ASR 73

President Donald Trump has embraced the conspiracy theory that his supposedly popularly elected administration is being undermined by the career bureaucrats in the CIA, FBI and NSC who are part of a “state within a state,” the so-called “Deep State.”  Trump was introduced to the theory by his former political strategist, Steve Bannon, the Machiavelli of the “alt-Right” and until recently the head of the Mercer family’s Breitbart News website.  According to the theory, the Deep State does not want Trump to make peace with Vladimir Putin’s regime in Russia, and has been spreading “fake news” and leaks trying to prove that Trump is a pawn of Putin. The goal is supposedly to either control Trump or failing that, drive Trump from power.

The idea of a shadow government that makes the real decisions contrary to the will of the people and their elected representatives is not a new one invented by Bannon. In various forms the idea of a group of kingmakers hidden behind the apparent ruler is as old as the state itself. But more recently the “Deep State” idea was used to refer to the power of military establishments in third world countries, particularly in the Middle East, to stymie efforts to create democracies or stage coups when democratically elected governments try to rein in the generals. It is neither a left-wing nor right-wing concept, since it has been used by those on all sides of the political spectrum.  Glenn Greenwald, investigative journalist and co-founder of the Intercept, has cautioned his readers not to trust the “Deep State” by relying on the FBI and other national security agencies to provide us the real information about Russian interference in the defeat of their ally, Hillary Clinton, lest we inadvertently increase the “Deep State’s power.” Similar remarks have been made by Noam Chomsky.

But is there really such a thing as a “Deep State,” a conspiratorial shadow government that threatens the ability of Americans to choose their leaders?  Yes, but it is not who Bannon and Greenwald say it is. As well as the State bureaucracy, the “Deep State” is the ruling class: the unelected elite of billionaire capitalists that holds the most power in the United States. It is the ruling class that decides who will be the candidates in the presidential election from both capitalist parties. But the ruling class is not all of one mind and has conflicting interests. There is a constant struggle for power between capitalist factions, which explains the two-party system.  One faction of the ruling class has decided to ignore Trump’s background as a money launderer for Putin and the Russian oligarchs, as long as Trump is willing to serve their interests. This faction has been called various things, the “libertarians”, the “conservatives,” the “capitalist fundamentalists,” the “cowboys” (due to the preponderance of oil and energy-mining as their source of wealth).

The other side of this “Deep State” family feud are the “Yankees” (due to their reliance on Wall Street finance), but also dubbed the “neo-liberals,” the “liberal elite” or just “liberals.” There is no doubt that some of the resistance to Trump and his new regime comes from hold-overs of the Obama-Clinton bureaucracy, but to credit the bureaucracy with a power completely independent of their capitalist masters is a real stretch whether the credit comes from the likes of Greenwald or Bannon. This is not to mention that many in the FBI, CIA and other security agencies have more right-wing sympathies and were appointed by the previous cowboy President George W. Bush. If there is a conspiracy against Trump, it is a conspiracy of the “outs” versus the “ins” of the ruling class, between the two factions of “the Deep State” with the working class being used as vote fodder to support one side or the other.

This is not to suggest working people should remain neutral. The policies of Trump are certainly draconian and need to be directly resisted as long as his regime lasts. However the corporate globalization policies of the neo-liberals are not being reversed by Trump, and will certainly continue in his wake. Both factions have invoked an anti-labor, anti-working class program over the last forty years. To end these policies will require a new labor movement which is not a pawn of the ruling class Deep State or any of its factions.

— Jeff Stein

Democrats, Trump & the 2020 Elections

by Wayne Price, ASR 77

To many liberals, progressives, unionists, activists of various just causes, Democrats of all stripes, democratic socialists and concerned citizens, the problem the U.S. is facing is essentially that Donald J. Trump is president, and is backed by the Republican Party. I disagree with this widespread belief.

It is likely that Trump will be removed from office in the next two years, whether by impeachment (unlikely due to the Senate Republicans) or by national elections (probable but not certain). Liberals, progressives, etc., look forward to this as a glorious day. The sun will come out from behind the darkling clouds, little birds will sing again, the miasma of evil and stupidity will lift from the land, and all will be well again. Things will finally go back to “normal.”

Alas, I do not think that things will be “normal” ever again. I too long to see the vile Trump gone. I am not cynical and have hopes for the future. Yet I do not see the replacement of Trump by a Democrat or other establishment politician as the coming of a glorious new day.

But first I should make clear my views on Trump. As a revolutionary anarchist-socialist, I have never liked any of the presidents of my lifetime. But I have particularly hated a few, starting with Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson, because of the U.S. war on Vietnam. (We chanted, “Hey, hey, LBJ! How many kids did you kill today?”) And I especially hated the Republicans Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. They were the cutting edge of the ruling class’ attacks on working people of the U.S. and the world.

But I have never hated any politician as much as I hate the despicable Trump. Personally he is utterly devoid of conscience or of empathy for others. Mean and cruel, he is completely self-centered. Devoid of honor, he breaks laws and ethical norms, big and little, and sells out friends and associates (and “his” country) without a qualm. He sees women as things to be used. He is a racist. He cannot keep from lying on matters important and unimportant. While he has a certain sly cunning, Trump is ignorant, incurious and stupid. He makes stupid decisions – not just from my standpoint but from that of U.S. imperialism.

Politically, he holds some bizarre views which are unusual even among the corporate rich and the right wing Republican establishment: his attachment to the Russian state and Putin, his unwillingness to condemn Nazis, his reckless use of tariffs, his commitment to building a wall on the Mexican border, his quarrels with U.S. allies, etc. While most Republican politicians have bowed to anti-immigrant fervor, Trump really believes in the “threat” of immigrants. He is not a fascist, but neither is he a non-fascist.

As a result of all this, Trump is a very unpopular president according to the polls. This is so even in spite of a relative (if shallow and uneven) prosperity (which raises the question of how voters would react if the next downturn takes place before the national election). Why do the Republican politicos still support him? Mitch McConnell, leader of the Senate Republicans, is an intelligent man – if totally cynical. Why does he back Trump, considering what he must think of him? There are two pro-Trump forces pressing on the Republicans, one from above and one from below.

From above: Most of the capitalist class did not support Trump in the last election and would prefer someone else even now. But they love the enormous tax cuts for the rich which the Republicans passed, with his strong support. They like his and his party’s attacks on Obamacare. They love the deregulation which he has pushed through all parts of the executive branch. They are delighted with the conservative, pro-business judges whom he has appointed – to the Supreme Court and throughout the federal judiciary. And so on. They do not want to kill the goose that is laying the golden eggs, even if the goose is otherwise nuts.

