They are grounded in the free society. Conservatives want to save abstract principles and what we made of them in the present, but the combination that makes us the most free and open in the world. We could integrate immigrants. But we dont try. We are terrible failure of assimilation in the country. If we can address that we dont have to be any less of a nation of immigrants than we ever have been. I dont think if that is what burke thought, but it is what i thought. Host yuval levin, thank 0 f0 thanks for doing this. I hope everyone goes out and gets the book. The beauty of america is in this country we have the ability to write the script of our own life. We are in a sense in the drivers seat of our own future and her biggest decisions in life are made i us. America creates the sense of possibility and out of that you can become an activist, a Community Organizer read in a sense what are you doing . You are living off the great capitalist explosion of wealth that you didnt even create trade. So many strong men set up is hard to know where to begin. Nobody said his america is the most terrible place that there are a couple of assertions that you have to take on faith that are astonishing. One is the idea that americaamerica s great invention was Wealth Creation not based on theft at all. What about the theft of the entire continent . That was the theft. [applause] that doesnt mean 90 of the residents who live here were murdered. That was a part of it too. [applause] it is hardly a secret that the terms of political discourse are not exact leg models of precision and considering the way terms are used it is next to impossible to try to get a meaningful answer to such questions as what is socialism or what is capitalism or what our markets, free markets and many others in common usage. That is even more true of the term anarchism for reasons that nathan pointed out. It has not only been the subject of very use but also quite extreme abuse. Sometimes by bitter enemies and sometimes unfortunately by people who call it a manner of highs so much so, so much as a variation that it is that it resists any simple characterization. In fact the only way i can see to address the question that is posed this evening for anarchism is to try to identify some leading ideas that animate this major current of the rich and complex and often contradictory traditions of anarchist thought and virtually anarchist action. I think the sensible approach can start with remarks by the perceptive important anarchist intellectual and also activist rudolf rucker. He saw anarchism not as a fixed and closed social system with a fixed answer to all the multifarious questions and problems of human life but rather as a definite trend in the Historic Development of mankind, which strives for the free unhindered unfolding of all the individual and social forces in life. Its from the 1930s. These concepts are not really original. Big derive from the enlightenment and the early romantic period and rather similar words. Wilhelm then humbled one of the founders of classical liberalism among many other achievements described the leading principle of his thought as the absolute and essential importance of Human Development in its richest diversity. That is a phrase that jon stewart melt is the epigraph to his liberty. It follows from that than institutions that constrain such Human Development are illegitimate unless of course they can somehow justify themselves. You find a similar conception widely in enlightenment thought so for example and adam smith, everyone has read the opening paragraphs of wealth of nations where he extols the wonders of division of labor that not many people have gotten farther inside to read his bitter condemnation of division of labor and his insistence that in any Civilized Society the government will have to intervene to prevent it because it will destroy personal integrity and essential human rights. It will turn people he said into creatures as stupid and ignorant as a human can be. Its not too easy to find that passage, whatever the reason may be. If you look in the scholarly edition the university of chicago bicentennial, its not even in the index but its one of the most important passages in the book. Look at in these terms anarchism as a tendency in Human Development that seeks to identify structures of hierarchy and others that constrain Human Development. And then it seeks to subject them to very reasonable challenge. Justify yourself. Demonstrate that you are legitimate and maybe in some special circumstances or conceivably in principle, and if you cant meet that challenge which is the usual case, the structure should be dismantled and as nathan rightly as not just dismantled but to reconstruct it from below. The ideals that found expression during the enlightenment and the romantic era, they floundered on the shoals of rising industrial capitalism which is completely antithetical to them but rucker argues quite plausibly that they remain alive in libertarian socialist traditions that these range pretty wisely widely. They range from aunty bolshevik marxism, people like Carl Koresh Paul Maddock and others including the anarchists syndicalism that reaches peak of achievement in the revolutionary period and in spain in 1936 its well to remember that despite substantial achievements and successes it was crushed by the combined force of fascism, communism and western democracy. They have differences but they agreed that this had to be crushed the effort of free people to control their own lives. That had to be crushed before they turned to their