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6/2017, Dario Azzellini's newsletter in English
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0. Before

1. New Book:  "Communes and Workers' Control in Venezuela  Building 21st Century Socialism from Below".

Ours To Master and To Own: Workers Control From the Commune to the Present. Edition published by Aakar, Delhi, for India, 2017

2. Academic articles: Book chapters and journal articles (English/German/Italian)

3. Videos/Audios (English/Spanish)

4. Interviews and press articles (English/Spanish/Turkish)

5. Reviews (English/Spanish)

6. Events (NY)

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0. Before

Hello!

Dario Azzellini

I will be at the Left Forum in NYC and at the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy (also in NYC) scroll down to 6) for more details!

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My new book on Venezuela "Communes and Workers' Control in Venezuela. Building 21st Century Socialism from Below" has been published by Brill! It is already available with the publisher. In November 2017 it will be published at a much cheaper price by Haymarket as paperback (see 1).

The book covers the time between 1998 and 2014. Nevertheless, even in the midth of the multiple crisis Venezuela is suffering, which is fostered by the low oil prices, the violence of the opposition, the economic war waged by private entrepreneurs, political and economic attacks by the US, corruption and missing counter measures by the government... the positive examples of how to overcome the crisis and the capitalist rentist and extracitvist model come from the communes and the initiatives in favor of workers control.

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An Alternative Labour History (Zed Books 2015) has been published in Turkish! Scrool down to 1 for more information

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Call for Participation to the VI International Gathering of “The Workers’ Economy”
Buenos Aires/Pigüé, Argentina, August 30 to September 2, 2017

The VI International Gathering of “The Workers’ Economy” will take place in Argentina between August 30 and September 2, 2017. An opening event will be held at the worker-recuperated Hotel BAUEN in the City of Buenos Aires, and the rest of the gathering will continue at the facilities of the Textil Pigüé Cooperative, a worker-recuperated factory in the interior of the province of Buenos Aires. We invite the participation of all workers from recuperated and self-managed enterprises, cooperatives and social and popular economy organizations, as well as trade unions and academics interested in and committed to self-management practices and the project of a new workers' economy.

Continue reading and more information: www.recuperadasdoc.com.ar, or contact centrodoc@gmail.com and sextoencuentrointernacional@gmail.com

Best,

Dario

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1. New Books (English/Turkish):

Dario Azzellini: Communes and Workers' Control in Venezuela. "OUT NOW"

Building 21st Century Socialism from Below. Brill. Novermber 2016.

In Communes and Workers' Control in Venezuela: Building 21st Century Socialism from Below, Dario Azzellini offers an account of the Bolivarian Revolution from below. While authors on Venezuela commonly concentrate on former president Hugo Chávez and government politics, this book shows how workers, peasants and the poor in urban communities engage in building 21st century socialism through popular movements, communal councils, communes and fighting for workers' control. In a relationship of cooperation and conflict with the state, social transformation is approached on 'two tracks', from below and from above. Azzellini’s fascinating account stands out because of the extensive empirical examples and original voices from movements, communal councils, communes and workers.

Out in now with Brill and in 2017 as paperback with Haymarket.

Read more and see table of content:

http://www.brill.com/products/book/communes-and-workers-control-venezuela
http://www.azzellini.net/node/2948

Online book:

http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/books/9789004331754

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Immanuel Ness, Dario Azzellini: Ours To Master and To Own: Workers Control From the Commune to the Present. Edition published by Aakar, Delhi, for India, 2017.

From the dawning of the industrial epoch, wage earners have organized themselves into unions, fought bitter strikes, and gone so far as to challenge the very premises of the sytem by creating institutions of democratic self-management aimed at controlling production without bosses. With specific examples drawn from every corner of the globe and every period of modern history, this pathbreaking volume comprehensively traces this often underappreciated historical tradition. Ripe with lessons drawn from historical and contemporary struggles for workers' control, Ours to Master and to Own is essential reading for those struggling to create a new world from the ashes of the old.

http://www.azzellini.net/node/2994
http://aakarbooks.com/content/ours-master-and-own-workers-control-commun...

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Dario Azzellini: Emeğin Alternatif Tarihi
Amara Yayıncılık, Posted on 31. Enero 2017

Konsey komünizmi, anarko-sendikalizm, İtalyan operaismo’su ve diğer “heretik” sol akımlar yoluyla Paris Komünü hakkındaki yazılarını izleyen “Emeğin Alternatif Tarihi”, şimdiye kadar görmezden gelinen tarihsel ve çağdaş otonom işçi hareketlerinin uygulama ve amaçlarını açığa çıkarmaktadır. Bu kitap, işçilerin işyerlerinde süreklilik ve öngörülebilirliği sağlayarak katılımcı demokrasinin anlatımı üzerinden kendi topluluklarını stabilize edebileceğini göstermektedir. Tarihin tekrar tekrar gösterdiği gibi işçiler her zaman için kendi girişimlerini işletebilme kapasitesine sahiptir.