From below: Around 40 percent, more or less, of the population supports Trump solidly and fervently. This is the base of the current Republican Party. Republican politicians fear being voted out in primaries if they oppose Trump. This grouping ranges from crazed fascists (who identify with the Nazis and Klan) to some who voted for Obama in previous elections (the loosest part of this base). These people have been lied to and miseducated in a conscious effort by right-wing forces. They are fed a steady diet of Fox “News,” talk radio and Internet blogs which put them in a delusional bubble. Their sexual fears are whipped up, over homosexuality and abortion rights, by their church leaders. Many are strongly racist and vote for Trump for that reason; others vote for him for other reasons but are not turned off by his racism.

Many of these people do have real grievances: after eight years of Obama, including a brittle “recovery,” much of the country was still poor, stagnant and lacking good jobs. This included many rural and semi-rural areas, in and out of the “Rust Belt.” The white workers and middle class residents of these regions rejected Hillary Clinton as an establishment politician. They expected (correctly) that she would continue the policies which had not helped them (but many also rejected her because she was a woman). Unfortunately, turning to Trump was no answer to their problems.

The Historical Pattern of Presidents

Does this mean that kicking Donald Trump out of the White House will bring things back to “normal”? Even though big business will still push for its program of tax cuts and deregulation and even though a big minority continues to support right wing politics? Can these forces be defeated through elections?

It is worth going over some history here. The Democrat Lyndon Johnson, who had betrayed liberals’ hopes by his war on Vietnam, was followed by Richard Nixon. Hated by the Left, and caught up in the Watergate scandal, Nixon was forced to resign. Then his hand-picked successor was beaten in an election by Jimmy Carter. To liberals, progressives, etc., these were indeed glorious developments. A new day dawned! Yet Carter, after one term, was defeated by Ronald Reagan, a far-right “conservative” (which is what reactionaries are called in the U.S.). He won two terms, plus one presidential term for his vice president, George H. W. Bush. But Bush was then defeated by Bill Clinton.

Clinton could play the saxophone and appeared to get along well with African-Americans. Again, a glorious new day finally seemed to have dawned! But after two terms of Clintonian Democracy, the people voted down his vice president, Al Gore, and elected George W. Bush. (Actually Gore won the popular vote, by a hair’s width, but the Supreme Court majority put Bush in.) Bush was terrible and stupid, said the liberals, progressives, etc., gnashing their teeth. He won a second term (probably fairly).

Then Barack Obama was elected, an African-American president! Liberals were ecstatic. Pete Seeger sang at the inauguration with Bruce Springsteen. Naturally, African-Americans were particularly pleased, although few of them believed claims that the U.S. was now a “post-racial” society. Sure enough, the history-making Obama was then followed by… Donald Trump. (Actually Trump lost the popular vote by a few percentage points, but the archaic Electoral College put him in.) I am not going to discuss voting suppression by the Republicans, and various shenanigans by Comey of the FBI, the Russians, etc., which undermined Hillary Clinton. The U.S. state has intervened in other countries’ politics at least as much as Russia has.

This little history does not mention the effects of mid-term elections, which often empowered the reactionary opposition to block Democratic presidents from carrying out their more-or-less progressive agendas (as in Obama’s last six years). Nor am I discussing just how limited these “progressive” agendas turned out to be, time after time – much to the surprise and dismay of the liberals, progressives, etc. (as in Obama’s first two years). My point here is the obvious one that the repeated defeats of reactionary presidents and presidential candidates has not ushered in the dawn of a glorious new day. Instead, more-or-less progressive presidents have repeatedly been followed by another reactionary president. Over time the Republicans have gotten more reactionary and the Democrats have occupied the space once taken by the Republicans – until we have reached the current president, a new low in U.S. history.

Why is this? Partially the reason is the two-party system. Unlike many other countries, U.S. laws make it very difficult to form effective third parties. (There has not been a new major party since Lincoln’s Republicans replaced the Whigs.) So if people get fed up with one party, they have little choice but to turn to the other. The range of political discourse is very limited, generally from mildly liberal to extremely reactionary (but not usually fascist). The newspapers and television play this up, mostly analyzing elections as “horse races” and ignoring programs. Citizens are taught to look at the personality of the individual running rather than at what programs they might implement.

However it would be a mistake to focus too much on U.S. factors. The growth of right-wing, nationalist, “populism” is world-wide. Other countries, with leaders with personalities quite different from Trump’s, and with electoral systems quite different from the U.S. constitution, have developed their own forms of reactionary “populism.” There is Britain with its “Brexit,” authoritarian right-wing leaders in Hungary, Poland, Italy and Brazil, the rise of the far-right LePen in France, Netanyahu in Israel, Modi in India, Duerte in the Phillipines, and other examples. There are also authoritarian regimes which do not bother with elections but have similar politics – Putin’s Russia being somewhere in-between these types.

So, on the one hand, there has been a pattern of increasingly bad presidents, ratcheting down, through waves of “moderate” Democrats and reactionary Republicans. On the other hand, there is a world-wide growth of far-right, authoritarian regimes. These developments demonstrate that the problem is bigger than just Trump.

Something New is Happening

For decades after World War II, U.S. politics swung back and forth between the Democrats and the Republicans. There was little difference between the two. It was a platitude of U.S. “political science” that this was a strength of U.S. politics, providing stability and consensus. This changed about the time that the post-World War II prosperity came to an end (in the 1970s). The economy stagnated, and making profits became more difficult. Big business declared war on the working class (and the environment) in open and covert ways. The Republicans became the leaders of that attack. Today many look back on the era of political consensus with sighs of regret. The bitter partisanship of the two parties is dismaying to many politicians, political “scientists” and ordinary voters. The Republicans have moved to the far right, and the Democrats have stayed just behind them.

Even this development has been shaken up in recent years. On the right, there has grown white-supremacist, fascist, violent forces. (By “fascist” I do not mean people who are simply very conservative, but people who wish to overturn the representative bourgeois democracy of the U.S. and replace it with a dictatorship.) They have been encouraged by Trump and have encouraged him, even if he himself is not a fascist.

