Anarchy 47

Contents of No. 47

January 1965

We asked a well-known au­thor­ity on in­dus­trial man­age­ment to ini­ti­ate a dis­cus­sion of free­dom in work. This issue is de­voted to his views. We would like read­ers to pur­sue the sub­ject from an anar­chist point of view and to let us have their opin­ions by March for pub­lica­tion in a sub­sequent issue.

Editor’s note		1
Towards freedom in work	James Gillespie	5
Cover by	Rufus Segar

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ABC of ANARCHISM ALEXANDER BERKMAN

Alexander Berkman be­lieved that “Anar­chist books, with few ex­cep­tions, are not ac­ces­sible to the under­stand­ing of the aver­age reader. It is the com­mon fail­ing of most works deal­ing with so­cial ques­tions that they are writ­ten in the as­sump­tion that the reader is al­ready fa­mil­iar to a con­sider­able ex­tent with the sub­ject, which is gen­er­ally not the case at all. As a re­sult there are very few books treat­ing of so­cial prob­lems in a suf­fi­ciently simple and in­tel­ligible man­ner.”

  He set out to remedy this de­fi­ciency by writ­ing an “ABC of Anar­chism” which now ap­pears in a wel­come new edi­tion. The author be­gins:

  “I con­sider anar­chism the most ra­tional and prac­tical con­cep­tion of a so­cial life in free­dom and har­mony. I am con­vinced that its real­isa­tion is a cer­tainty in the course of human de­velop­ment. The time of that real­isa­tion will de­pend on two factors: first, on how soon ex­ist­ing con­di­tions will grow phys­ic­ally and spirit­u­ally un­bear­able to con­sider­able por­tions of man­kind, par­tic­u­larly to the labour­ing classes; and secondly, on the de­gree in which views will be­come under­stood and ac­cepted.

  “Our so­cial in­sti­tu­tions are founded on cer­tain ideas; as long as the lat­ter are gen­er­ally be­lieved, the in­sti­tu­tions built on them are safe. Govern­ment re­mains strong be­cause people think polit­ical au­thor­ity and legal com­pul­sion neces­sary. Cap­it­al­ism will con­tinue as long as such an eco­nomic sys­tem is con­sidered ad­equate and just. The weak­en­ing of the ideas which sup­port the evil and op­press­ive present-day con­di­tions means the ultim­ate break­down of govern­ment and cap­it­al­ism. Pro­gress con­sists in abol­ish­ing what man has out­lived and sub­sti­tut­ing in its place a more suit­able en­viron­ment.”

A Freedom Press paper­back

2s. 6d. (by post 3s.)

Freedom Press, 17a Maxwell Road, London, SW6

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Other issues of ANARCHY

VOLUME 1, 1961: 1. Sex-and-Violence, Galbraith*; 2. Work­ers’ control†; 3. What does anar­chism mean today?; 4. De­in­sti­tu­tion­al­isa­tion; 5. Spain 1936†; 6. Cinema†; 7. Ad­ven­ture play­grounds†; 8. Anthro­po­logy; 9. Prison; 10. MacInnes, In­dus­trial de­cent­ral­isa­tion.

VOLUME 2, 1962: 11. Paul Goodman, A. S. Neill; 12. Who are the anar­chists?; 13. Di­rect ac­tion*; 14. Dis­obedi­ence*; 15. The work of David Wills; 16. Ethics of anar­chism, Africa; 17. Towards a lumpen­pro­let­ariat; 18. Com­pre­hensive schools; 19. Theatre: anger and anar­chy; 20. Non-viol­ence, Freud; 21. Second­ary mod­ern; 22. Cranston’s dia­logue on anar­chy.

VOLUME 3, 1963: 23. Hous­ing, squat­ters, do-it-your­self; 24. Com­mun­ity of Schol­ars; 25. Tech­no­logy, cyber­net­ics; 26. CND, Sales­man­ship, Thoreau; 27. Youth; 28. The fu­ture of anar­chism; 29. The Spies for Peace Story; 30. The com­mun­ity work­shop; 31. Self-organ­is­ing sys­tems, Beat­niks, the State; 32. Crime; 33. Alex Comfort’s anar­chism†; 34. Sci­ence fic­tion, Work­less teens.

VOLUME 4, 1964: 35. House and home; 36. Arms of the law; 37. Why I won’t vote; 38. Notting­ham; 39. Homer Lane; 40. Unions and work­ers’ con­trol; 41. The land; 42. Indian anar­chism; 43. Par­ents and teach­ers; 44. Trans­port; 45. Anar­chism and Greek thought; 46. Anar­chism and the his­tor­ians.

† Sold out.   * Few copies left, sold to pur­chas­ers of yearly set only.

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Universities and Colleges
anarchy can be ob­tained in term-time from:

Bristol Uni­ver­sity: Ian Vine, Stu­dents’ Union; Bristol C.A.T.: Anna Roberts; Cambridge: Labour Club or CND; Leeds: Roy Todd, 15 Claren­don Place; London, Im­per­ial Col­lege: Donald Kirkley, Dept. of Elect. En­gin­eer­ing; Man­chester: Philip Mann, Drama Dept.; New­castle: Howard Nash, Dept. of Ar­chi­tec­ture; Oxford: Andrew Green, Magdalen Col­lege; Reading: Mike Bloom, St. Patrick’s Hall; Sussex: Paul Little­wood, Stu­dents’ Union.

More agents wanted!

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