of the bourgeoisie and the rich under the current system. Social needs should be produced based on demand (forecasted use), not speculation or privilege (luxury).

7. Urban areas should be designed to be energy efficient. Communities should be designed around public transportation with mixed use (housing atop parking, stores and other nonindustrial workplaces) and residential populations concentrated along transit right-of-way corridors. Urban sprawl must be contained and precluded. Communities should use “best available practices” to minimize air and water emissions (pollution), and recycle their waste products as is done with reclaimed water (especially toxic and radioactive wastes).

8. All land used must be recyclable and recycled when community needs change. Urban “brownfields” (poisoned land and groundwater), “superfund sites”, leaking underground storage tanks, must be cleaned up and replaced by ecologically friendly land uses. Future uses must be more safely designed.

9. The urban spaces of the future should reflect the classless society including leisure, creative, and artistic activities for everyone; mutual aid; and public meeting spaces (aka, Casa del Pueblo) for conflict resolution, research, information exchange, social-economic planning, decision-making, entertainment, etc.

Conclusions

Neoliberalism is a reaction against planning regulation, enforcement and finance other than in the service of corporate business interests. It would privatize and restrict access to much of the State including infrastructure, services and facilities. American cities are already firing workers, selling buildings and turning public libraries and parks over to private foundations. This idea (e.g., privatizing tap water) has already caused unrest in other countries. The most significant impact of this besides reduced services will be a reduction in the demographic, land use, and environmental information collected by planners and engineers for planning purposes. This makes it harder to understand urban problems.

The future will be driven by scarcity. Capitalism is not up to the job. It promises urban colonialism (working class neighborhoods run by political machines, cops and absentee landlords), pollution, and global warming ( e.g., population growth, migration, climate change, hunger, pestilence, pandemic, economic elitism, police statism, social unrest and resource wars). Clean air, water and open space will be privileges of the Rich and those rewarded by the police state who will live in exclusive communities. Most people will be condemned to ignorance, drudgery and daily toil to survive.

…unless there is an intervention by people willing to fight for a Social Revolution and a better world.

(I have written down my ideas on how this might happen in other essays on the Free Commune, Housing, Health Care, A Living Wage, Agriculture, Ecology, Economics, etc.)

Scott Rittenhouse has Masters degrees in Planning and Public Administration from USC and a Bachelor’s degree in Urban Studies from VCU. He is a specialist in the California Environmental Quality Act of 1970 and the environmental impacts of urban growth.

By Alexandre Christoyannopoulos

Thanks for organising these reviews of my book. I feel I ought to respond to a couple of points.

As I explain in the book just before I introduce the main sources relied on in the book, the only criterion which I used to decide on who to include was whether an author had “something to contribute to the perspective that Christianity logically implies a form of anarchism”. I was very aware that some of those included would not be welcomed by all, and I never claimed to agree with every thought any of these authors expressed (I don’t). The aim of the project was (again as stated in the book) to weave together the different threads of Christian anarchist thinking so as to present as coherent and exhaustive as possible a case for this political interpretation of the gospels. In my view, this means including even those whose views on some matters I disagree with – including those whose views on some issues, such as private property, are actually contrary to the position held by most other Christian anarchists. There is no doubt that Christian anarcho-capitalists sit uneasily in the broader crowd of more “genuine” Christian anarchists. The same applies to Christian Reconstructionists. But given the aims of the project and hence the criterion used to decide on who to include, it’s excluding those people because of questionable aspects of their beliefs which would be un-academic – contrary to Al Tucker’s apparent assumptions. Academic integrity and scientific method, it seems to me, means that you don’t exclude people because you don’t like them, but you base your decision using clearly defined methods which are appropriate to the task in hand. In other words, to “earn a PhD” on this topic, I had to “repeatedly cite” such authors – even if I don’t agree with them on everything.

I should perhaps add that what is argued in the book is only very rarely my view, but usually the views held by Christian anarchists. So although Tucker is disappointed that “I” didn’t touch on the story of the Tower of Babel, it’s not me but the Christian anarchists I read and relied on which didn’t touch on it. Equally, by the way, the book says next to nothing on modern capitalism and “empire”, but that’s not because I don’t have a view on this (I do!), but because those I read didn’t seem to tackle the question, and so I couldn’t include it given the aims and methods of the book. Similarly, what is said in the book about history and Liberation Theology is rarely me speaking, but me conveying the voices of the authors selected by the above criterion.