petty differences which we call the spanish civil war. The same tendencies reached further to worker controlled enterprises. They are springing up in large parts of the old rust belt of the United States and northern mexico. They have reached the greatest development in the vast country of spain, monitor gone partly a reflection of the achievements of the long complex rich spanish tradition and partly it comes up with christian anarchist sources. There is also included in this general tendency but quite substantial and corporative movements that exist in many parts of the world. I think it also encompasses at least a good part of the feminist and human rights activism. Impart all of this sounds like tourism so why should anyone defend illegitimate structures . No reason of course. I think it is correct. It really is a truism, anarchism is what we call a truism that truisms have anarchism has merits. This particular truism belongs to an interesting category of principles, principles that are not only universal but doubly universal. They are universal in that they are almost universally accept it and universal in that they are almost universally rejected and practice. This is one of many of these. For example the general principle that we should apply to ourselves the same standards we do to others if not harsher ones, few would object that few would practice it or a more specific policy proposal like democracy promotion or the humanitarian intervention professors generally, rejected and practice almost universally. All doubly universal in this truism is the same. The truism that we should challenge and coercive institutions of all kinds, demand that they justify themselves, dismantle in reconstruction if they do not. Easy to say but not so easy to act done in practice. While proceeding with similar thoughts rocker iggy and trade anarchism seems to free labor from economic exploitation and to free society from ecclesiastical or political guardianship. And by doing that opening the way to an alliance of free groups of men and women they start corporative labor and a planned administration at of things in the interest of the community. Now he was in anarchist activist as well as a political thinker and he goes on to call on the workers and organizations and the popular organizations to create and im quoting not only the ideas but also the fact that the feature itself within current society. Its an injunction that goes back to conan. One traditional anarchist slogan is no god, no master. Its a phrase that took as his value old title of anarchist classics. I think its fair to understand the phrase no god in the terms that i just quoted from rocker. Positions as the ecclesiastical guardianship. Individual beliefs are a different matter. Its no matter of concern to a person concerned with Free Development of thought and action and that leaves the door open to the lively and impressive tradition of religious anarchism for example. But the phrase no master is different. That refers not to individual belief but to a social relation, a relation of subordination and dominance, a relation that anarchism if taken seriously seeks to dismantle and rebuild from below unless i can somehow meet the harsh burden of establishing its legitimacy. By now we have departed from truism. In fact to ample controversy. In particular right at this point the rather peculiar american brand of what is called libertarianism departs very sharply from the libertarian provision. It accepts and indeed strongly advocates the subordination of working people to the masters of the economy and furthermore the subjection of everyone to the restrictive discipline and destructive features of markets. These are topics worth pursuing and i will pick them up later if you would like but i will put them aside here. I am also recommending to you nathans comment, his suggestion about bringing together in some way the energies of the young libertarian left and right. As indeed it has sometimes done. For example its done in the quite important work of valuable theoretical and practical work of economists david ellerman. Anarchism of courses famously of posts to the state while at the same time advocating planned administration of things in the interest of the Community Rockers phrase again and beyond that broader selfgoverning communities and workplaces. In the real world of today the same dedicated anarchists who were opposed to the state often support state power to protect people and society and the earth itself from the ravages of concentrated private capital so it takes a venerable anarchist general like freedom. It goes back to 1886 formed journalist anarchism by supporters of her pod can. If you open the pages you will find much of it is devoted to defending the rights of people, the environment, society often by state power. Like regulation of the environments or safety and Health Regulations in the workplace. There is no contradiction here is sometimes his thought. People live and suffer and endure in this world and not some world that we imagine and all the means available should he used to safeguard and benefit them even if the longterm goal is to displace these devices and construct preferable alternatives. In discussing this i have sometimes used an image that comes from the brazilian Workers Movement that is discussed in interesting work by avery lewis. They speak of the image of widening the floors of the cage. The cages existing course of institutions that can be widened by committed popular struggle. It happened effectively over many years and if you could extend the image beyond