Perhaps even more surprising is the growth of a socialist movement. Polls have found thirty to forty percent of the population – especially young adults – with a positive view of “socialism.” Many have become disillusioned with capitalism. The presidential runs of Bernie Sanders built on this sentiment and encouraged it. The Democratic Socialists of America rapidly expanded, attracting people of varying views (even some anarchists joined, to form a Libertarian Socialist Caucus). Socialists were elected to local and national office, the most well-known, besides Sanders, being Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

These socialists are not very “socialist.” They do not advocate taking away the wealth of what Sanders has called “the billionaire class.” They do not propose socializing the major corporations – not even the oil producers and the rest of the energy sector. By “socializing” I mean anything from national government ownership to municipal ownership to worker management to consumer cooperatives. (As an anarchist-socialist, I am for the last two.) Their model is usually an idealized version of the New Deal of Franklin Roosevelt. This was an effort to save capitalism from its own failures in the Great Depression – to save capitalism from itself. That is, they hope to use the existing capitalist state to manage the market economy in a more efficient, more benevolent, fashion, supposedly in the interests of the working population. As such their program is not particularly different from that of liberals such as Elizabeth Warren. This should not be surprising given the semi-liberal programs of European social-democratic parties, such as in the Nordic (Scandinavian) countries, the UK, France or Germany. Although far from Stalinist totalitarianism, liberals and democratic socialists have an unjustified faith in the effectiveness of the state to solve social problems.

The Democrats?

As I am writing there is a year and some months to go before the election. The Democrats still enjoy over 20 candidates for their presidential nomination. They are struggling over how “left” their rhetoric should be and how generous their proposals should sound (so far, not one has called for big cuts in the military budget). If they sound “too left” they may seem to threaten the capitalist system. This could drive off the big donors who otherwise would support them against Trump. And it might (or might not) drive off the moderate base of the Democrats (as opposed to educating them). But if they are not “left” enough, they will not really challenge Trump, his Republicans and his corporate backers. Nor will they motivate their liberal base. What to do?

Liberals often complain about how wishy-washy and spineless the Democrats are in the face of right-wing attacks. This is in contrast to the Republicans who are “principled” and even fanatical about their goals. There is a reason for this difference. If the Republicans stir up their white, relatively privileged, racist, middle class base into hysterical frenzies this might result in the nomination of a Trump or, at worst, an attack on bourgeois democracy – but not on capitalism. But if the Democrats were to rile up their base – to excite the African-American community and blue collar workers, to mobilize unions and to organize mass action by youth – this could threaten capitalism. Unlimited demands by workers, People of Color, people threatened by climate change, etc., would go past the limits of the capitalist economy. This the Democrats cannot allow and will not permit.

The Democratic candidates are vying to be the top manager of the most dangerous institution in the world today – the U.S. national military-state and its capitalist economy. I am not sympathetic to this goal. (The U.S. has a military force larger than the next eight national states combined. It is a key part of the life-threatening, climate-destroying, system of national states and the capitalist world market.)

Some liberals, progressives, etc., are impressed with the current flock of Democratic candidates. This requires taking their words at face value, ignoring what they do not say (about foreign policy or military spending, for example), and focusing on individuals, rather than the history of the party. Others, more realistic, argue that the Democrats are the “lesser evil.” This is to admit that they are evil, even if lesser. I would not deny that, especially in comparison to Trump and his minions.

But here is my question: Who has a program which is adequate to solve the deep problems of the U.S. and world? That is, global warming and other ecological catastrophes, the danger of nuclear war, the probability of a collapse of the capitalist economy – as well as “lesser” problems such as continuing racism, gender oppression, LGBTQ repression, economic inequality, stagnation,”small” wars, political authoritarianism, and so on. The very survival of industrial civilization, and perhaps of humanity and our fellow creatures, is at stake. Whether the Democrats mean well or are hypocrites and liars, their programs are simply inadequate for the crises we face. Can it be claimed, by any knowledgable person, that any Democrat has such a needed program?

It would be delightful to get rid of Donald Trump, this pustule on the ass of humanity. But if the result is that we are still on the road to Armageddon and the destruction of the world, then my joy is limited.

What Shall We Do?

This is not a discussion of whether any isolated individual should vote. I don’t really care. I doubt that the votes of a handful of anarchists – or even of all the conscious socialists and radicals in the country – would make a difference.

The issue is not what a few individuals should do. It is what we radicals should advocate that mass institutions and movements should do. This includes the unions, the African-American community, Latinx communities, LGBTQ groups, the ecological and environmental movement, feminist organizations, etc. These are the base of the Democratic Party. They donate a large amount of money, and human energy and time, to the Democrats’ electoral efforts. Yet their rewards have not been great. In recent elections, the Democrats have turned their backs on them, especially on the unions and the working class. Similarly, unlike the Republicans, the Democrats have admitted that there is a climate crisis. Yet they have done little about it and advocated limited programs. They have sought African-Americans votes but done little to improve their lives. And so on.

Errico Malatesta, the Italian revolutionary anarchist-socialist, was a co-worker with Bakunin and Kropotkin. He commented,

Electionists… compare what is done in the electoral struggle with what would happen if nothing were done; while instead they should compare the results obtained when other methods are followed and with what might be achieved if all effort used to send representatives to power… were [instead] employed in the fight to directly achieve what is desired. (“Towards Anarchy”; Malatesta in America 1899-1900, 179, reviewed in this issue)

There need to be massive union organizing drives through the U.S. There should be city and regional general strikes to fight back against attacks on working people. There need to be massive and militant demonstrations, with civil disobedience, to fight against police brutality and other aspects of racism and poverty. Cities should be brought to a halt until steps are taken to limit global warming. Colleges should be occupied by their students. Factories and other workplaces should be occupied by their workers, who should run them for the common good.

If a Democrat is elected president, with a Democratic Congress, we can expect liberals, progressives and activists to be disappointed. The Democrats, whatever their motives, will stay within the limits of capitalism. Therefore they cannot stop climate change or improve the living conditions of working people – not under the current conditions of capitalist stagnation and decline. This disappointment will lead to greater opposition, I hope. Opposition should not be channeled into the Democratic Party (there to wither and die),nor into other electoral parties (that is, into other supports of the capitalist state). They should be directed to direct action and militant activities.

To save the humans, a different system is needed – one based on cooperation, equality, and freedom, with production for use not profit, and with radically democratic self-management of the economy and all aspects of society. Only a few are for this now, but a radical left wing of the developing movements can be built to fight for this revolutionary goal – if we are not mesmerized by the flimflam of the electoral system. (written for www.Anarkismo.net)

By Jon Bekken, ASR 76

In the modern school’s heyday, the U.S. labor movement recognized the importance of education. Unions fought against authoritarian school systems designed to funnel workers’ children into endless wage slavery. A wide variety of working-class organizations set up their own educational institutions, ranging from preschool and elementary school programs to labor colleges offering programs in history, economics and literature, as well as practical organizing and union administration skills.

