Workers' Liberty

Alliance for Workers’ Liberty
Day schools 2008:
Globalisation, imperialism, the Middle East (1)
Saturday 4 October, 12 to 5, SOAS, Thornhaugh St, London WC1
Saturday 18 October, 12 to 5, Pennines Room, Sheffield University Student Union
Political Islam
Sunday 9 November, 12 to 5, SOAS, Thornhaugh St, London WC1
Sunday 9 November, 12 to 5, Dales Room, Sheffield University Student Union
Globalisation, imperialism, the Middle East (2)
Sunday 14 December, 12 to 5, SOAS, Thornhaugh St, London WC1
Sunday 14 December, 12 to 5, Dales Room, Sheffield University Student Union

A study course, led by Sean Matgamna. Thursday evenings (1st, 3rd, and 5th Thursdays of the month) from 16 October 2008, 7.30pm at the Plough, Museum St, London WC1.

Download texts by Samir Amin, Ellen Wood, John Rees (see attachment): preliminary reading for AWL day schools.

An abridgement of Marx's Capital, volume 1, produced by the German Marxist Otto Rühle. Download as pdf (see "attachment").

This course covers Capital volume 1 in 10 weeks. The basic reading is either 'Capital' volume 1 itself, or Otto Ruhle's abridgement of 'Capital'. Copies of that abridgement are available, price £1.50, from the AWL, or you can read / download the document from this website.

Notes from Brisbane Workers' Liberty study course (2000), edited and rearranged. Download the pdf (see "attachment"); or, to read online, click on "read more".

Glossary

The AWL, Trotskyism and the Marxist tradition: sections E1 to E8

The state and revolution: sections D1 to D8

The revolutionary outlook: sections C1 to C6

How class struggle changes the world: sections A7 to B5

Capital, workers, and socialism: sections A1 to A6

Here is a PowerPoint presentation on commodities, value, wage-labour, profit, and capital. It is designed as back-up for talking through the issues, rather than as a stand-alone. You may find it useful when reviewing your notes from a study group on these issues, or when leading a study group.

Download as pdf (see "attachment" below), or read on.

**** Please note Tuesday's session is cancelled. Why The Working Class (originally on Tuesday) replaces Thursday's session on Anarchism ****

This school covers the same broad areas as the AWL week school in July, but each area in a different way, using different texts and different activities - sometimes activities which were in the July school schedule but which we could not do then for lack of time. It will be held in London. To register to attend, contact the AWL office.

Sessions: 1. Skills
2. Why the working class?/ How to do educationals
3. Marxism and Economism
4. Marxism, Anarchism, and Zapatism
5. The National Question and Israel-Palestine in Particular
6. D

Sessions: 1. Skills
2. Why the working class?/ How to do educationals
3. Marxism and Economism
4. Marxism, Anarchism, and Zapatism
5. The National Question and Israel-Palestine in Particular
6. Debating and arguing

You can find the text here. Skip the section headed "By what is the price of a commodity determined?", but do make sure to read the Introduction.

You can find the text here. Skip the section headed "By what is the price of a commodity determined?", but do make sure to read the Introduction.

A guide to studying the Communist Manifesto (PDF). If you prefer to download it as a Word file, click here.

A guide to studying the Communist Manifesto ('Word' file). If you prefer to download it as a PDF, click here.

The IWW was a trade-union organisation, a revolutionary trade-union organisation, founded in 1905 in the USA, whose heyday was between 1905 and 1914.

We surveyed the IWW's distinctive organising approaches:

1. Fastest-growing categories of employment: USA

Henwood gives a list for the USA. None of the 30 top categories is a factory operative/ machine minder category. That does not mean that those workers are disappearing. There are as many car workers in the USA today as in the 1970s. But the fastest growing categories are elsewhere.

• Marx argues that class struggle and working-class combination (trade unions) is endemic in capitalism, at all stages. "The contest between the capitalist and wage-labourer dates back to the very origin of capital..." (Ch.15.5). Workers' "struggles for the standards of wages are incidents inseparable from the whole wages system" (WPP); the basic "activity of the trade unions... cannot be dispensed with so long as the present system of production lasts" (TUPPF).
  
  

Discussion group on Working class and trade unions: Marx and today.

Three key excerpts.

Agenda:

Short plenary introduction

Small-group discussions one: Transitional programme vs fake ultra-leftism

Small-group discussions two: Marxism vs Apparatus Marxism

Small-group discussions three: Striving to be "the memory of the class" vs invention of tradition