think of the cage of coercive state institutions is the kind of protection from the savage beasts that are roaming outside and with a predatory state supported capitalist institutions that are dedicated to the principle of private gain, power, domination that was the interest of the community and may be revered in rhetoric but practice and even in angloamerican law. While its also worth remembering that anarchists condemned really existing states, not visions of unrealized democratic dreams such as government of, by and for the people. They bitterly opposed the rule of what looks and had called the bureaucracy which he predicted 50 years in advance would be among the most savage of human creations and they also opposed the parliamentary systems that are instruments of class rule. The contemporary United States for example which is not a democracy. Its a plutocracplutocrac y and very easy to demonstrate. The majority of the population has no influence over policy. As you move up in commonwealths fail you get more influence in the very top people get what they want well established by academic science as a measure to everyone who looks at the way work. It surely democratic system would be quite different. It would have the character of an alliance of free groups of men and women based on cooperative labor and a planned administration of things in the interest of the community. In fact thats not too remote from one version of the mainstream democratic ideal. Thats one version and i stress that and will return to others. Take for example the leading American Social loss of her of the 20th century john dewey. His Major Concerns for democracy and education. But no one took julie to be an anarchist. But Pay Attention to his ideas. In his conception of democracy illegitimate structures of coercion must be dismantled and that includes makem domination by business for private profit through private control of ranking, land, industry reinforced by press agents and other publicity and propaganda. He recognized still quoting, that power today resides in the control of the means of production, exchange publicity transportation and communication whoever owns them rules the life of the country even if democratic forms remain and until these institutions are in the hands of the public politics will remain the shadow cast by big business on society, very much what we see around us in fact. But its important that duly went eons calling for some form of public control. It could take many forms. He went beyond in a free and Democratic Society he wrote workers should read the masters of their own industrial fate not tools rendered via employers, not directed by state authorities. Now that position goes right back to the leading ideas of classical liberalism articulated by smith and others and extended in the anarchist tradition. Turning to education, and duly held that it is illiberal and immoral to train children to work not freely and intelligently but for the sake of the worker earned and to achieve test scores for example. In which case their activity is not free because its not freely participated in and its quickly forgotten as all of us know from our experience. So he proceeded to conclude that industry must be changed from a feudalistic to a democratic social order and educational practice should be designed to encourage creativity, exploration, independence, cooperative work, exactly the opposite of what is happening today. While these ideas lead to a vision of society based on workers control of productive institutions linked to Community Control within the framework of Free Association and federal organization. In the general style of thought that includes of course along with many anarchists others to max agd h. Kohls, the left antivulture that marxism, the current developments such as for example the civitas rate economics of policies of Michael Albert Robert Hamill and others along with important work in theory and practice by the late seymour mehlman, his associates and many others and notably a very recent contribution on worker owned enterprise and cooperatives, not just talk but actual taking place. Going back to dewey, he was as american as apple pie to borrow the old cliche, right in the mainstream of American History and culture. In fact all of these ideas and developments are very deeplyrooted in the american tradition and in American History. In fact which is kind of suppressed but actually very obvious when you look into it and when you pursue these questions to enter into an important terrain of inspiring often bitter struggles. Ever since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution which was right around here, lawrence and eastern massachusetts mid19th century. The first serious scholarly work study of the industrial worker in those years was 90 years ago still very much worth reading. He reviews the hideous working conditions that were imposed on formerly independent craftsman and immigrants and farmers as well as the socalled factory girls, young women brought from the farms to work in the textile mills around boston. He mentions that buddy focuses attention on something else, what he calls the degradation suffered by the industrial worker, the loss of status and independence which could not be canceled even where there occasionaoccasiona lly was some material improvement and he focuses on the radical capitalist social revolution in which sovereignty and Economic Affairs passed from the community as a whole into the keeping of a special class of masters, often remote from production to the producers and where it shows