The short-lived Chicago Modern School operated a Sunday school for children and evening lectures for adults in 1910. In 1888 German workers launched a network of free-thought Sunday schools for children, alongside libraries and reading rooms for adult workers.

It is revolting to expect the worker to accept a promissory note for “heavenly joys” in lieu of profits stolen from him by greedy sharks. That the children shall not bow to such an economic system is the aim of the liberal Sunday schools…

Czech workers operated 18 schools in the 1920s, serving 1,340 Chicago students. The Free-Thought School Association was closely tied to a network of mutual aid societies, workers’ choirs and other associations which raised funds for their support and made their halls available to the schools. For adults, the Socialist Workingmen’s Society offered evening lectures in economics and social science, while nearly every Czech hall had a reading room or library.

The  Chicago Federation of Labor and Women’s Trade Union League jointly sponsored the Chicago Labor College, offering night courses in English, parliamentary procedure, public speaking, economics, and other subjects in the 1920s and 1930s. The Workmen’s Circle bought an auditorium in 1920 for its labor lyceum, which hosted lectures and cultural events, while on Chicago’s Northwest side the Socialist Institute offered evening classes for children as part of an effort to counter capitalist indoctrination in the public schools. The Polish People’s University, organized by socialists active in Chicago’s labor movement, offered lectures and courses in science, history, mathematics, literature and English. Similar educational programs were sponsored by workers’ organizations of every political tendency and ethnicity.

Similar projects could be found in every city with a significant labor movement. IWW and other union halls hosted libraries, classes and public lectures addressing a wide range of issues of interest to workers. One such project that deserves to be better remembered is Work People’s College, in Duluth, Minnesota. Organized in 1903 as a Finnish “folk” school, it soon affiliated first with the Finnish Socialist Federation and, after 1913, the Industrial Workers of the World.

Work People’s College was part of a vibrant Finnish workers’ culture, including cooperatives, daily newspapers (including the IWW-affiliated Industrialisti), libraries, dramatic societies, choirs, etc. The College initially served a Finnish student body, but gradually expanded to other workers. Work People’s College sought to educate students not to rise out of their class, but to become more effective actors in the class struggle, offering classes in economics, labor history and industrial unionism as well as more “practical” subjects such as public speaking, journalism, bookkeeping, English, Finnish and running meetings.

The College launched a summer program for Finnish youth in 1929, offering courses in radical literature, Finnish language and culture, labor history and economics in the mornings, with afternoons set aside for recreational pursuits.

WPC instructor Fred Thompson described the economics curriculum in the September 1937 One Big Union Monthly. After reviewing increased productivity made possible by modern machinery, and working the increases as math problems, students

reached the inevitable conclusion that if we can produce so much more than we used to, and do not live more than a couple of times as well, it must be that the working class is gypped of a good part of what it is now able to produce.

To determine where this robbery happened, they turned to a hypothetical candy and ice cream store.

Suppose that there is a general complaint that where you buy your confections they charge such high prices that you are robbed. Will those who have no money to spend there be robbed? All agree the answer is “No” [The more they spend, the more they are robbed.] … Is it possible to explain that one class with plenty of money, and spending plenty of it, lives without working by assuming that when people go to buy they are robbed by high prices?  And so these 12-year-old economists conclude that the gypping of the working class must be perpetuated by the time the worker gets his paycheck, that “exploitation occurs predominantly at the point of production.”

Similarly, students tackled the problem of unemployment, proving somewhat more astute than the U.S. Congress. When faced with the fact that 12 million lacked jobs, while 28 million worked for nine hours a day, they treated the problem as a simple mathematical problem, concluding that a six-hour day would allow for full employment.

While the four-week summer program classes were structured by the WPC staff, students took charge of organizing social and recreational activities, putting their lessons in running meetings and organizing to practical use. Worker-students in the regular program played a more active role, helping arrange the curriculum, organizing the evening debates and lectures (as well as entertainments), and handling conflicts and discipline.

Work People’s College had neither traditional tests not grades nor diplomas. The faculty were not academics, but rather workers with many years’ experience as wage slaves and in labor agitation.

While there was a schedule of classes, Thompson recalled, there was little lecturing.Rather, students were encouraged to hunt up information and present it in the form of debates, soapbox talks, articles and skits, many of which found their way into the pages of the IWW press. (A WPC theater troupe also regularly toured northern Minnesota and Upper Michigan, performing for immigrant and labor groups.) One of those plays, “Banker’s Island,” told the story of three workers stranded on an island with a banker who used his supply of gold to get them to build him a home and provide him with the necessities of life. But they organized when the banker decreed that they could not eat the bounty on “his” island without paying for it, and reorganized things to suit themselves. After a few days the boss capitulated, agreeing to wash the dishes in exchange for an equal share of the food.

Regular classes ended in 1941 (the summer program continued for a few years) and the army seized the campus during World War II. WPC did not reopen, and its building was sold in 1953.

ASR 76, Summer 2019

The following call to action is part of a common framework that aims to help connect May Day activities and support communication on the global level.

Every year people take to the streets and go on strike on May 1st to commemorate International Workers’ Day. With the following call, which was initiated by several syndicates of the grassroots unions Free Workers’ Union (FAU) and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), we want to encourage groups on the grassroots level, labor unions and initiatives worldwide to link their May Day activities and by doing so provide visibility to the transnational dimension of the struggle.

We, workers and students, will stand together in solidarity, because we are all involved in the same struggle against profit-driven interests regardless of our place of residence. Budget cuts in social services, outsourcing, depressing wages, privatization, increasing costs of living as well as tuition fees are just a few of the symptoms directly related to the global economic system. A system that is based on exploitation and competition leads to commercialization of all aspects of our lives.

The constantly increasing pressure to perform is sickening, be it at the workplace, university, school, and increasingly even during childhood and youth. The logic of the market economy and the corresponding nation-state structures require that adaptation to the dictate of competitiveness and the value-added production take priority over the development of emancipatory capabilities.

We do not intend to simply disrupt; we seek to overcome.

