Property is Theft!

Property is Theft! has moved…

The black bloc formed at the TUC March for the Alternative was the largest ever seen in Britain

It has now been over five months since I last updated this blog. This has been for a number of reasons, the main one being that I simply haven't had the time to sit down and write a post of the length/depth typical for Property is Theft! I had for a while been looking to re-vitalise the blog, but in doing so I will be ditching the Wordpress format.

I've been given a blog over at libcom.org, who are expanding their roster of bloggers in an attempt to make the blog section more prominent in a coming overhaul of the site. Read more...
Email Subscription

Enter your email address to subscribe to Property is Theft! and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 47 other followers

Animated flag images by 3DFlags.com
June 2012

M T W T F S S

« Dec

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30
Subscribe
RSS - Posts
RSS - Comments
Meta

June 2012
M	T	W	T	F	S	S
« Dec
	1	2	3
4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17
18	19	20	21	22	23	24
25	26	27	28	29	30

It has now been over five months since I last updated this blog. This has been for a number of reasons, the main one being that I simply haven’t had the time to sit down and write a post of the length/depth typical for Property is Theft! I had for a while been looking to … Read more

Filed under Blogging · Tagged with Anarchism, blog, blogging, Libcom.org, property is theft, Truth Reason and Liberty, Wordpress

The frequency of wildcat strikes by postal workers is one example of struggles going beyond the official leadership, but rank-and-file control cannot be imposed from above

On the trade unions and “boring from within”

I’ve written a number of pieces now on anarchist activity within the trade union movement. In particular, I’d point to Trade unions, worker militancy, and communism from below, What is anarcho-syndicalism: revolutionary unionism, Anarcho-syndicalism and the limits of trade unionism, and my most recent post on Building the rank-and-file. However, these have all focused primarily on the difference between … Read more

Filed under Debate and discourse · Tagged with 4themembers, anarcho-syndicalism, Anton Pannekoek, association, boring-from-within, Buenaventua Durruti, building the new world in the shell of the old, CGT, CNT, DAM, direct action, Direct Action Movement, FORA, Independent Left, Joseph Kay, left unity, militant workers, PCS, rank-and-file organisation, representatives, revolutionary union, SF, SolFed, Solidarity Federation, trade union, Workers Solidarity Federation, Workers Solidarity movement, workplace committee

Building the rank-and-file

As we get closer to the possibility of coordinated public sector strikes on June 30th, debate continues to rage about how best to build for the event. In particular, on the libertarian left there has been much talk of the need to build a new rank-and-file. In a recent Truth, Reason & Liberty article on … Read more

Filed under Debate and discourse · Tagged with anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist, authoritarian, building from below, bureaucracy, control our own struggles, direct action, hierarchy, June 30th, libertarian, Militant, rank-and-file, revolutionary leadership, solidarity, strikes, unions, vanguard, workers, working class

The Spanish revolution of 1936 remains the most explicit example of the revolutionary potential of workers expropriating the means of production and using direct action to implement self-organised communism

The revolutionary general strike in an era of casualisation

In the present movement against government cuts, a lot of slogans (and from them leftist strategies) are invoking the idea of a general strike. As a tactic, there are a number of reasons this would not work. Chief amongst them being that a set-piece “one-day” strike is the limit of the left’s ambitions in this … Read more

Filed under Anarchism · Tagged with anarcho-syndicalist, casualisation, CGT, CNT, direct action, Emile Pataud, Emile Pouget, general strike, Jimmy John's Union, organising, picket lines, revolution, self-management, Solidarity Federation, Spain, Starbucks Workers Union, unemployed

The pros and cons of the black bloc

A black bloc, despite all the controversy around it, isn’t a complicated thing. It is simply the act whereby great numbers of people wear all-black clothing and cover their faces on demonstrations. They then come together as a unit, for both strength in numbers and anonymity. That’s it. It is not an organisation, as conspiracy … Read more

Filed under Anarchism, Debate and discourse · Tagged with Adam Ford, Anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, anti-fascism, antifa, autonomism, black bloc, blockade, Capitalism, class war, demonstration, direct action, disaffected youth, March 26, March for the Alternative, mass action, mass participation, militant anti-fascism, Millbank Tower, neo-Nazis, occupation, Owen Jones, police violence, property damage, state repression, substitutionism, SWP, vandalism, vanguard, violence

Tom Mann, the syndicalist leader of the Liverpool Transport Strike committee, addresses a mass assembly of workers