pretty convincingly that for every protest against Machine Industry and predation there can be 100 protests against the new power of capitalist production and its discipline. In other words workers were struggling and striking not just for bread but for roses in the traditional slogan of the workers communities and organizations. They were struggling for dignity and independence and for their rights as free men and women. Their journals are very interesting. Theres a rich lively labor press for written by working people artisans from boston and factory girls from the farms and in these journals they condemned what they called the blasting influence of monarchical influences on democratic soil which will not be overcome until they who work in the mills will own them, the slogan of the massive knights of labor and sovereignty will return to free and independent reducers. Then they will no longer be the humble subjects of a Foreign Debts but the absentee owner, slaves in the strictest sense of the word who toil for their masters. Rather they will regain their status as free american citizens the capitalist revolution instituted crucial change from price to wage. Its very important. When a producer sold this product for a price he retained his curse but when he came to sell his labor he sold himself read he quoted from the press. Thats a big difference. He lost his dignity as a person as he became a slave, a wage slave to use the common term of the period. 160 years ago a group of skilled workers repeated the common view that a daily wage was equivalent to slavery and they werent warned perceptively that a day might come when wage slaves will so forget what is due to manhood as the glory in a system forced on them by their necessity and in opposition to their feelings of independence and selfrespecy hoped would be far in the distance. These were very popular notions in the mid19th century. In fact so popular that they were a slogan of the republican party. You can read them in editorials in the new york times. They may come back, lets hope. Labor activists at the time warned bitterly often of what they called the new spirit of the age, and gained gain wealth forgetting all that self. That was 150 years ago and in sharp reaction to this demeaning spirit there were quite enormous and active rising movements of working people and radical farmers. Radical farmers began in texas and spread to the midwest and much of the country. Of course it was an agricultural country then but these were the most significant democratic popular movements in American History. They were dedicated to solidarity, mutual aid. They were crushed by force. They have a very violent labor history compared to other countries but its a battle thats not over, far from over. Despite set backs often violent repression. There are apologists, familiar apologists from the radical revolution of wage slavery and they argue that a worker should indeed glory in a system of free contracts voluntarily undertaken. There was an answer to that 200 years ago by shelley in his great poem mask of anarchy. This was written right after the massacre in england manchester the calvary that brutally attacked a peaceful gathering of tens of thousands of people, the first major example of the huge nonviolent protests and the reaction of the state authorities to it. They were calling for parliamentary reform. Shelley wrote that we know what slavery is. It is to work and have such pay is just keeps life from daytoday. Sna self for its entire used to dwell. It is to be slaved and sold them to hold no strong control over your own wills but yall that others make of you. That is slavery and that is what working people and independent farmers were struggling against. The artisans and factory girls who struggle for dignity and independence and freedom might very well have known shelleys words. Observers at the time noted that they were highly literate. They had good libraries than they were appointed with the standard works of english literature. This was before mechanism and wage slavery, the wage system and it the days and curtailed the days of independence, high culture and security. Before that he points at a workshop mightve been called the lyceum turning out the higher boys to read with the mall they worked. These were social businesses with many opportunities for reading and discussion and mutual improvement. Along with the factory girls and the journeyman and the artisans that bitterly condemned the attack on their culture. The same as chairman and when incidentally where conditions were much harsher. Theres actually a great book about this by Jonathan Rhodes called the intellectual life of the British Working class. Its a monumental study of Reading Habits of the working class in kinsey in england and he contrasts what he calls the passionate pursuit of knowledge by proletarian with the pervasive philistinism of the british aristocracy. Actually im old enough to remember the residents that remained among working people right here in new york in the 1930s who were deeply immersed in the high culture of the day. Its another battle that may have receded but i dont think its lost. I mentioned that duly and American Workers and farmers held one version of democracy. It was very strong libertarian elements of the dominant version has been radically different. Its most instructive expression is that the regressive end of the mainstream spectrum so that is among people who are good Woodrow Wilson fdr kind of liberals. There are a few representative quotes from the icons of the liberal intellectual establishment