Given the transnational nature of the capitalist system, it is necessary for workers to connect on the global level. By networking across borders, the global interconnections that shape our local conditions can be made visible. Furthermore it opens up new potentialities and scopes of action within the struggle against exploitation as well precarious working and living conditions. The bargaining power of workers would increase tremendously, if we were to unite within the same value-added chain. Let us imagine what differences it would have made, if the striking miners in Marikana (South Africa) and workers of the BASF chemical plants located in Germany were connected and had united in their struggle given that BASF is the primary purchaser of the resources produced by the miners. Such linkages could have significantly altered or perhaps even prevented the 2012 massacre.

Another example are garment workers in Sri Lanka (producing textiles for the retailing company H&M) who fought for wages enabling them a proper living on November 27, 2018. On the same day groups across Europe and the USA organized activities in solidarity in front of outlets of H&M. This shows that pressure can be generated through a network of actors within the value-added chain, from the producing workers to those working in the retails stores and those purchasing the product.

The same applies to strike actions taking place at Amazon: For example the labor union ver.di called for strikes in 2016 at logistical centers across Germany. Since logistical centers in Poland were used as evasive locations, the labor union IP organized solidarity actions. By now action groups are forming at Amazon centers around the world, which are also increasingly shaping a network.

Last but not least IT workers are resisting precarious working conditions and get organized across borders. As an example we want to point out the initiative Game Workers Unite! and mention the walkout by workers at Google, which was joined by tens of thousands of people in 50 cities worldwide last November.

With a transnationally coordinated May Day 2019 we strive to realize a collective goal of a better life by networking and building solidarity on a global scale. Especially in times of increasing nationalist and racist tendencies, we emphasize the common struggle and resist being played off against each other.

For a better life for all – across all borders!

Initial supporters: Bangladesh Anarcho-Syndicalist Federation, Free Workers’ Union (FAU) Hamburg. Inter-Factory Workers’ Federation (FBLP) Jakarta, Forum for IT Employees (FITE) India, Garment Workers’ Trade Union Center (GWTUC) Bangladesh, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Gainesville, Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) Hamburg

Each syndicate/group/union will organize its activities autonomously with their own focus. More details available on this blog: https://globalmayday.wordpress.com

Review essay by Iain McKay. Published in ASR 73 (Spring 2018)

Elizabeth Anderson, Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Don’t Talk about it. Princeton University Press, 2017, $27.95 hardcover.

This is both an important book which raises a key issue and one which simply states the obvious. It is both a well-researched work and one which ignores a school of thinkers who were pioneers on the subject. It is one which both challenges assumptions and takes them for granted. In short, it is both perceptive and frustrating.

Elizabeth Anderson is a professor of philosophy and women’s studies at the University of Michigan and her book seeks to raise the issue of workplace hierarchy and its negative effects. Her book comprises a preface, two essays (“When the market was ‘Left’” and “Private Government”) and a “Reply to the Commentators,” plus an introduction by Stephen Macedo and four comments by various academics.

It states the obvious by chronicling the extensive power employers have over their workers both within and outside the company. That she feels the need to provide substantial evidence for what should be an obvious fact speaks volumes – it is the elephant in the room of our so-called “free” (i.e., capitalist) economies: “in purchasing command over labor, employers purchase command over people.” (57) She rightly notes that workers in the new industrial economy called it “wage slavery,” rather than the “free labor” of the liberals, for they were well aware that it was “a relation of profound subordination to their employer.” (35) She is also right to note that “[t]o be egalitarian is to commend and promote a society in which members interact as equals” (3), and so to be an egalitarian is to be a libertarian, someone who promotes liberty – there is little liberty when you are subject to hierarchy.

Anarchists have been noting all this since 1840, when Proudhon proclaimed property to be both “theft” and “despotism.” Yet, for all her impressive research, she almost completely fails to mention the libertarian analysis – “anarchism, syndicalism” are mentioned only in passing. (6) Given that libertarians have placed the issues she raises at the center of their ideas for nearly 200 years, it is simply staggering that Anderson ignores us. While she may bemoan how “workers largely abandoned their pro-market, individualistic egalitarian dream and turned to socialist, collectivist alternatives,” (59) she fails to discuss those like Proudhon with pro-market, collectivist egalitarian dreams in spite of his mutualism meeting her (unstated) criteria of being pro-market and being explicitly aware of the issues which arose with the rise of large-scale industry. Socialism appears to be equated with Marxism and this centralized system is, rightly, dismissed but there is no engagement with libertarian visions of socialism. Nor is there any mention of the work by Carole Pateman or David Ellerman, not even Noam Chomsky who regularly raises the same issues and is by far the best known libertarian writer today.

Anarchism is mentioned once more, when Hobbes’ brutish “State of Nature” is equated to anarchist communism, which is an “unregulated commons” where anyone can take anything from whoever they wish. (46) Yet simply consulting any libertarian communist thinker would quickly show that they advocate use rights combined with social overview. This would be a “regulated” commune for, regardless of myths, unregulated communes are rare in human history (and generally reflect a breakdown in society due to actions of state or wealth). So people would not expect their possessions to be arbitrarily taken from them in any anarchist system.

Anderson, then, seems blissfully unaware of the anarchist critique of property, equating property with the right to exclude others and proclaiming the arguments for property “impeccable.” (45-6) Surely an awareness of the ideas being critiqued should be considered as essential research before commenting upon it? Similarly, if she had read Proudhon’s What is Property? she would understand how the “impeccable” theory of property produces the very evils she indicates and denounces as well as the anarchist use-rights theory which ends them without creating a worse problem in state capitalism.

She does mention and discuss “libertarians” (60-2) but these are strange lovers of freedom because, as Macedo notes, they ignore that employment “brings with it subjection to arbitrary power that extends beyond their work lives.” (xi) Anderson herself notes that these self-proclaimed “libertarians” seem to have no problem with private tyranny and that “it is surprising how comfortable some libertarians are with the validity of contracts into slavery” (66) as well as non-compete contracts, yet at no point raises the obvious point that these people have no concept of what liberty actually is.

Again, this points to serious flaws in her scholarship in-so-far as she appears unaware of the American right’s deliberate theft of the word “libertarian” from anarchists in the 1950s. Worse, she makes no attempt to understand this obvious paradox of “libertarians” advocating deeply authoritarian social relationships. After all, it is not “surprising” at all that these “libertarians” advocate voluntary slavery for John Locke, founder of classical liberalism, did so under the term “drudgery” – amongst the many “subordinate relations” he defended, including actual slavery.