As to the further point made by Nathan Jun on the hope for a more critical treatment to come, I can only agree. It’s something I hope to work on and develop in the future. And he’s quite right, I think, when he reflects on the fact that Christian anarchism still has an archē. If rejecting all archēs is a precondition of anarchism, then they’re not anarchists. But if rejecting the state makes one an anarchist, then they are. At the very least, there’s a discussion worth having there. Incidentally, I wonder if one couldn’t argue that “secular” anarchists often also have an archē, in the sense of a first principle – such as freedom or equality. So again, this is worth exploring.  

Finally, I agree with Tucker that we should be willing to work together hand in hand. It’s sometimes tempting, and in the end (I think) destructive, to focus on only our differences. There’s lots of work to do, and anarchists (Christian or not!) along with many others on the left are stronger when they manage to overcome their differences and collaborate to improve things. I’m not claiming every Christian anarchist discussed in my book holds equally valid views, but I still think that casting a wide net has helped put together a reasonably strong case for why those who claim to follow Jesus ought to find themselves working in solidarity with many anarchists.

“In Time” (Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried) is a clever dystopian movie about a hypothetical future where time has become the currency of society and people literally have to work or steal to live. They have life clocks implanted in their forearm to store and spend time they have “earned” and measure how much time they have left before they drop dead in mid stride.

The head of the Central Bank describes the social order as “Many must die so that a few may live forever.” Usury has permitted the elites to be immortal (he keeps his first million years of life in a vault) by charging 30% interest! This means that the elites live in luxury, partying and gambling every night, while workers struggle to earn enough time to sleep occasionally and keep their parents alive. There is no expectation of breaks, illnesses or vacations.

Enforcing the system are “time-keepers” (a kind of cop) who patrol a system of metropolitan time zones (neighborhoods grouped by social class) which measure the flow of wealth (accumulated time) for signs of illegal gain, because if people got too much they would stop working. Thieves, prostitutes and gamblers prey on their own class (the poor and workers) to survive. The banks also own the stores, so they artificially increase prices, using inflation as a form of population control. The rich elites live in their own exclusive zones where people have the most freedom.

The movie plot is instigated when the protagonist is given over 100 years of time from an immortal who has become tired of living, making him a target for bankers, cops, and criminals; and allowing him to experience life not lived in fear. It is good food for thought about how others use our time and the meaning of leisure.

Written in Fall 2010 for a local anarchist Go meetup in Seattle.  Thanks to everyone for your feedback.

A year later, after the Arab Spring, after the American Autumn, who would have guessed the hint of potential in the air would have exploded so abruptly and raised so many questions about our strategy going forward?

By Ray Jovana

Throughout history, people have joined together to fight exploitation and injustice.  A thread of resistance can be traced from ancient Egyptian slave revolts to the WTO protests in Seattle, continuing in our present day struggles.  Though we’ve had setbacks and losses over the millennia, we’ve also made many gains.  As the powerful have adapted their strategies and tactics to hold onto their power and influence, we’ve been successful when we have also adapted, building on and learning from past successes and failures.

The game of Go is another struggle for power and influence, a strategic game where opponents try to expand and hold onto their areas of power and use them to limit the other’s.  We can learn from and apply strategies from the game of Go to adapt and make our struggles more effective.

21st Century Anarchism

With the failure of authoritarian communism and the recent petering out of the anti-globalization movement, the 21st century is a time for a new beginning.  Just as in 1910 few people could have predicted the upheavals that lay in store for them, this century will no doubt bring times where the unthinkable, impossible future suddenly becomes an undeniable present.  This changing battle requires us to develop new strategies and abandon failed ideologies—without mindlessly reenacting past battles, but also without each generation starting anew and rejecting history.  Instead, we need to develop a strategy of challenging power, honestly applying lessons from past resistance to the realities of our present day struggles.

In all the work we do, we need strategies for campaigns such as tenant/landlord and workplace struggles or fights targeting other institutions.  We also need to connect these campaigns to large-scale, longer-term strategies and ultimately to a strategic framework for the entire revolutionary project of overthrowing the ruling class and establishing a free, just, and equal society.

In developing these strategies, we must remember that theory not grounded in practical struggle is sterile and useless, while action without strategy and reflection is an ineffective dead-end.  This requires that we refuse to let our political ideology color our practical judgment.  We must not believe that a tactic will be effective simply because we would like it to be or because our ideology tells us that it must be.

Instead, we must look at the playfield honestly, judging the strengths and weaknesses of ourselves as well as our adversaries.  As the struggle unfolds, we must analyze the effectiveness of tactics based on direct experience.  And to be effective, we must train ourselves and others to have the skills necessary to achieve our objectives including strategic thinking skills.

