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Anarcho-syndicalism on BoingBoing?

By Aaron Stark at Jul 16, 2009

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 Was anyone else shocked to see a positive mention of anarcho-syndicalism on the liberalish tech-geek site BoingBoing this morning?

Artisnal Retro-Futurism and Team-Scale Anarcho-Syndicalism 

And here is the presentation that inspired the post:

FutureRuby Talk: "Artisanal Retro-Futurism and Team-Scale Anarcho-Syndicalism" 

It does have some glaring historical inaccuracies ("anarcho-syndicalism was crushed by the U.S. government in 1924"-- what about the Spanish Civil War, and the crushing of the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement by fascism, Western indifference, and (arguably), by Stalin?). Additionally the presentation doesn't make any mention of building up networks of worker and consumer cooperatives so that an entire society can democratically control its economic life, something that from my limited understanding of anarcho-syndicalism is rather important to the theory.  It seems like what the presentation means by "anarcho-syndicalism" is more along the lines of "workplace democracy", for some at least. It is unclear whether janitors and secretaries and other non-programmers would be allowed to participate, if they don't follow Agile software development methodology. The presentation makes no statement of support about existing unions, although no statement of non-support is made either. 

All that being said, this is rather interesting and potentially important to anarcho-syndicalists. This is the first time that I've seen a major tech-geek blog post favorably about a presentation that does the following (caveat: there may have been other posts like this, this is just the first one I've seen.)

a) mentions worker solidarity favorably, rather than as something for IT workers to sniff at unfavorably: 
("

 

  • Worker solidarity:
    • This is the one principle that wasn't followed in the cubicle incident
    • The scrum master could've been fired
    • Under worker solidarity, the entire team would've said 'You'll have to fire us all!'
    • (That's okay, though: 'Scrum masters are not hard to come by' - you've seen the courses: 'Two days, $2000, you can be a scrum master!'")

 

b) bashes Ayn Rand, in a sense:

("Sometimes it's 'our cursed individualism' that gets in the way, the need to be the Ayn Rand hero — we'd be a lot more effective if we could get past that."),

and c) recognizes worker alienation in the context of large organizations and (maybe?) in capitaism as a whole:

("The problem is that the economies of scale that drive corporations to be larger and make more money are also diseconomies for the people working within them")

What do people think here? Is this something that anarcho-syndicalists and Pareconists find exciting? Or is it just more mainstream co-optation of left movements? 

 

Comment On This Blog Post  See All Comments (1)

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By Crase, Calvin at Jul 25, 2009 14:38 PM

I don't necessarily find it that exciting.  I do agree that one can be a wage slave and still enjoy one's work.  Also if one can go before a board of directors, or your boss and collectively make a case that more work would get done if there were no cubicles then it's possible that they might take the cubicles down.  That doesn't really represent the spirit of anarcho-syndicalism in my view.  There is obviously a long history of labor requesting alleviating pressures from management and occasionally giving in.  However if labor starts to ask for too much or get out of control then management usually wont budge.  Times have changed considerably since the 1920's so nobody is getting beaten to death, but there are mechanisms for dismissing trouble-makers and making a point.  

There's also some pretty good books I've read by David Noble who writes about automation and how there are circumstances where management will sacrifice profits for control.   You can find some of the origins of this in Scientific, or Taylorite Management.  Basically profit is one motive, control by management is another.  It just kind of depends on the managers the size of the company and I imagine a few other factors as to whether or not there are certain pressures alleviated.  

Example:  One manager is requested to tear down the cubicles because it's uncomfortable and not contributing to productivity and is in fact limiting productivity.  Employees are happier and productivity increases.

 

Example 2: One manager is requested to tear down the cubicles because it's uncomfortable and not contributing to productivity and is in fact limiting productivity. Manager resists pressure recognizing that there is a greater factor here which involves control.  You don't want your workers talking too much.  If the walls come down then they might start to have conversations, they might start talking about how great is that there is no cubicles and they should ask for more freedoms, and rights.  Or for that matter just talking to each other in general leads to bouncing ideas of one another and possibly (horror) organizing.  

Those are 2 different situations and if I had to guess what the variable is that causes 2 managers different responses it would be the class of people doing the work, as well as the size of the firm.  

Sorry if I rambled on for awhile.  

Sincerely,

Cal Crase

 

 

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