Anderson misreads Locke completely, proclaiming him an egalitarian (16) when in fact the equality he postulates at the dawn of his state of nature is simply the opening paragraph of a “just-so” story weaved to justify current inequalities in wealth and power in order to secure the “subordinate” relationships of master-servant, husband-wife, governor-governed, these produce. Consent was the means to do this and, needless to say, she does not tarry over Locke’s contractual defences of slavery and serfdom: he did not contradict himself in defending slavery nor in drafting The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina as she claims. (176) For it is to Locke that we must trace the notion of “subjection as freedom,” (62) as shown by yet another author who goes unmentioned, Carole Pateman (most obviously in The Sexual Contract).

Locke, then, sought to justify inequality by means of just-so stories and the liberal use of the word “consent.” So she is wrong to suggest that the advocates of laissez-faire “failed to recognise that the older arguments [premised on self-employment] no longer applied” after industrialisation and that it is from this “arose the symbiotic relationship between libertarianism and authoritarianism that blights our political discourse to this day.” (36) Read so-called “libertarian” writers like Nozick and Rothbard and you will see that private tyranny is recognized – and defended with gusto. In this they follow Locke and his defense of the hierarchical social relationships of the agrarian capitalism he was familiar with.

The selective perspective Anderson bemoans is more apparent than real, being more than an “error.” (57) It is not in fact a “bizarre combination” at all for the laissez-faire liberals to have “hostility toward state power and enthusiasm for hyperdisciplinary total institutions.” (58) This is because they were interested in property, not liberty – as seen by Locke and his ideological descendants. Indeed, it is the few classical liberals (most obviously, John Stuart Mill) who are notable exceptions in this who need to be accounted for, although she does not – Mill’s support for cooperatives is relegated to an end note while his pioneering feminism goes unmentioned (perhaps his later market socialism is the reason for this?).

Still, her sketches of pre-industrial liberals – the Levellers, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln – are useful examples of her thesis on the changing nature of market freedom. She rightly reclaims Adam Smith from the right, noting his egalitarian tendencies and his obvious preference for self-employment. (17-22) She quotes him on how all have “an equal right to the earth” and how a “tenant at will” is “as dependent upon the proprietor as any servant” and “must obey him with as little reserve.” Similarly, Paine’s writings could be classed as “broadly libertarian” (24) in the paradoxical and self-contradictory American sense precisely because he lived in a pre-capitalist society yet he was well aware of the need for land reform and progressive income tax, anathema for today’s so-called “libertarians” of the right. His writings do “not display a trace of the anti-capitalist class conflict that characterized nineteenth century politics” because there was no industrial capitalism and this is why “it does not make sense to pit workers against capitalists.” (25, 26) In short, social context matters when evaluating ideas – as can be seen, most obviously, with certain aspects of certain (American) individualist anarchists within our tradition.

As far as the evidence and logic of her case go, Anderson has done an excellent job with both even if she ignores the anarchist tradition. In terms of the conclusions she draws from these, there is less to recommend. However, before discussing this, the other contributors to the book should be mentioned. Three of the commentators (Hughes, Bromwich and Kolodny, particularly the latter) bring little to the discussion, the fourth (Tyler Cowen) is of interest simply because as an economist (and quasi-“libertarian”) he shows that her account of the mental blinkers associated with workplace hierarchy is correct. His reply – “Work Isn’t So Bad After all” – is staggering in its unwillingness to understand the point being made. By definition workers do toil under the supervision of communist dictators, regardless of Cowen’s smug final sentence.

His defense of factory fascism is replete with the invocation of “very often” – “very often” workers are fired for putting racist, sexist comments on the internet to protect other workers (ignoring, for example, the well-documented firings for political opinion Anderson provides) – while “abuses are relatively few in number” and the gains “outweigh those costs.” (112-3) No evidence is provided, unlike with Anderson who provides overwhelming evidence to support her position. Likewise, he asserts that cooperatives and such like are often “less efficient” (115) when the empirical evidence suggests otherwise, which raises the awkward question of why a less efficient mode of production dominates society.

Cowan is dismissive of the notion that workplace tyranny is an issue, for if it says what he wants to hear then the voice of the people is truly the voice of god: “I do not see the evidence that suggests such events are a major concern of the American public.” (113) It would be churlish to note that indifference is one of the issues Anderson raises – why do we not talk about it? – and would not the threat of being fired for raising such issues explain this? Likewise, concerns can and do change, particularly if advanced minorities raise the issue. After all, we can be sure that sexual and racial inequality did not concern “the American public” much before the rise of the civil rights and women’s movements.

It is worth discussing one paper Cowan draws upon to show the flaws of his comment. He suggests that German codetermination “costs about 26 percent of shareholder value” which he puts down to “lower productivity.” (116) Yet German workers are more productive than American ones in terms of GDP per hour worked. Nor does the paper he cites argue this. It does suggest “codetermination reduces MTB [Market-To-Book] by 27% and ROA [Returns On Assets] by 5 basis points” but notes this is due to the “transfer of some control rights from equity holders to employees [which] results in a different set of choices for the firm.” (Gary Gorton and Frank Schmid, Class Struggle inside the Firm: A Study of German Codetermination, Working Paper 7945, National Bureau of Economic Research, 25) The MTB ratio suggests that a company’s share value will be greater than its book value because the share price takes into account investors’ estimate of the profitability of the company.

Productivity, as Cowan surely knows, is different than profitability. Profitability is the difference between costs and prices. Productivity is the value workers create – how it is distributed is where it intersects with profitability. Any arrangement which increases the workers’ bargaining power will by definition reduce profitability (because workers keep more of the value they create) but may increase productivity (for precisely the same reason). Thus Cowan completely misunderstands the paper he cites, for Gorton and Schmid are discussing the distribution of surplus rather than its size. They conclude that “codetermination does empower employees, and that they use their power in ways that contradict the desires of shareholder” and “the ability to influence decision-making via supervisory board seats is valuable to employees, allowing them to redistribute firm surplus towards themselves.” (6) Also “unionization is associated with lower firm profitability” for “unions are successful in redistributing firm surplus towards workers.” (8-9)

In other words, Cowan is attacking codetermination because German workers retain more of the value they produce instead of funnelling it upwards into the hands of shareholders – and Anderson makes the same obvious point. (142) Apparently the German 1% is being exploited by the 99% and “liberty” means that inequality there should rise to U.S. levels. Sadly for Cowan, Gorton and Schmid are not as strong in their conclusions: “None of this is to say whether codetermination is socially optimal or not.” (32)

