Socialism

Freedom without socialism is privilege and injustice and Socialism

without freedom is slavery and brutality. M.Bakunin

Socialism

Democratic

Libertarian

Revolutionary

It's much easier to imagine the end of all life on earth than a much more modest radical

change in capitalism.

S Zizek

Visions of a new world

The end of socialism?

Loss of vision

Loss of belief

Loss of optimism

The future Socialism in the present (and the past)

• The Paris Commune of 1870• The Soviets of 1905 and 1917• Spanish Revolution of 1936-38• Portugal’s 1974 Revolution• Zapatista community rebellion 1994-Present• Worker controlled factories Argentina

• Workers self-management in the Bolivarian Revolution

The content of Socialism

• Worker and community (generalised) self-management of the workplace and society

• Directly democratic structures of administration

• Transformation of social relations

• Abolition of wage labour

Socialist Transformation is not a Party Affair

• Politics too important to be left to politicians

• Plurality of social movements and socialist organisations

• Centrality of autonomous activity ‘from below’

• Pre-figurative organisations

• Can the trade unions really be ‘schools of socialism’?

• Do the trade unions need to be transformed into vehicles for socialist transformation? Is it possible?

• Is another (democratic, libertarian, revolutionary) unionism possible?

• The global working class: inside, outside and beyond the trade unions?

Some questions for our movement