Standing on the picket line

During the election campaign that saw Labour sweep to power in 1997, Tony Blair boasted that his government “would leave British law the most restrictive on trade unions in the Western world.” And so it did, not only maintaining the anti-strike laws implemented by Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit but adding to them. Aside from … Read more

Filed under Debate and discourse · Tagged with anarcho-syndicalists, anti-strike laws, anti-trade union laws, Anton Pannekoek, blockades, CNT, collective decision making, direct action, firefighters dispute, fundraising, industrial action, Lindsey oil refinery disputes, Liverpool Antifascists, mandated delegates, Margaret Thatcher, mass assemblies, mass pickets, militancy, miners, Norman Tebbit, picket line, postal workers, printers, Public Order Act, rank-and-file control, sabotage, scabs, Seattle general strike, sell out, solidarity, strike, strike committees, strike funds, Tom Mann, Tony Blair, trade union bureaucracy, TUC, wildcat strikes

An image of Lenin beating a shackled worker with the words of Marx, by Clifford Harper, from http://radicalgraphics.org/

Communism through the eyes of corpses

The somewhat poetic title to this post comes from a status update I put on Facebook last week; Best descriptor for Marxism and Leninism I’ve ever read has to be “analysing everything through the eyes of corpses.” Genius. This was a reference to the tendency of nearly all groups and currents (though far from all … Read more

Filed under Debate and discourse · Tagged with building the new world in the shell of the old, Capitalism, central committee, class consciousness, communism, democratic centralism, federalism, Karl Marx, Leninism, Mao, Marxism, Pol Pot, revolution, self-organisation, Soviet Union, Spain, Stalin, transitional stage, Trotsky, vanguard of the proletariat, Vladimir Lenin, workers party, workers' state, working class

Defeating the cuts – an anarcho-syndicalist strategy

The following is a draft text which I hope to incorporate into a pamphlet in the near future. The intention is to draw together the different strands of discussion and theory regarding the fight against the cuts and to provide a broader argument for an anarcho-syndicalist strategy in this struggle. As with every blog I … Read more

Filed under Anarchism · Tagged with anarcho-syndicalism, austerity measures, Capitalism, city councils, class struggle, community organising, cuts, economic blockade, electoralism, Emile Pouget, general strike, Government, grassroots, Green, industrial action, Labour, Lib Dem, Militant Tendency, occupation, PCS, Quintin Hogg, rank-and-file, self-organisation, sit-in, socialism, strategy, strike, the cuts, there is an alternative, Tory, trade unionism, winning the argument

Revolutionary unions, such as the German FAU, cannot be created from the reformation of traditional trade unions

Anarcho-syndicalism and the limits of trade unionism

One statement that I quite often make is that I’m not a trade unionist. This can confuse those who know me, because I am a member and active rep within the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS). However, though I believe in worker organisation as a part of class struggle and the challenge to capitalism, … Read more

Filed under Anarchism · Tagged with anarcho-syndicalism, Anton Pannekoek, bottom-up organisation, bureaucracy, Capitalism, class unity, class war, closed shop, collective decision making, CWU, full time officials, industrial peace, labour power, leadership, mass participation, mediation, militancy, partnership with bosses, PCS, rank-and-file, reformism, regulating class conflicts, revolutionary unions, scab, self-organisation, SolFed, trade union, trade unionism, union reps, union scab, worker assembly, working class

Fascism, fundamentalism, and the left

Originally published in issue 11 of Shift Magazine (Jan 11 – May 11) Since the May General Election, we have been witnessing the slow demise of British fascism as we know it. The British National Party’s spectacular failure tore open divisions and animosities that had been long brewing below the surface. Resignations, sackings, splits, and … Read more

Filed under Fascism, Religion · Tagged with Anjem Choudary, austerity, BNP, EDL, extremism, Fascism, hope not hate, Islam, Islam4UK, Islamism, Islamophobia, Luton, Muslims Against Crusades, political Islam, racism, SAS, shift magazine, Sir Iqbal Sacranie, Socialist Workers' Party, statism, Stephen Lennon, Tower Hamlets, unite against fascism, Wootton Bassett, working class

	if u bring it up … on Are you an anarchist?
	#Occupy next steps #… on Why pacifism is morally i…
	#OccupyMayDay 2012 #… on Why pacifism is morally i…
	Tommacg on Some further thoughts on …
	Tommacg on Where the sane fear to tread:…

Property is Theft!