Overall, Cowan’s comments show that it takes substantial educational effort to become so blinkered. Of course he is fine with wage-labor – at least for other people, he being a tenured economics professor at George Mason University. As Anderson notes (134), being near the top of the wage-labor hierarchy, obviously he would be happy with it and she writes a wonderful response to his platitudes which is well worth reading for its focused anger and destructive power. An example:

“He worries that we can’t have nice things if workers don’t submit to the dictatorial power of their employers. This is the same argument British West Indies sugar growers made in Parliament in defense of slavery, during the debates over abolition.” (142)

Kolodny’s comments are of note purely because he gets Anderson to admit to not endorsing full workplace democracy, a decision based on “pragmatism” and because there “are enough disanalogies between state and workplace governances.” (130)

So in spite of her detailed and well referenced account of workplace tyranny, she fails to advocate its abolition and while talking of “republican freedom” (64) she baulks at (to use Proudhon’s words) “industrial associations, small worker republics” – and for no good reason beyond the rather vague comment that “some of its costs may be difficult to surmount” (66) and a cryptic reference. Few would so easily dismiss a move from (political) dictatorship to democracy by noting it “is challenging” and those involved may “have a hard time agreeing”! (131)

While it is right to say that she cannot propose what the workplace constitution ought to be (133) for that is up to workers to determine how to manage their affairs, we can outline principles for a solution. Yet her suggestions are woefully weak. After chronicling how wage-labor is private tyranny, she dismisses the obvious solution of workers control in favour of co-determination on the German model. This is about as convincing as a critic of slavery or monarchy proclaiming the solution cannot involve ending them but somehow tempering them with forums for discussion. Indeed, those who opposed these purely on the “pragmatic” position that it was not economically efficient or hard to abolish would be considered almost as bad as the aristocrats and slave drivers (who could, at least, call upon god to justify their position).

Another option mooted is something like a company union, dismissing independent unions because they are “adversarial” and so misses her own point. (70) Any union activist will tell you that being “adversarial” is essential; otherwise the union becomes another extension of management’s power and, as she proves, there is a lot to be “adversarial” about! Similarly, while suggesting that firms “vigorously resist unionization to avoid a competitive disadvantage with non-unionized firms,” (70) perhaps a more realistic analysis would be that bosses like to be dictators and like to appropriate as much as they can from their employees’ labor? After all, the decline of unions since 1980 has been marked by productivity and wages separating, with the latter stagnating as the former grows (so disproving the platitudes of free market economists who had suggested in the 1950s and 1960s – and even today! – that unions were not required to secure decent wages).

Needless to say, she does not address the issue of reform or revolution – a topic which provoked some debate amongst the libertarians who long ago noticed the problem she raises. She proclaims that worker ownership “is far out of reach for most firms, given the size of capital investment needed.” (131) This is true but this option is hardly the only available – there is also expropriation (direct action) and nationalization (political action) – and so a bit like suggesting that the only way to end slavery was for the slaves to buy themselves back from their masters.

Similarly, there is no discussion of socialization and instead we get “independent contractors acting without external supervision, who rent their capital” postulated – and rightly rejected – as an alternative. (51) Strangely, she proclaims this universal self-employment as “amount[ing] to anarchy as the primary form of workplace order” before dismissing this because organization is needed for “large-scale production” rather than “market relations within the firm.” (64) Here are lack of research becomes (again) obvious as no anarchist thinker has ever suggested such a solution to the social question. Indeed, anarchists have been aware than collectivism “decisively” defeated individualism in production (65) since 1840 and advocated workers associations as a result.

A similar blindness can be seen from Anderson’s (correct) comment that many of the earliest radicals and socialists were “artisans who operated their own enterprises” but that does not mean “they were simultaneously capitalists and workers.” (25) Failing to recognize capital is a social relationship, she fails to see that this description of meaningless: it is like saying in 1865 that all American workers were now simultaneously masters and slaves.

Ultimately, it is her apparent unawareness of the authoritarian roots of liberalism which makes her comments against the so-called “libertarians” of the right ultimately toothless. She may bemoan the perspective that “wherever individuals are free to exit a relationship” then “authority cannot exist” (55) but she can only completely reject it by moving beyond liberalism into socialism (as Mill did), something she refuses to do along with refusing to advocate workplace democracy (and the socialisation that requires). In short, while lamenting the abuses of wage-labor she has no principled objection to it.

Yet she unknowingly restates Joseph Déjacque’s reasoning for coining the term libertarian for “employers have always been authoritarian rulers, as an extension of their patriarchal rights to govern their households.” (48) Listing the horrors of the patriarchal marriage contract, (61) she does not suggest that feminists were wrong to call for its abolition rather than be “pragmatic” and ponder “trade-offs” – why is wage-labor considered different? Perhaps because she, like Cowan, is not directly affected by it but is by patriarchy? If Déjacque urged Proudhon to be consistent in extending his opposition to workplace hierarchy to the family, can we not urge Anderson to be consistent in extending her opposition to household hierarchy to the workplace?

Also, it is worth noting that she equates decision making with government, government with hierarchy – much like Engels, so showing the liberal nature of “On Authority.” Yet agreeing does not equate to authoritarian, no matter what Engels asserted, and “governance” (how decisions are made) does not equal “government” (delegation of power into the hands of a few). This uncritical perspective on forms of organization is a significant limitation, particularly in a work interested in what freedom means and extending it. Still, unlike Engels she recognizes that “[n]o production process is inherently so constrained as to eliminate all exercise of authority. Elimination of room for autonomy is the product of social design, not nature.” (128) This is a significant, if undeveloped, step forward from Engels.

Ultimately, for a book which, at bottom, is about class, it is woefully lacking in class consciousness. She seeks to explain our current societal blindness to workplace despotism by suggesting it is a misapplication of pre-capitalist market positions to post-industrial revolution realities. Yet is no “misdeployment,” (65) for it is hardly in the interests of capitalists to acknowledge the source of their power and profits – hence a pre-capitalist vision of the market being used to describe a much different, capitalist, reality would be encouraged by those with an interest in obscuring the authoritarian and exploitative social relationships produced by property. So you would expect given class interest that this would not be discussed – and so the peculiar condition she deplores and explores is easily explained. So it is no coincidence that – as she notes – these questions rose with organized labor and declined with it. (40-1)

Likewise, her main thesis – that a pre-capitalist perspective is being grafted upon a capitalist reality – is hardly new. As Marx noted long ago, from “Locke to Ricardo” the defenders of capitalism invoke “a mode of production that presupposes that the immediate producer privately owns his own conditions of production” while “the relations of production they describe belong to the capitalist mode of production.”(Capital [Penguin Books: London, 1976] I: 1083) Her account of pre-industrial America would have benefited from Marx’s writings on “Primitive Accumulation” in Capital (Part 8, Chapter 33) and how, to quote Marx, “the anti-capitalist cancer of the colonies [was] healed,” (938) but then she does not draw upon any socialist writers – libertarian or authoritarian – who discuss these issues. Marx is quoted on the nature of the workplace (4-5) but the earlier, market-based, perspective of Proudhon goes unmentioned – a strange omission given her position.

