Root & Branch

Three interviews: CNT and Mujeres Libres Manifesto [1977]

Interviews from members of the CNT and Mujeres Libres- a women's anarchist group in post-Franco Spain.
Translated into English for the libertarian socialist journal Root & Branch issue #5.

Spain: Some Aspects of the New Workers’ Movement

Feature article on workers' struggles in Spain after the death of Franco for Root & Branch issue #5.
Root & Branch was a 1970s libertarian socialist publication out of the U.S.

Introduction to Workers' Councils - Peter Rachleff

Introduction to Anton Pannekoek's Workers' Councils, written in 1975 by US libertarian socialist collective Root & Branch.

Problems and prospects - Paul Mattick, Jr.

Paul Mattick, Jr. writes for Root & Branch in 1975. He writes on the growth of the public sector and passivity taught in schools and media and revolutionary organizations (unions, parties) as instruments for integration of the working class, and how left-pessimists mistake class analysis with the bourgeois status/income categories.

Living conditions in the united states - Joe Eyer

Joe Eyer, a biology student at the time, writes about social causes and health effects of stress under capitalism in the US for Root and Branch in 1975. Blacks suffered the worst, followed by women and the young. The current crisis affected young the most whereas the great depression affected young the least. The fragmented working class leads to inability to act. Mortality rate, suicide rate etc all track with the economy. WW2 lessened unemployment but taxation and inflation rose - Keynes is a failure in this respect...

Old Left, New Left, What's Left? - Paul Mattick, Jr.

Paul Mattick Jr. takes a look at the 'New Left' and student movement at the end of the 1960s.

NB this is a longer version of the text that appeared in Root & Branch #1.

A break with the past - Stanley Aronowitz

Stanley Aronowitz writes for Root & Branch: The Rise of the Workers' Movements (1975), pp. 71-93. Class analysis of USA based on Aronowitz’s own family. Future generation needs to break racism, sexism, authority within the class—not fight for more consumption, but for the abolition of capitalism.