Anarcho-Syndicalism and Medical Care

Posted on January 15, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

By Scott R.

Medicine today has become highly specialized and is permeated with interference from insurance corporations and drug manufacturers [some of the world’s biggest capitalists]. It is difficult and expensive to get basic medical care [public hospitals in working class communities are being closed by the government]. Timely diagnosis and treatments also seem to be myths of the medical industrialists as well. Ambulance services may only be available to those with money in the near future. Paramedics are attached to fire departments, many of which are voluntary. Dental, optical, prenatal, pediatric, and elderly care are even more neglected [less available to those who need them]. Governments have closed public mental hospitals until the primary sources of treatment/medication for mentally ill persons are the State and County prison systems. US military hospitals are overwhelmed with patients from the latest US-Iraq War to before the US-Viet Nam War.

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Anarcho-Syndicalism and A Living Wage

Posted on January 15, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

By Scott R.

“To each according to their needs.”

WHAT IS A “LIVING WAGE”? It is a minimum quality of life which is due to all people. LW = FOOD + CLOTHING + SHELTER + HEALTH + TRANSPORTATION. It is what you need to get to work/school and be productive. It is something you need for “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. The workers organizations fight for this as a basic “human right” for all people (workers, families, retirees, etc.). It is a measure of the humanity of a social system.

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Anarcho-Syndicalism and Housing

Posted on January 15, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

By Scott R.

In the future land use planning must be done by the community with the immediate and long term needs of the community in mind. Worker self-management will direct the functions of workplaces, but so-called “property rights” will no longer be transferrable. Community self-management will be by workers in the community who will have to balance the need for housing with the social economic needs of workplaces and residents in the community [production/distribution/exchange of resources and products for use/needs, not profit]. A volunteer workers housing committee in the workplace will gather housing need information from workers. In the community, a volunteer housing working group will survey housing needs and potential existing housing resources. Both will include persons with building safety expertise [structure safety (fire, vermin, quake), electricity, plumbing, etc.]. We want to enable workers and their families to safely live in the communities where they work. Slumlords should be identified and have their wealth and resources expropriated to help make their former residential properties more safe and habitable.

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Anarcho-Syndicalism and the Free Commune/Community

Posted on January 15, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

By Scott R.

“The emancipation of the working class must be the task of the workers themselves.”

Anarcho-Syndicalists do more than workplace organizing. We believe in creating counter-institutions which preconfigure the society we would like to live in; in advance of a Social Revolution which would completely transform our communities. We call this “building the New Society within the shell of the old.” In this way we educate ourselves and demonstrate to others that our ideas are practical. Our model community was inspired by the Paris Commune (1871) and Spanish Civil War (1936). Many of our collectives [affinity groups] are involved with projects that reflect aspects of the following:

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Anarcho-Syndicalism and Community Building

Posted on January 14, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

(Building the Free Commune)

By Scott R.

Whether you live in a City, town, or country, working people deserve fair compensation for their labor. Every person who looks for work should be able to find it. Every worker and student should be entitled to food, housing and good health. It is possible for no one to have to live in poverty, be exploited, or be discriminated against.

People prosper best in a society with political AND economic freedom. This means worker self-management in the workplace and direct democracy [self-management] in the community.

Working class communities today are a form of colonialism where abscentee capitalist landlords own everything and use the occupation forces of their cops [and sometimes the military], courts and jails to terrorize people into submission while they squeeze as much money out of people as possible through taxes, rents, redlining [discrimination, underserving, overpricing], etc..

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Anarcho-Syndicalism and Community-Based Economics

Posted on January 14, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues, Worker Struggle. Leave a Comment

By Scott R.

MONEY

How do you exchange a pack of gum, or a comb, or a beer? For some things, money is the most convenient form of exchange. Many communities have marketplaces for food or goods where goods can be traded or bartered and sellers are self-employed or craft workers (with no taxes). This kind of “free marketplace” is sometimes called an AGORA (from greek).
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Why You Should Not Trust Your School

Posted on January 14, 2009, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues. Leave a Comment

By Scott R.

Inspired by literature from Anarchist Youth Federation (now defunct) and Southern California anarchists.

“Rulers have always taken care to control the education of the people. They know their power is based almost entirely on the school and they insist on retaining their monopoly. The school is an instrument for domination in the hands of the ruling class.”

—Francisco Ferrer, Anarchist proponent of the“Free School Movement” (La Escuela Moderna).

Free public education is an important aspect of society which has the potential to both empower or enslave us depending upon how we react to the system. In countries like Spain, religious education was the only way to learn until the early 20th Century and it was unlawful for poor people or women to be educated. This is the case in many fundamentalist religious societies today. In Europe and the United States, attacks on public education are a cornerstone of reactionary political agendas. In a capitalistic society where so much emphasis is placed on making rich people richer and protecting their “private property” we should wonder why people in power care about public education at all.

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San Francisco Transit Fight

Posted on September 4, 2005, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues. Leave a Comment

By Tom Wetzel

Despite heavy police presence at major bus transfer points, at least a couple thousand
passengers rode the buses for free in San Francisco on Thursday, September 1st —
the opening day of a fare strike in North America’s most bus-intensive city. In the days
leading up to September 1st, more than 50 people were actively organizing for the
fare strike, with new groups endorsing the effort in the last week. More than
20,000 leaflets had been distributed and 10,000 stickers were attached to
bus shelters and poles throughout the city — in Spanish and Chinese as well as English.

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The Barcelona Mass Rent Strike of 1931

Posted on September 2, 2005, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues. Leave a Comment

by Tom Wetzel

This is the story of one of the major rent strikes of the 20th century.

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The Capitalist City or the Self-managed City

Posted on July 19, 2004, filed Under Housing & Urban Issues. Leave a Comment

by Tom Wetzel

from Globalize Liberation: How to Uproot the System and Build a Better World, edited by David Solnit (City Lights Press, 2004).

Patterns of capital flows have a visible effect on working class communities in the United States. Some communities see closed plants, abandoned stores, boarded-up dwellings, scarce jobs. Such are signs of disinvestment. Capital has moved to some other site in the global production line.

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