16 March – 25 May, Alternate Wednesdays 7:00 pm

Radical Women & FSP discussion circle - No Local: Why small-scale alternatives won’t change the world

Facebook Event

2015 was the hottest year on record. The earth is becoming hotter than Gollum’s ring finger in the fires of Mordor. Parts of Australia look like a desert planet in Star Wars. Capitalism has bred monstrous agribusiness monopolies that rip the goodness out of the soil and then pummel it with fertiliser and pesticide.

Localism is based on the idea that producing big brings ecological catastrophe and inequality. Advocates say that by changing to small, localised production, we would free our communities, and ultimately the world, from the stranglehold of corporate capitalism.

Join in discussion of Greg Sharzer’s No Local, which debunks this notion. Sharzer, a trade union, anti-poverty and immigrant rights activist, accessibly applies Marxist economic theory to show why localism in no way challenges capitalism. He points to the kind of organising that can. We’ll also explore what’s ultimately needed to change the world.

The discussion circle will be 6 fortnightly Wednesday sessions, from 16 March through 25 May. Each session will discuss a chapter of No Local, with supplementary readings:

16 March: Introduction to No Local
30 March: Twenty First Century Capitalism, Nineteenth Century Economics
13 April: Local Visions, Global Realities
27 April: Growing Alternatives? Centralisation, Rent and Agriculture
11 May: Local Shops for Local People
25 May: Building Socialism from Local Spaces

Dinner served at 6.30 pm for an $8.50 donation.

Solidarity Salon, 580 Sydney Road, Brunswick Tae Tram #19 to Blyth St or the Upfield train to Anstey Station. Plenty of parking.

No Local is available for $25 at Solidarity Salon. You can buy the book before 16 March or at the first session. For the Study Guide, contact radicalwomen@optusnet.com.au or freedom.socialist.party@ozemail.com.au

Wednesday 4 May, 6:30 pm

Freedom Socialist Party meeting: Resisting Austerity — Lessons from the Howard years

https://www.facebook.com/events/674177072721475/

It’s 2016 and another federal election. Various parties are vying for the top job of managing capitalism’s crisis.

The rich and powerful recently attended a dinner to mark the 20th anniversary of the election of the Howard government and celebrate its 11 years of austerity, war mongering, terror laws and union bashing. As they dined, police pepper sprayed people protesting the current Coalition government’s savage cuts to education and brutal refugee policy. Meanwhile, the union movement bureaucracy has cranked up its campaign machine in marginal seats to elect the Labor Party.

What lessons did a decade of Howard teach us? What should we conclude from the Your Rights At Work union campaign which played a key role in ousting Howard from office? This meeting will draw on the Howard years in discussing a strategy of working class resistance against capitalist austerity beyond the election, regardless of who wins.

Dinner served at 6.30 pm for an $8.50 donation. The discussion starts at 7.00 pm.

The meeting will be held at Solidarity Salon (address and travel information is above).

For more information contact freedom.socialist.party@ozemail.com.au or call 03 9388 0062