on democratic theory. The public are ignorant and meddlesome outsiders. They will have to be put in their place. Decisions must be in the hands of an intelligent minority of responsible men, namely us. We have to be protected from the trampling and roar of the bewildered herd out there. The herd does have a function in Democratic Society. They are supposed to lend their waves every few years to a choice among the responsible men but apart from that, their function is to be spectators, not participants in action. All of this is for their own good. We should not succumb to democratic dogmatisms about them being the best judges of their own interests. They are not. They are like children. We have to take care of them. We are the best judges of their own interests of their attitudes and opinions have to be controlled for their own benefit we have to regiment their minds the way in Army Regiments soldiers and we had to discipline the institutions responsible for what they called the indoctrination of the young, schools, universities and churches. If we can do this we can get back to the good old days. We get out of to the good old days when truman have been able to govern the country with the cooperation of a relatively small number of wall street employers and bankers through democracy. These are quotes from icons of liberal establishment. Walter lippman Edward Bernays harrell blass well founder of modern political science, Samuel Huntington Trilateral Commission and staff the carter administration. The conflict between these conceptions of democracy goes far back. It goes back to the earliest modern democratic revolution in 17th century england. At that time as you know there was a war raging between supporters of the king and supporters of parliaments. Thats a civil war that we read about. But there was more. The gentry, the men who call themselves of best quality, they were appalled by the dash you didnt want to be ruled by either king or parliaments and mike the spanish workers in 1936 they wanted to be ruled. They had their own pamphlet literature and they said they wanted to be ruled like a country that no one wants. It will never be a good world while knights and gentlemen make make and do not know the peoples swords. That 17th century england. The central nature of this conflict which as far from ended was captured nicely by Thomas Jefferson in his later years when he had serious concerns about both the quality and the fate of the democratic experiment. He made a distinction between what he called aristocrats and democrats. The aristocrats and im quoting him, are those who fear and distrust the people and wish to draw all powers into the hands of the higher classes and the democrats in contrast identify with the people have confidence on them, cherish and consider them as the honest and safe although not the most wise depository of the public interest. The modern progressive intellectuals, the wilson, roosevelt, kennedy intellectual left are those who seek to put the public in their place and are free from democratic dogmatisms about the capacity of the ignorant and meddlesome outsiders to enter the political arena. There they are jefferson aristocrats. These basic views are very widely held. There are some disputes mainly who should play the guiding role. Should it be what the liberal intellectuals called a the technocratic and policy oriented intellectuals, the ones we celebrate as intellectuals who run the progressive Knowledge Society or should it be bankers and Corporate Executives and other versions. Should it be the Central Committee or the Guardian Council of clerics . All have pretty similar ideas and they are all examples of the ecclesiastical and political guardianship that the genuine libertarian tradition seeks to dismantle and reconstruct from below. While also changing industry from feudalistic to a democratic social order, one that is based on workers control, Community Control, respects the dignity of the producer as a genuine person not a tool in the hands of others in accordance with the libertarian tradition that has deep roots and like marxs old mole is always burrowing quite close to the surface and ready to spring forth. Thanks. [applause] [applause] for the discussion i would like to invite anybody who has a question to line up behind the microphones on either side and please try to keep it concise and as you do that i would like to start if you dont mind. I wonder if you could Say Something about the images that represent some of your first encounters with anarchism. I think for people who have gotten excited about these ideas to the occupy movement it was important to see them practice somehow. I wonder what those images have been for you . I grew up in the 1930s as a kid in a deep depression and plenty of suffering. There were images that kind of stick in my mind of people. My parents were teachers so we had some money. We werent rich but we got along and in fact a whole family of unemployed workingclass kind of converged around our house, at least something. There were images of people coming to the door and trying to sell rags to try to get a piece of bread to survive. I remember riding with my mother on the trolley cars and watchine plants in philadelphia and watching women on strike being literally beaten by Security Forces and my own family, extended family was mostly unemployed workingclass nsi mentioned very high culture. As the new deal began to have an impact they were able to enjoy the string quartet. My unemployed seamstress and swear members of the Ladies Garment Workers Union and would get a