about

We want to discuss, learn from successes and failures of the past and develop strategies to increase the power we, as ordinary people, have over our own lives.

Who
The libcom group is a small collective of libertarian communists based in and around London, we maintain libcom.org, and as individuals are involved with a number of other groups and activity.

Our name, libcom, is an abbreviation of "libertarian communism" - and its goals of liberty and community - the political current we identify with. However our primary focus is always on how best to act in the here and now to better our circumstances and protect the planet.

Libertarian communism is the political expression of the ever-present strains of co-operation and solidarity in human societies. These currents of mutual aid can be found throughout society. In tiny everyday examples such as people collectively organising a dinner party, or helping a stranger carry a pram down a flight of stairs. They can also manifest themselves in more visible ways, such as one group of workers having a solidarity strike in support of other workers as the BA baggage handlers did for Gate Gourmet catering staff in 2005. They can also explode and become a predominant force in society such as in the events across Argentina in 2001, and in Chiapas, Mexico today, in Kwanju, South Korea in 1980, Portugal 1974, Hungary '56, Spain 1936, Russia 1917, Paris 1871…

Both through human co-operation in everyday life and in the large scale directly democratic ways of organising society developed by working people we see the seeds of a new kind of society. A society based not on exploitation, domination and drudgery but on free, voluntary co-operation, freedom and creativity – a libertarian communist society.

Libertarian communism is a social system where production is based on the concept "from each according to ability, to each according to need" and humanity is emancipated from all systems of economic and political authority. Where humans organise themselves from the bottom-up through the principles of face-to-face direct democracy, mandated delegation and federalism. To this end, where all society's decisions are made at the base, we focus on grassroots working class organisation and self-education today.

We identify primarily with the trends of workers' solidarity, co-operation and struggle throughout history, such as those mentioned above, whether they were self-consciously libertarian communist (such as in Spain) or not. We are also influenced by certain specific theoretical and practical traditions, such as anarchist-communism, social ecology, anarcho-syndicalism, the Situationists, libertarian Marxism, council communism, as well as writers including Karl Marx, Peter Kropotkin, Harry Cleaver, Murray Bookchin and Anton Pannekoek.

However, we recognise the limitations of applying these ideas and organisational forms to contemporary British society. We emphasise understanding and transforming the social relationships we experience in our everyday lives, whilst still learning from the mistakes and successes of previous working class movements and ideas.

History
v.4.1 - March 2007 - A major upgrade of the Drupal infrastructure for the site and a new look.
v.4 - Summer 2006 - We went web2.0, the entire site is ported into Drupal giving greater control and interactivity.
v.3 - May 2005 - we dumped the 'enrager.net' name and added new sections (library) as well as updating old content.
v.2 - May 2004 - the re-design, dumping the dull grey and going for a more accessible, easy-read site adding the history section.
v.1 - September 2003 - our public launch, when we adopted a grey/white format and hit the world with our ideas and the project.
v.0 - October 2002 - a personal site hosting a couple of texts and some pictures.