Half the world is starving. The main industrial countries are in recession. In Ireland, one in five people eligible for work are unemployed. 4,000 people are waiting for housing yet the government builds less than 50 houses a year. Capitalism as a system does not work for the majority of people forced to live under it. However as the current Greencore and Telecom scandals show, it suits the rich right down to the ground.
It is those with the money that have the power, and it is they that control the media. It is through the media that business perpetuates the myth that there is no alternative to capitalism. In Ireland, a Smurfit publishing group owns the Phoenix magazine and therefore was able to stop publication of an article about the Telecom scandal, similarly a phonecall to friends on the board on the Independent, resulted in that paper apologising for reporting the truth about Smurfit's involvement in the Telecom affair.
Protest marches are rarely covered, Government press statements are printed without criticism or analysis. In the US, during the gulf war less that 2% of media time was given to those opposing the conflict. Despite socialism being a theory since the 1800., it is only now the media discuss it, as now they attempt to discredit it by allying it to the collapsing lennist regimes in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
However there is an alternative, one that you won't hear about on RTE or in the Irish Times. That alternative is anarchism. It's a theory that first emerged as a workers movement in the International Working Mens Association in the 19th century and spread from there, particularly to Italy, France, Spain and Latin America. Its ideas played a part in many revolutions but in particular the Russian revolution in 1917 and the Spanish Civil War in 1936.
" Anarchism is the idea that the mass of people, as workers, could change society for the better through there own direct action, replacing exploitation, inequality and injustice that are all around today with a new world based on socialism and freedom. Such a society would be radically different from the class societies we now live in where the interests of the rich, who own and control the wealth of the world, come first. Anarchism is the idea of a world with no classes, where society is run and controlled through councils, by those who produce the wealth in society, the working class."
" The essential idea of anarchism is that the inequality and authoritanism of Capitalism is neither acceptable nor necessary. Workers and the poor are constantly being as to make sacrifices. It is us, not Smurfit or Goodman that are being made pay for the recession. The things we most depend on like housing, health care and education are the very things that are being cutback by the Government while all the time the huge wealth and profit of private industry remains relatively untouched."
" The only thing standing in the way of abolishing poverty in the interests of the ruling class. "
Anarchism is a real set of ideas that has influenced the workers struggles in many different countries: one of the largest french unions the CGT has an anarchist basis, the third biggest union in spain the second biggest union in Sweeden all are anachist unions. Sandino the founder of the Sandinista party in Nirachaga was heavily influenced by anarchist, which is why that partys flag is the same as the the anarchist colours, red and black and today in Eastern Europe, in Poland, Hungary and Russia we are seeing resurgance of Anarchist movements.
The west has failed to find a solution to the problems of capitillism, inequality, injustice and poverty, the lennist experiment failed to find a solution but the problem hasn't gone away, anarchism alone has not been discredited.
This is because no other idelogy, not the social democracy of the labour party, nor the lennism of the old communist parties and the trotsyist parties, places freedom as a basic principal. Freedom is not an optional extra, it's not a tatic to be sometimes used, it's the cornor stone of socialism, as Baukinin said:
"Freedom without socialism is very bad
Socialism without freedom is also very bad" (paraphrased)
The various labour parties argue that the state can modify the market to make capitillism kinder, lennisists arge that the the party can control the state in the interests of the working class. It is only, us Anarchists that recognise the state for what it is, the repressive apparatus that serves to maintain the power of a ruling minority. What is the state, the state isn't the land of Ireland, it isn't the people of Ireland, the state consists of the government, the armies, the courts and the police. It is an appatatus that exists not to protect and provide for the working people of Ireland, but rather it protects the interests of the a small number of people.
In Ireland only 7% of the people own 84% of the wealth and it is those people that the state serves. Recently in Dublin a homeless person ate £80 worth of food in a top Dublin resturant and told them to send the bill to Charles Haughey, He got 7 days in Mount Joy, a teenager was sentenced to a mount in jail for not paying bus fair. Goodmen embellizes thousands and thousands of pounds and he isn't even brought in for questioning, the varous scandles around Smurfit, O'Reilly may be descovered and made public, but they are untouchable.
In pratice, the Anarchist emphasis on freedom has resulted in Anarchist organisations beig run in a different way from most other political currents. We believe in Socialism from below. In anarchist unions delegates are elected on a recalable basis from the work force, they do not earn more than the average worker and they can only serve for a fixed length of time, there role is not as buracrats or leaders rather as representivites, In Spain anarchist farms voluntary collectivised, amounting to 60% of republican Spains agriculture.
While most people will agree that capitalism has it's faults and that socialism seems a more equitable and fairer way to run society, geting from a to B is quite a daunting task.
How do you go about changing society? What we do is look back at history, to those attempts before, to why the suceeded or failed.
For this reason, we don't believe socialism can come through the Dail as real power does not lie in the parliment but with the big business. In 1973 the people of Chile elected a moderate socialist government led by President Allende, this democratically elected government was toppled by a CIA backed military coup, what the Chilean socialists didn't understand is that the real power does not lie in parliament but in the boardrooms of the multinationals. All the recent scandels here in Ireland, show just how much the Government is in industrys pocket. Most top busness men contribute money and aid to fianna fail at election time, and in return Fianna Fail pass policy in favourable to industry.
As anarchists we have another objection parliamentary politics. Paarliamentary Democracy consists of voting for 160 odd people who not only support the current unequitable system and but also are no way accountable for their actions. People are seen only as voters, they are kept as spectators on the outside, they have no control over the decisions that are made in there name that are going to affect their lives.
The other option open then if you want to change society, is a complete break with captitillism and a total reorganisation of the entire economic system, in other words
that of revolution, such as those attempted in Russia 1917, Spain 1936, Hungary 56, Portagel 74. It's true that not every revolution is sucessful, it is our job to make sure the same mistakes are not followed again, this is why next time, we won't go down the road outlined by Lenin. We believe that only a revolution of the working class can give us the freedom to run society so that all our needs are met.
So where does the WSM come into all this? How do you make a revolution? Unlike many lennist groups we do not believe we are the intellectual elite that will mobilise and lead the working class. Rather we see our role as the spread of ideas, we see it as vital to encourage the inititave of working people, as it is they who have the power to change society. Every past revolution has been preceeded by years and years of agitation. The idea that change is possible, that there is an alternative, that it's worth taking taking the risk to go against the state apparatus, the idea that workers can run the factories, bit by bit,
Unlike most of Europe there is no Anarchist tradition here, we are starting afresh with the slow process of building anarchist ideas. Conseqently we are involved in many campaings. It is through strugle we come face to face with the true nature of the state and also grow in cofidence, every revolution has been a slow process of spreading ideas and it won't be any different for the next one. We were one of the few groups assisting the Dunnes Stores strikers, smilarly we helped build suport for the Gateaux, Waterford Glass and ESB strikes.
"What Anarchists are saying is not just a nice idea. History shows us that these ideas can work. A new society can be created with the workers in control. But it won't happen spontaneously, we must organise for it. This is why we need a revolutionary organisation. An organisation that draws together all those fighting for workers control. An organisation that gives us the chance to exchange ideas and experiecnes , and to learn the lessons of history. An organisation that allows us to struggle togeter for a new society.
We do not need a group of leaders and their passive followers. We do need an organisatio working towards mobilising the mass of ordainary people in the process of making the revolution. The Workers Solidarity Movement is trying to be such an organisation, we don't want people just to join , we want peolple to fing out more about our ideas."