Ooh, interesting, it looks like they’re going for the worker-consumer cooperative model. Very cool, I hope it works out

*liberatory projects, freaking autocorrect

My concern is how to make sure leadership in future liberators projections doesn’t transition from guidance to top down control, undermining the liberatory projects’ commitment and cohesion and allowing them to be more easily destroyed by reactionaries

Re: regulating the railways, I also don’t necessarily see why that requires a top-down style authority. Coordination, yes, safety protocols, yes, buy in and oversight by communities, yes, but I don’t see why the bottom up delegate-based system of coordination described couldn’t do that too.

The main critique of the CNT from most people sympathetic to what they did from what I’ve read is that charismatic people + a push for anti-fascist unity before revolution and entry into the government ministries undermined their project and allowed for the top-down state to reassert control

Lol the author says that in the next paragraph also, I hadn’t even realized. Basically the argument is that yes, it was still a market economy in most places at that point. More communization type stuff didn’t have time to fully take root before the May Days, partially cause CNT leaders sold out

Look into the concept of balanced job complexes from participatory economics- the goal would be to give every worker a fair proportion of empowering and menial labor, and slowly erode the skill hierarchy among workers by expanding access to empowering types of knowledge and labor.

I’m not following your logic- this seems like a major logical jump from 2.5x pay for several engineers. Say more?

Also, what is the state to you? How do you define “state?”

Why would you need a central authority to ensure workers rights if the workers control the railway?
But yeah, the pay differential isn’t ideal. But arguably over time as knowledge is democratized amongst workers and a new system stabilized, that could be gotten rid of.

The third quote is especially interesting in that it shows the capacity to plan, reallocate resources, and establish new lines

I mean the example I gave you is describing worker owned and managed railways, so it’s not that far off

You’ll note in one of the quotes it mentions establishing a new branch line to Aragon, so they must’ve built track

Fair enough, haha

bsky.app/profile/this...

Ooh I haven’t encountered sources on that- curious to read about it. I didn’t know the Ukrainian and Manchurian anarchists also seized railways, my impression had been that it was mainly agricultural stuff

The source they’re citing is Gaston Leval’s Collectives in the Spanish Revolution, pages 253-264, which might have more detail on anarchist-dominated unions’ control of the railways in that period.

libcom.org/article/work...

The NYPD is just doing what they were originally made for, being strikebreakers

For @iwriteok.bsky.social and @jamesstout.bsky.social- how seriously should we take allegations about the SDF/YPG shooting at protestors and doing other authoritarian things and losing popular support, based on your own experiences in the DAANES. How much do you think is true vs Turkish propaganda?