Workers Solidarity Movement

Analysing human societies as complex systems can provide an insight into historical processes and the strengths and weaknesses of capitalism.

Complex systems theory is a scientific theory coming out of a tradition of catastrophe theory, chaos theory, control theory, and especially cybernetics. Complex systems theory arises as a rejection of the traditional programme of reductionist science. It rejects reductionism as being both unnecessary and intractable.

Traditional physics has attempted to find fundamental laws at the smallest granularity possible. However, it is now known that because of the nature of interactions at very detailed granularity, it can be computationally intractable to predict behaviour of aggregate systems. Water, for instance, is best described (under most conditions) with fluid flow equations which describe aggregate behaviour with relatively simple (non-linear) equations. Attempting to describe it as an aggregate wave function of 1026 interacting quantum particles is not computationally feasible. Instead complex systems theory attempts to describe systems at a natural granularity that allows for tractable prediction of behaviour.

Over the last few years, the Workers Solidarity Movement, the anarchist organisation that publishes this magazine, has grown considerably. We went from being an organisation with only a dozen members or so, to an organisation six times that size. As part of that growth we have had to reassess our internal workings and devise a range of new processes and structures for communicating, coordinating and democratic decision making. This article describes this process of change. It is hoped that it may serve as a useful case-study for other groups facing similar problems and as a small demonstration of the how anarchist organisational principles can be applied in practice.

What do anarchists want? To put it briefly, we want to get rid of capitalism and replace it with a society organised to serve the needs of the many, we want to make real the old call of “from each according to ability, to each according to need”. This will be a socialism where everyone affected by a decision can take part in making that decision, and where the liberties of the individual are respected.

April saw Workers Solidarity Movement members from around the country meet for their twice-yearly conference. As the WSM has a much fuller concept of democracy, it organises itself quite differently to the way Fianna Fail, Sinn Fein, the DUP or Labour do. The conference is open to every member and every member can put a motion for consideration. Decisions are made by majority vote. As well as setting out policy, the conference also elects officers and discusses how to put our policies into action in our day-to-day political activity.

Revolutionary organisational principles, both internal and external as theorised by various tendencies.

Passed by WSM National Conference, May 2008.

On this page we have archived educationals and talks given to WSM meetings dealing with the anarchist movement in general. Specific topics include arguments for political organising, analyses of contemporary prospects for revolution, travellers' accounts of anarchism in Africa and South America and others. Some of the pieces are useful only for historical purposes, but most are still relevant today. We hope you find it useful.

The objective of this article is to deal with certain issues that I believe to be insufficiently dealt with if at all, in the article of Joe Black, “Anarchism, Insurrections and Insurrectionalism”. I believe those issues to be of importance if we are to debate on insurrectionalism, so as to understand in perspective some of its ideas and the specific place it has in the general anarchist movement.

Looking around the world today it can be difficult to imagine how the society that we want to see can be created. But rather than sitting back and waiting for capitalism to collapse, or for the revolution to come, we believe in organising in the here and now.

Policy on internal education in the WSM. Last updated Feb 2013.