The Game of Go

Centuries before written history, a game was invented to help the Chinese aristocracy practice strategic thinking.  This game is now commonly referred to as “Go”, from the Japanese name, or “Wei Qi,” the modern Chinese name, meaning literally, “the surrounding game.”  Based on simple rules that have changed little over thousands of years, Go is a complex game.  The style of play has constantly changed, with expert players building on the lessons from past players and constantly analyzing current and past games for insights into new strategies.

So what is the game of Go?  Go is played on a board with a 19×19 grid (13×13 or 9×9 for beginners).  Two players take turns placing black and white Go “stones” on the intersection points on the grid.  Once placed, the stones cannot be moved.  Each point has between two and four “liberties,” represented by the lines leaving the point.  A stone with one or more liberty or connected to stones of the same color with liberties is considered “alive.”  If a player fills in the liberties of their opponent’s stone, that stone is “captured” and is removed from the board.  But capturing is not the most important aspect of the game.  At the end of a game, each player will have surrounded different parts of the board in a way that their stones cannot be captured.  These surrounded portions of the board are their “territory”; the larger determines the winner.

Go As a Revolutionary Tool

But Go is more than just a game.  It can be a valuable tool for developing revolutionary anarchist strategy.  Go has lasted for thousands of years because it is the boiled-down essence of real strategy, simple enough to move beyond transitory historical details, instead reflecting many general strategic concepts.  At the same time, it is not so simple as to be irrelevant to real-world strategic problem solving.  This allows us to map complex real-world problems to Go concepts and to use Go techniques to see fundamental strategic flaws or strengths.  Go provides a language and a framework for discussing core strategic and tactical issues.

Compared with other games, we can see why Go can map better to real world struggles.  In chess, the goal is to corner and kill the opponent’s king.  In modern struggles, whether war between nations, political power battles, labor struggles, or the revolutionary struggle in general, opponents never have a single head or point of power.  Instead, their power is determined by their political, economic, military, or social influence, and this power can change dramatically over time.  These different spheres of influence can be mapped to points on a Go board, with success being determined by expanding territory.  Capture can be important, but more as a tactic to gain territory than as an end in itself.

In the book, The Protracted Game: A Wei-Ch’i Interpretation of Maoist Revolutionary Strategy, Scott A. Boorman presents one such mapping.  The edges of the board correspond to the lowest caste of peasants in feudal China.  Towards the center, points correspond to higher positions in the social caste system, with the very center being the urban political class.  While other factions fought directly for the single center point, Mao used the standard Go strategy of building territory first in the isolated corners, then along the edges.  While others focused on one point, Mao and the communists focused on building territory, ultimately dominating the board.

For our purposes, a less precise mapping is likely to be more useful, just enough to provide a bridge between Go strategic concepts and the practical issue we’re addressing.

Go Proverbs

One of the ways that Go strategy has been passed down from generation to generation is in the form of simple proverbs.  Each proverb summarizes a technique or idea.  They are meant to suggest likely good moves but are not to be followed blindly.  Once you start using Go to think about strategy, you will find that many Go proverbs can give insight into our struggles.

Lose Your First Fifty Games as Quickly as Possible

One such proverb for beginners is “lose your first 50 games as quickly as possible.”  Many beginners play slowly, over-analyzing their moves, but with no experience to draw on.  Rather than playing quickly and learning from their mistakes, they are stuck in a paralysis that prevents them from gaining the experience they need.  The fact is that if you don’t know what you are doing, you will lose.  The important thing is to learn from it, and not take risks larger than you are willing to lose.

Don’t Throw an Egg at a Wall

Another that is especially relevant for anarchists, almost literally, is “don’t throw an egg at a wall.”  This Korean proverb is more commonly known as “play away from thickness” and cautions against playing stones too close to your opponents’ strength, as well as playing a useful distance away from your own strength.  In Go, if your opponent has a strong wall that you have no hope to cut or capture, playing close to the wall guarantees the capture of your stone and actually strengthens your opponent.  The same can be said for misguided anarchists tossing an egg against a wall of riot cops only to be knocked to the ground and arrested.  The converse is also true: playing too close to your own strong group is a wasted “safe” move that does little to gain territory.

Strengthening Your Own Weak Group Makes Your Opponent’s Weaker

Stating the strategic advantage of solidarity is the proverb “strengthening your own weak group makes your opponent’s weaker.”  When targeting your opponent’s weakness for attack, your own weaknesses expose you to counter attack.  If you can strengthen them first, your attack will be more successful.  In the labor movement, this lesson appears when you have divisions in your ranks, with vulnerable workers exposed to attack.  If you can strengthen the vulnerable workers before the fight, the boss will have less ability to fight back, ultimately making your offensive more successful.

