textfiles/politics/SPUNK/sp000684.txt

The information in this file was recently published in FREEDOM  -
the fortnightly anarchist journal published by FREEDOM PRESS:

FREEDOM PRESS (IN  ANGEL  ALLEY)  84B  WHITECHAPEL  HIGH  STREET,
LONDON E1 7QX GREAT BRITAIN

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ITALY

Italy has recently seen much debate within the anarchist movement
about  the  question  of  self-management.  Here  we  bring you a
contribution to this debate. We feel sure that  the  Milan  group
would be interested in hearing from readers of Freedom interested
in and/or involved in this area...

The experiences of the last few years have allowed us to conclude
that   the  established  or  institutionalised  left  is  totally
incapable  (on  either  a  theoretical  or  practical  level)  of
responding concretely to the needs and demands of the people. The
rugged debate around the themes of federalism and use of language
by  groups  who  have  nothing  to  do with such concepts and the
continual attempt to present oneself as 'new' in order  to  cover
up  past  skeletons provide us with  the general framework within
which has fermented the experiences and movements which, over the
years,  have  started  to  redefine, in practice and with a self-
managed development, new ways to face up to the demands of  daily
life. In this way people began to turn to craft, agricultural and
entertainment activities which either used modern  technology  or
reproduced  more  traditional modes of production, but always had
as their final objective the effective control of  people's  work
and  their lives. Social centres, alternative banks, self-managed
schools, squats, producer or consumer co-operatives, self-managed
musical  productions... such are some of the phenomena which have
been adopted by the self-management method.
 In the 80s, such practices were recognised by a  denial  of  the
"projectual'  and political dimension to which was opposed a kind
of minimalism which can be summed up in the  small  is  beautiful
slogan.  Over  the  following years these groups began to realise
that shutting yourself off in your own cocoon was  pointless;  in
fact  it ran the risk of bringing with it a progressive implosion
that would wipe out or denaturalise the experience, giving ground
to   market   forces   and  those  of  profit  (or  quite  simple
extinction). In addition a long and  painful  process  was  begun
(still  today in its early stages) of confronting and opposing to
similar groupings which had usurped the self-management label. It
was  in  this  way  that  the  first  exchanges  began, the first
contacts: we were painfully seeking to escape from the margins, a
kind  of  ghettoisation  to which the dominant society would send
these ideas which in the long run could  put  the  organisational
terms  and  conditions  of the state in jeopardy, which in itself
reveals a fragility and more and more clearly  an  incapacity  to
answer  to,  in  an  acceptable  fashion, the demands of ordinary
people.

 Thus, after a meeting which took place in Bologna, over the last
few  months  we  sought  to  verify  in  a  concrete  fashion the
potential for a movement both divided and contradictory but  also
full  of energy and potential. That is to say that we thought the
value of this  exchange,  of  concrete  experiences  as  abstract
elaborations,  would  be  that it could provide a new springboard
for  expansion  and  bring  about  the  opportunity  for  further
exchanges  and  the  spreading  of the movement. Moreover, if the
economic crisis (and above all the question of employment) brings
to  light  the  inability  of capitalism to answer to the primary
needs of a large part of the planet... then it seems to  us  that
the   moment   has  arrived  for  us  to  begin  to  set  up  the
opportunities for dialogue between the different tendencies which
exist amongst those concerned with self-management.
 In essence, our ambition is to develop an  atmosphere  in  which
the  different groupings concerned can be put in contact with one
another so that opportunities for dialogue can  be  brought  into
being  and  nurtured concerning the fascinating if difficult area
of concrete utopias. This is a necessary first step for those who
wish  to  escape  from  the marginality of the ghettos into which
those with power  would  condemn  us,  contributing  towards  the
opening up of new political and social spaces of co-operation and
exchange outside of the market.

LE MONDE LIBERTAIRE October 94