couple of weeks in the countryside of solidarity camp. That was life and a lot of that was communist party. We were not allowed to say anything nice about the communist party as a rule and there were a lot of things wrong and i mentioned some of them but there were things that were right about it. One was that it overcame the amnesia that nathan talked about. It was always there. People remembered. Somebody remembered how to turn the mimeograph machine or organize a demonstration and he went from a civil rights demonstration to a labor organizing to something else. They had Crazy International ideas but it was kind of in the back of their minds. It wasnt what was really going on. The destruction of the communist party was quite important. He killed off the radical continuing elements that kept a lot of the left traditions going you know the reasons. It was the cold war framework. As far as the anarchists were concerned the place i learned about that was by reading. When i was a kid i would go to visit my relatives and as soon as i got old enough to get on the train at 11 or 12 years old i would take the train to new york and stay with my relatives but spent most of my time, for those of you who know new york, union square is to be the place where the anarchists offices were. Lots of pamphlets and lots of interesting people that were quite eager to talk to a young kid so its not hard to have discussions. Down below union square on fourth avenue, not today but then there were rows of small bookstores a lot of them run by european emigrates a lot of them spanish anarchist refugees who were also quite eager to talk and had lots of pamphlets and a real original documentary material. Actually when i wrote about this 20 years later i used documentary material that i had picked up as a young teenager. A lot of buzz is available now but that was a pretty inspiring picture i felt of the spanish revolution. It was a really inspiring moment which is why i think it elicited such a vicious response from every corner of power. Thats quite important to remember. Communists, fascists, liberal democracies all combined on this. This was something they couldnt tolerate. Then they could have a fight later about who puts up the spoils. Actually there were anarchist proposals that i felt were not unreasonable. For how to win the civil war. Anarchists thinkers like camile burn area that was murdered by the communists in may 1937, one of the leading anarchist thinkers. He proposed he pointed out and turned out quite correctly that they would never win a conventional war. For one reason because the commitment to the war on the part of the population had seriously declined after the revolution was crushed. They have lost what they had fought for and didnt care very much who is going to pick up the spoils. He pointed out, and of course the fascists were being directly supported by hitler and mussolini and the west was not opposed to that. We forget now but fascism had a pretty good energy and the west in the late 30s. Mussolini was that admirable italian general and hitler was regarded by the state department in the late 30s as a moderate who was holding off the forces of left and right so we shouldnt be too critical of him. The United States had a console in berlin up until pearl harbor who was sending back dispatches saying you shouldnt be too hard on hitler and mussolini couldnt provide and they couldnt find the left press couldnt find it but the state department could. Going back to bring airy with the proposed was that in spain itself the Popular Forces should fight a guerrilla war. That is a old spanish tradition to fight a guerrilla war and in morocco call for support the moroccan Liberation Forces that were trying to free themselves from french and british and spanish imperial control. That was the base of franklins army. They were moorish troops so his idea was to fight a revolutionary war and support them in their efforts to overthrow imperialist control they thought what he wrote the end fascist armies just as in spain itself the Popular Forces were fighting until they were crushed. Well if you read the scholarship on the matter and up until today that is kind of dismissed as a sort of romantic joke is the whole Anarchist Movement is but i dont think it was. That was my initial exposure to it. [laughter] hi. Thank you so much for doing this. I just wanted, you touched briefly, you have this wonderful and you touched on your familys engagement with high culture and i was going to ask you briefly on the contemporary state of high culture and serious art and how important you think engagements with that serious contemporary literature and music cinema whatever it is how important it is in exploring the vanguard of political thought and you know whether or not contemporary artists and contemporary audiences are rising to that challenge . I think its very important and im not the only one who thinks so. I think people with power think so. That is why the famous mural wasnt allowed to be put in the Rockefeller Center and that is why if you go back to cinema, say go back 60 years in the early 50s. Some of you will remember. In 1953, and it shersinger for cinema. There were two major films that came out. Two films that came out on the labor movement. One which was a Huge Box Office success with pr advertising and so on featured Marlon Brando was about a corrupt union leader and how the heroic joe with his lunchbox finally overcame the corrupt union leader at the end of this element throws them into the water and everybody cheers. That was one. There was another