Workers' Councils by Anton Pannekoek: Growth

From the back cover of Workers' Councils (2003 AK Press Edition)

"Workers' Councils is good, solid, working-class literature."

- Noam Chomsky

"What the working class strives for in its strugge, liberty and security, to be master of its own life, is only possible through control of the means of production. State socialism is not control of the means of production by the workers, but control by the organs of the state. If it is democratic at the same time, this means that workers themselves may select their masters. By contrast direct control of production by workers means that the employees direct the enterprise and construct the higher and central organisations from below. This is what is called the system of workers' councils."

In this timeless text, Anton Pannekoek provides his analysis of how we can create and sustain this practical model for such equality.

Anton Pannekoek was the main theoretician of Left Communism. He lived and worked in workers' councils from China to Germany over the first half of the century and militantly fought in working class struggles all his life. He wrote Workers' Councils while living under Nazi occupation in Holland during World War II

Workers' Councils has 5 parts; The Task, The Fight, The Foe, The War (1944), and The Peace (1947)

The audio recording here is Chapter 8, from first section of the book 'The Task', titled Growth.

Now that Capitalism is out of the picture, Pannekoek describes the new world and the task of reconstruction for the workers and their councils.

Workers' Councils is in the public domain. It is available from AK Press

Mark Stevens is part of  Project for a Participatory Society - United Kingdom (PPS-UK)