Connecting Groups

A core strategy in Go is to start in the corners and edges, and then jump out to the center to connect separate groups of stones.  It is easiest to create solid territory in the isolated corners.  Next, territory can be made on the edges—but it is more difficult.  Finally, especially if a group of your stones is weak, jumping out to the center can allow them to connect with others, increasing the chances for survival.  As in the previous proverb, connecting your weak groups strengthens them, putting them in a better position to attack their common foe.

In the real world, small isolated groups, like weak groups of stones on the board, must establish a base or coordinate with other groups to survive and be effective.  A base is an organizational and social network capable of sustaining itself in spite of attacks and setbacks.  In addition to being self-sustaining, the network would allow expanding the fight to new territory.  But even with a solid base, there is a risk of “living small”, or staying isolated with just enough structure and support to keep going but with no ability to go on the offensive.  Keeping groups connected and working together can prevent this.

In the real-world this could apply to many situations, connecting groups across race and gender lines, connecting a variety of groups in the same city where struggles intersect such as class struggle and environmentalist groups targeting the same corporation, or connecting demands such as feminist groups endorsing labor struggles for shorter work hours and childcare benefits.

A Poor Man Must Pick Quarrels

One proverb that is especially interesting in light of the asymmetrical nature of our fight is “a rich man should not pick quarrels.”  The parallel is that if you are a poor man, then you should most certainly pick quarrels.  As you play a game, if you notice that you are well ahead of your opponent in territory, you will want to avoid complicated fights and instead solidify your gains.  Meanwhile, if you are behind and playing safe moves that solidify the status quo, you are bound to lose.  The only way you can win is to make bolder moves, attacking your opponents’ weaknesses in an effort to deny them the opportunity of solidifying their gains.

In Go, a handicap is used to balance games between players of differing ability.  The better player plays white and gives their opponent enough extra stones to compensate for the difference in ability.  Black starts out with stones already placed at the key points on the board.  They start out a rich man, and their job is to safely and simply hold onto everything they began the game with.  White, matching the asymmetry of our struggle, begins the game as a poor man who has no choice but to pick quarrels.

Unfortunately for us, while our struggle is asymmetrical, it is not because we are coming to the game with greater experience and natural ability than our adversary.  Still, in many ways, the powerful are slow to respond to new tactics.  Their strength is the stability of the system they control.  As marginal activists organizing from scratch, we are approaching an opponent who is firmly entrenched, seemingly in control of the whole board.  Our task is to disrupt that stability and expose weaknesses that give us further openings.

Conclusion

The game of Go is based on simple rules and is easy to learn, but as you play and improve your skill, it becomes a complex game with great depth of strategy.  As 21^st century Go players, we have easy access to a wealth of information, built up from countless generations of players, each generation building on the accomplishments of previous generations and devising new patterns and styles of play.

Likewise, as anarchists we have much to learn from present and past struggles, though we often lack in objectively evaluating past strategies and devising new ones.  Go gives us an opportunity to look at strategy boiled down to its bare essence and to apply the lessons we learn to our revolutionary praxis.

The Go proverbs and strategies mentioned above are just a beginning.  In print and online, there exists a wide variety of resources on Go strategy, much of it useful for general strategic thinking.  We can combine these concepts with our practical experience and knowledge of historical struggles to gain insights for practical strategy.  As we improve as Go players, we will continue to develop a strategic intuition and a language and framework for analyzing real-world strategy.

Resources

Go: An Introduction – by Andreas Fecke

A comic providing a simple introduction to the game of Go: here

The Way to Go: How to play the Asian game of Go – by Karl Baker

A more thorough introduction to the game: here

A free 9×9 Go game – play against a computer: here

KGS Online Go Server – play against other people: here

Online Go problems: here

Go proverbs: here, here, here, here, and here

On January 28, 2012, people from Oakland and beyond bravely attempted to take an abandoned building to build a community center for living space, organizing infrastructure, medical facilities, and so on. It is absurd that huge buildings lay empty while families live in the streets and are denied basic access to shelter, food, and the necessities of human life. But such is the logic of capitalism.

Police in Oakland, acting in the interests of the owners of society, guarded this empty building by beating people, throwing flash grenades, tear-gassing, kidnapping, caging people—showing everyone that private property and the starvation and homelessness that it guarantees can only be maintained through violence. And part of changing these kinds of social relations means taking those things that have been denied to us through this violence.

More than statements, solidarity is also action. We’ll meet you in the streets with hopes of spreading rebellion into our workplaces, our communities, and our homes! Mad respect to everyone languishing in cages as a result of their bravery, standing up to police bullies and, by extension, a system that is decaying and dying in front of our eyes.

With a new world in our hearts,

Workers Solidarity Alliance