film, a marvelous film called salted the earth earth, a lowbudget film which was about a Victorious Strike led by a hispanic woman. It was really at rate film. If you can find it somewhere you should look at it. You can find it maybe in a small art theater in downtown new york somewhere but that wasnt the kind of film that was going to get publicity. And that runs through consistently. I think when people in power believe something firmly its worth paying attention to them and i think they believe firmly that it should not have revolutionary popular art in which people participate. Actually that is one of the reasons i think for destroying the beauty in the new york subways. That is considered a great achievement of bloomberg. Popular art all over the subways because thats just too dangerous. Its part of the drug war, the grotesque drug war and race war and murder. A large part of the came from the fact that the harlem renaissance black artists in harlem were playing jazz and smoking marijuana so that had to be destroyed. The mexicans were doing it too. This was pretty constant so yeah i think its really important. Noam what is preventinpreventin g people of anything from organizing themselves into worker controlled collaboratives . You alluded to coops and if not much is preventing them from doing so to what do you attribute their relative lack of popularity and the related question would be what could Union Control pensions for example be doing if the problem is capital for example . Why arent more entities like punitively worker controlled pensions invested in the capital they have control over in supporting these kinds of worker controlled alternatives . First of all pensions are not in the hands of the working people. The unions are not popular democracies. Pensions are in the hands of the bureaucrats and Money Managers and they are not about to hand over power to popular organizations. Actually thats not entirely true. There are some interesting initiatives. I dont know if theyre going to get anywhere but they are interesting. The united steelworkers which is one of the more progressive unions has recently made some tentative arrangements in the vast country this huge worker owned industrial banking Housing School educational cooperative. That could get somewhere and i mentioned pair away its work and is discussed in participates in the spread of worker owned enterprises in mostly Northern Ohio. They have kind of an interesting history. Back in 1977 at the beginning of the concerted efforts to destroy Industrial Production in the United States so the beginning of the neoliberal assault on the population, u. S. Steel decided to close its main steel plants in youngstown ohio. It was a steel town like other towns like detroit which had actually been built by the working classes. They didnt get the profits that they built it and they wanted to keep it. U. S. Steel wanted to sell it, to close it down and the union offered to buy it. They had community support. They even had some support of i think a republican governor. Just let the workers by the planting keep running it or you u. S. Steel did not want that and in fact this is pretty consistent. I mentioned david who is one that is worked on a number not create very common around here too. Hes from massachusetts. When the workers decide to try to take over an enterprise, an enterprise which may be perfectly profitable but not profitable enough for the multinational who runs it. Maybe they dont want to keep the books. When they try to buy it, which would be a good deal for the multinationals they refuse to sell it for class reasons. They have class interests. They do not want to see the spread of Popular Democratic organizations for perfectly obvious reasons. This just happened, and ill come back to youngstown in a minute but it happened a couple of years ago right here. It was a small but quite successful manufacturing plant made specialized parts for aircraft but the multinational didnt want to bother with it so they were going to close it down. The union tried to buy it. The multinationals usually refuse to sell it and there wasnt enough support, Popular Support to push it through. There was an occupy movement at that time, real. I think thats something they might if pushed through. Actually on a much larger scale. A couple of years ago the obama virtually nationalized Auto Industry. Not entirely but virtually. There were a couple of options. One option was to restructure it, use taxpayer funding and hand it back to the original owners or other people just like them with a different face, bankers and ceos etc. And then have it continue to do what it did before, building cars. That is what they chose. They handed over to the workforce and have been built what is needed in the country which is not more cars for traffic jams but highspeed mass transportation. The United States is very back what in the world in this respect. You take a highspeed train from beijing to kazakhstan but try to take a train from boston to new york. Its as low as it was 60 years ago. This is a really backward country and the former Auto Industry could have been handed over to the workforce and may be given some support to do this but that wasnt an option. A largescale suppose there had been a largescale occupy movement but broader and expanded. I think that takes popular consciousness but going back to youngstown the case went to court in 1977. The Union Workers lost and the steel mills were destroyed but they didnt give up. They didnt just say okay we will starve to death and go somewhere else. They began to