Workers Solidarity Movement

Anarchists are those socialists who are anti-authoritarian, who place great stress on liberty and workers’ control. For this reason, we want to abolish the state at the same time as we abolish the division of society into a boss class and a working class.

The autumn and winter of 2010 saw the sudden and dramatic re-emergence of radical student movements, with mass student uprisings taking place across Europe and the United States in opposition to both the austerity measures being levelled against ordinary people as a result of the crisis in capitalism, and the neoliberal restructuring of education according to the needs of capital. Across the Western world, governments are introducing measures to transform universities into “factories of precarious workers” - institutions devoted to the production of graduates equipped with the skills and ideas desired by industries increasingly reliant on immaterial and mental labour, turning ideas into profits. These employees must be willing to work in increasingly precarious situations, either entirely unpaid, or for increasingly low wages on increasingly short-terms contracts – a transformation that is increasingly meeting resistance from both students and academic staff, and which has only accelerated since the present crisis began. Meanwhile, in the Arab world, students have played a key role in the mass uprisings to topple Western-backed thugs such as Zine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak.

A motion at the annual Congress of the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) today calling for the “setting up of a policy study group” within the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to “conduct an urgent enquiry into …. the feasibility of the Irish state re-taking into public ownership” Ireland’s Natural Resources has been passed by a unanimous vote - a level of support that took even those who strongly supported the motion by surprize.

Kevin Rafter's “Democratic Left: The Life and Death of a Political Party” is a study of its short lifespan from 1992, when it split from the Workers Party (WP), to 1999, when it merged with the Labour Party. As such, it can be seen as a companion piece to Scott Miller and Brian Hanley’s “The Lost Revolution”, a history of the Workers Party. Rafter’s work, however, is somewhat different as it has an academic style, being his PhD thesis, which some may find off-putting. Nevertheless, it is an entertaining read for those with an interest in the dynamics of political organisations. All of the main protagonists were interviewed as part of Rafter's research and internal party documents are widely referenced, so his version of events is reasonably accurate, one would suspect.