Another flaw in her argument arises with the state. She rightly notes that the American state determines the power of the employer, given its support for “employment at will” and the power that goes with it. (53-4, 57) Yet she downplays the obvious point that changes in this situation would involve changes in property rights – in the direction of the use-rights and socialization advocated by Proudhon in 1840. Yet this discussion makes it clear that she thinks the state is some neutral body above classes, representing the people and so could be used to empower the many at work. This ignores that the state is currently a capitalist state and it will not pursue a transformation in the bargaining power of classes just because it would be fairer or because we ask nicely. Yes, the German capitalist state has decided upon a different set of options to secure the exploitation of labor but this was a product of many things, not least a mass Social-Democratic movement. Co-determination and strong unions were forced upon it from outside. This was the case in America as well, with direct action being the means by which labor issues came to the fore in the 1930s. So if we do take private government seriously (and Anderson shows why we must, assuming you need more than the daily grind of wage slavery to convince you) then we must look to our fellow workers for its solution – then the public government will belatedly catch up (assuming we are unable to get rid of both once and for all). In other words, class struggle – something Anderson does not discuss as much as she should.

Anderson, to conclude, has produced a well-documented account of something libertarians have been arguing since 1840 – proprietor despotism –without mentioning this tradition. Like us, she recognizes that social relations matter, that equality and inequality matter, that liberty and equality are mutually supportive rather than mutually exclusive. Yet, by failing to discuss anarchism, she has failed to do the research an academic of her level would be expected to do. Much worse, she fails to embrace the obvious conclusions of her evidence against wage-labor in favor of the kind of mealy-mouthed “pragmatism” she would rightly denounce if applied to chattel-slavery or patriarchal marriage. Still, she should be thanked for the evidence and arguments she provides if not for her conclusions.

A condensed version of this obituary was published in ASR #78 (Winter 2020)

Stalwart Chicago anarchist Fred Majer, 71, was killed August 8 in an automobile accident in Madison, Wisconsin. His companion, Beth Maas, suffered minor injuries. Fred got involved in the anti-Vietnam war movement in his youth and moved inexorably to an anarchist perspective. He served as branch secretary of the Chicago General Membership Branch of the Industrial Workers of the World in the early 1970s and was also active in the Solidarity Bookshop. He was also a proud member and activist in Carpenters Union Local 1, the union of Haymarket anarchist Louis Lingg.

I met Fred in 1981 when he called a Chicago-wide anarchist conference with the aim of uniting Chicago’s anarchists into an active movement. Chicago Anarchists United and its successor, Some Chicago Anarchists, hosted a monthly anarchist forum for the next 20 years, and showed the colors at numerous demonstrations where we distributed leaflets explaining an anarchist perspective on the issues at hand. (We weren’t a “Black Bloc” but were more interested in communicating anarchist ideas to other people.) We also put out a more-or-less monthly newsletter in conjunction with the forum, Autonomy: For Individual and Collective Self Rule; much of the contents were Fred’s work.

In 1982 Fred led the way to establish the Autonomy Center, a meeting place and home for Fred’s literature distro project, Impossible Books. The Center hosted the monthly forum and opened itself up for meetings of other groups as well. It was at the Autonomy Center that plans for the 100^th anniversary commemoration of the General Strike for the 8-hour Day of May 1, 1886, were hatched. The result of those plans was the Haymarket Anarchist Gathering from May 1 to May 4, 1986, that attracted over 400 anarchists from across the U.S. and Canada to Chicago and filled the streets in one of the largest May Day demonstrations in recent memory. One negative result of the Haymarket Gathering was a split in the CAU and the death of the Autonomy Center

It was during the lead up to the Haymarket Centennial that Fred led the resistance to the attempts of the liberals/social democrats of the Illinois Labor History Society to revise history and portray the Haymarket Anarchists as milk-toast social democrats. Every May Day thereafter (or weekend closest to May 1) we held a picnic at the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument at Forest Home (Waldheim) Cemetery with literature and refreshments. Fred often decorated the monument with the portraits of the martyrs and periodically challenged the ILHS revisionists when they came through with their tours.

Defending the legacy of the Haymarket Anarchists was one of Fred’s passions. When the ILHS convinced the U.S. Department of the Interior to declare the Haymarket Martyrs’ Monument a National Historical Site in 1998, Fred mobilized Chicago anarchists to attempt to disrupt the dedication spectacle and let those who attended know that the Haymarket Martyrs were Anarchists Not Liberals. There is a video of that confrontation produced by LaborBeat called “Trainwreck of Ideologies.”

A few years later when some of the same forces got the city of Chicago to install a “Free Speech” sculpture at the site of the Haymarket Rally, with a ceremony including a speech by a representative of the Fraternal Order of Police, Chicago anarchists were on hand to protest the travesty. See “Trainwreck of Ideologies II,” also by LaborBeat.

Another of Fred’s passions was opposition to war. When the Bush II regime invaded Iraq in 2003 Fred was among the 15,000 Chicagoans who took over Lake Shore Drive in protest. Subsequently Fred became more and more critical of the so-called anti-war “movement” in Chicago that became bogged down in mobilizing periodic marches through the empty streets of downtown Chicago, yelling at empty buildings. Fred felt that anti-war demonstrations should take place in the neighborhoods where people lived and would actually see and hear the opposition to war.  So he started the Northside Peace Gathering that met every Saturday in Logan Square for the next 16 years to protest war and capitalism.

In 2011 when the working class of Wisconsin rose up against Republican Governor Scott Walker’s attacks on public sector workers Fred began travelling up to Madison to join the protests. After that upsurge died down Fred continued to travel to Madison to join ongoing protests in defense of workers’ rights.

On October 13 a few of Fred’s family and friends got together at Waldheim to scatter Fred’s ashes at the Monument. Fred was a comrade and friend who was not always easy to get along with, but he was dedicated to the fight against church, state and capital. He will be missed.

— Mike Hargis