organize small worker owned enterprises and they began spreading around the woodland area youngstown and Northern Ohio into other areas so it is taking place but its happening elsewhere to. In northern mexico they are quite successful with their plants. Its not easy because the banks dont like the capital and the government doesnt like to support them again for class reasons but at the sufficient Popular Support these things can develop. And its not easy. Its hard work and the people who organize usually suffer for it but thats typical of almost every civil rights movement. Practically any movement that has ever gotten anywhere the people of front usually take it in the chin. Its hard and people have to be willing to endure for longerterm gain and thats not easy but it can happen and it does. Hi. Im just curious if you could address the role of the surveillance technologies and increasingly the militarization of police as far as moving forward today and in the future and kind of where do you see that now . Their two things to bear in mind about that. The first thing is the phenomenon itself shouldnt be at all surprising. The second is that the scaled at least to me is kind of surprising. I hadnt really expected that scale but the phenomenon is normal and again as american as apple pie. You can go back a century. Take say the philippine war early in the 19th century, 20th century. It was a vicious war. The u. S. Conquered the philippines in the philippines killed after the military victory it had to be suppressed and controlled and a huge Pacification Campaign was initiated using the highest technology of the day for surveillance, subversion and breaking up groups and building up hostilities, all kinds of things. And if there is a disaster in the long term then its not their business. Its obvious with Environmental Issues and the same with nick their weapons. So sure this stuff is going to go on unless you stop it. You can stop it and it does not have to go on. Speaking you offer a critique of start of culture and entrepreneurship which offers many of the characteristics, the seeming characteristics of autonomy but isnt so . The seeming characteristics . Start of culture is okay. People like their absence so one but its based very heavily on state subsidy. Its kind of a narrow form of entrepreneurship. Take for example the Silicon Valley culture. What are they using . They are using computers or the internet and electronics and so one so forth almost all developed in the state sector for decades before its handed over to private power for commercialization and application. So there is initiative there. People are having fun and doing maybe interesting things but relying very heavily on the background state subsidy which takes many forms. Actually everyone at m. I. T. Salaries for years. [laughter] and for decades computers and the internet and the whole base of the i. T. Culture were developed right here or similar places and so on. Finally after decades it was handed over to bill gates and steve jobs to market and commercialize and make profit and make Little Things that you carry around with you. So its a kind of, it has entrepreneurial aspects but it is a parasitic, it is parasitic on much more development. Its hard work. The Creative Work is quite substantially in the state sector. Its not just subsidy. There are many other devices of taxpayer support for private enterprise. One of the main ones is her cair so for example in the early 60s ibm through the 50s had learned mostly in government laboratories, places like this had learned to switch from punch cards to Digital Computers and they built the worlds biggest computer in the early 60s. But it was much too expensive for business so the government bought it. That is the purchaser of last resort and i think it went to los alamos. That goes on all the time. Procurement is a major form of public subsidy to private enterprise and there are many other ways. This is one of the reasons why private capital does not want markets. They want markets for other people but not for themselves. For themselves they wont a nanny state, a powerful nanny state that will support them. What the significance of the entrepreneurial culture is you can judge. Im not overwhelmed by the fact that there are thousands of new apps coming. I think there are more important things. I had a question about how you reconcile the emancipatory tradition of anarchism to the kind of abstractness of the ideology itself around authority and power and coercion. It could be argued for example the federal government intervene in the south during the civil war was corseted federal states. We know that the civil war was a revolution of the slaves against slavery and the federal government ended up intervening much later but that could be argued that was a form of authority. Yeah so how do you actually navigate that with would say for example the marxist definition which would be between labor and capital for example . Do you see that as something that is maybe different from or a different perspective from anarchism because that could account for the reason why for example there are changes and andarko capitalism. The state is sent paying my workers in lowwage or whatnot. I didnt understand exactly. My question is authority itself is an abstract term. I dont think theres anything abstract about it. People do it all the time. That is jirga if you are a worker, a wage slave. Its true if you are ,com,com ma until very recently for most women its been obvious. Nothing abstract about it
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