Author: Unknown | File size: 332

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You can’t blow up a social relationship. The total collapse of this society would provide no guarantee about what replaced it. Unless a majority of people had the ideas and organisation sufficient for the creation of an alternative society, we would see the old world reassert itself because it is what people would be used to, what they believed in, what existed unchallenged in their own personalities.

Proponents of terrorism and guerrilla-ism are to be opposed because their actions are vanguardist and authoritarian, because their ideas, to the extent that they are substantial, are wrong or unrelated to the results of their actions (especially when they call themselves libertarians or anarchists), because their killing cannot be justified, and finally because their actions produce either repression with nothing in return or an authoritarian regime. Terrorism or propaganda by the deed can be of no benefit to the working class, as capitalism is a social relationship, not a group of bad individuals

This essay was first published as a pamphlet around late 1978 or 1979, in the aftermath of the Sydney Hilton Bombing of 13 February 1978. The black humour of the time around the anarchist movement was that the police and security forces framed Ananda Marga, a socio-spiritual organisation and movement founded in India, because they came before Anarchism in the alphabet.

The arguments in this pamphlet are still as valid today as when they were written all those years ago.

First published (1979?) in Australia by Libertarian Socialist Organisation

This second Zabalaza Books edition July 2014

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Author: Common Cause  | File Size: 322 KB

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Unemployment is a permanent fixture of capitalism. It is not simply the outcome of those who make bad life choices. There are no “cracks” to fall through when the entire foundation is designed with gaping holes. Mass unemployment is not merely a failure to apply a more compassionate capitalism, or a more Keynesian economic model with progressive taxation and better state provisions for the working class. Even the major structural reforms that brought about the post-World War II establishment of the Welfare State never ended unemployment. In fact, in hindsight we can see that these reforms merely set up a system whose subsequent dismantling has left a pacified and disorganized working class in its wake….

 This text is from Volume 2 of Mortar: Revolutionary Journal of
Common Cause Anarchist Organization | Linchpin.ca

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Author: Two Toronto Members of Common Cause  |  File size: 1.22 MB

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Gentrification, etymologically speaking, is a relatively new word, coined in 1964 by the English Marxist sociologist Ruth Glass. Conceptually, some would claim that it has been a feature of urban life for hundreds of years. Between 1853 and 1870, for instance, the Haussmannization of Paris forced thousands of poor people from the centre of the city, where rents had traditionally been cheaper, to the urban periphery; these migrations were the forced results of structural changes Baron Haussmann had proposed to the city’s urban geography, and rapidly increasing rents. We might anachronistically consider displacements such as these an example of gentrification, but, as we will explore below, the term has some specificity and nuance that such comparisons fail to capture.

From the first volume of Mortar, the theoretical journal of Common Cause

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ZB: we repost this obituary from the WSA’s Ideas and Action site to pay our respects to Scott Rittenhouse.

We first had contact with Scott a number of years back when he got into contact with us about republishing some of the texts he had written [See the pamphlet Why You Should Not Trust the Church and the ‘Fundamentals of Anarchism’ leaflets What is Free Association?, Anarchism and Immigration, What is Mutual Aid?, Anarchism and Freedom and What is Anti-Authoritarianism?]. We did not have contact again for a numbers of years until about a month ago when he wrote us an email about publishing some more works of his. Not having the time then, we were not able to do so and now it is with a heavy heart that we read this.

If any of Scott’s comrades have access to his texts that are as yet unpublished, please can they send them to us so that we may show our respects for our comrade by publishing them. You can contact us via the Contact page above.

We send our condolences to all the friends, family and comrades of Scott… his loss was a great loss to us all.

Mourn… and Organise!

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