“Küresel finansal kriz çalışanların yeni türden bir militanlığına yol açtı. Radikal protesto biçimleri ve yeni işçi kontrolleri küresel düzeyde yayıldı. Birleşik Devletler ’deki Windows&Doors, 2013 Ocak’ında işçi kontrolü altında üretim yapmaya başladı. Sonrasında, Yunanistan’daki işçiler bir oteli, hastaneyi, gazeteyi, TV kanalını ve fabrikayı ele geçirip yönettiler.

http://www.azzellini.net/es/node/2996
http://amarayayincilik.com/urun/emegin-alternatif-tarihi/

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2. Academic articles: Book chapters and journal articles (English/German/Italian)

Dario Azzellini: "21st century socialism? Venezuela’s solidarity, social, popular and communal economy" in: Towards just and sustainable economies The social and solidarity economy North and South, Edited by Peter North and Molly Scott Cat.

Policy Press, Univertsity of Bristol: 19.04.2017, pp.213-233

With capitalism in crisis - rising inequality, unsustainable resource depletion and climate change all demanding a new economic model - the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) has been suggested as an alternative. What can contribute in terms of generating livelihoods that provide a dignified life, meeting of social needs and building of sustainable futures? What can activists in both the global North and South learn from each other? In this volume academics from a range of disciplines and from a number of European and Latin American countries come together to question what it means to have a 'sustainable society' and to ask what role these alternative economies can play in developing convivial, humane and resilient societies, raising some challenging questions for policy-makers and citizens alike.

See more at: http://www.azzellini.net/node/3003
https://policypress.co.uk/towards-just-and-sustainable-economies#book-de...

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Dario Azzellini: “Constituent and Constituted Power: Reading social transformation in Latin America.” Betances, Emelio; Figueroa; Carlos (Eds.): Popular Sovereignty and Constituent Power in Latin America: Democracy from Below. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. 15-40.

This book combines a bottom-up and top-down approach to the study of social movements in relationship to the development of constituent and constituted power in Latin America. The contributors to this volume argue that the radical transformation of liberal representative democracy into participative democracy is what colours these processes as revolutionary. The core themes include popular sovereignty, constituted power, constituent power, participatory democracy, free trade agreements, social citizenship, as well as redistribution and recognition issues. Unlike other collections, which provide broad coverage of social movements at the expense of depth, this book is of thematic focus and illuminates the relationships between rulers and ruled as they transform liberal democracy.

Constituent and Constituted Power: Reading Social Transformation in Latin America, Pages 15-39:

http://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137548245
https://books.google.de/books?hl=de&lr=&id=Ea-VDQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA15&ots=b-TYunmG1h&sig=ozI4N0uVRSDUusDMIFGK26zsz0Y#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://www.azzellini.net/node/2986

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Azzellini, Dario (2016): Class Struggle in the Bolivarian Process Workers’ Control and Workers’ Councils, In: Latin American Perspectives, 0094582X16666016, August 22, 2016

Workers’ initiatives and government measures in Venezuela to increase workers’ participation in the management of their companies sharply contrast with institutional actions that intend to inhibit and reduce such participation. Despite this, the movement for workers’ control in Venezuela has grown in recent years and achieved some important victories in conflicts in state companies.

http://www.azzellini.net/node/2968
http://lap.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/08/20/0094582X16666016.abstract

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Azzellini, Dario (2016): "Labour as a Commons: The Example of Worker-Recuperated Companies". In: Critical Sociology, 1–14, DOI: 10.1177/0896920516661856.

This article argues that labour can be understood as a commons, located in the discussion of how commons can advance the transformation of social relations and society. To manage labour as a commons entails a shift away from the perception of labour power as the object of capital’s value practices, towards a notion of labour power as a collectively and sustainably managed resource for the benefit of society. Given that social change is largely a result of social struggle, it is crucial to examine germinal forms of labour as a commons present in society. I focus my analysis on worker-recuperated companies in Latin America and Europe. Worker-recuperated companies are enterprises self-managed by their workers after the owners close them down. Despite operating within the hegemonic capitalist market, they do not adopt capitalist rationality and are proven viable. Worker-recuperated companies offer a new perspective on labour as a commons.

http://crs.sagepub.com/content/early/2016/08/05/0896920516661856.abstrac...

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„This is a process not a protest“ in: sub \ urban . zeitschrift für kritische stadtforschung. 2016, Band 4, Heft 2/3 Seiten 83-102

Die Verbindungen und Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen den verschiedenen Protestbewegungen
seit Beginn der aktuellen Krise 2008 von Tunesien und Island
über die weltweiten Platzbesetzungen bis zu den aktuellen französischen
Protesten wurden von zahlreichen Autor_innen herausgestellt (Arenas 2014,
Castañeda 2012, Castells 2012, Cossar-Gilbert 2016, Mason 2013, Roos/
Oikonomakis 2014, Sitrin/Azzellini 2014). Die Bewegungen entstehen in
einer Krise der Repräsentation und teilen die Kritik – ob in autoritären
Regimen oder repräsentativen Demokratien – an der Repräsentation. Sie
empfinden diese als undemokratisch und praktizieren Formen direkter
Demokratie (Arenas 2014, Castañeda 2012, Juris/Ronayne/Shokooh-Valle/
Wengronowitz 2012, Ressler 2012, Sitrin/Azzellini 2014, Yörük 2014).

Weiterlesen:

http://www.zeitschrift-suburban.de/sys/index.php/suburban/issue/view/34

http://www.zeitschrift-suburban.de/sys/index.php/suburban/article/view/241/390

http://www.azzellini.net/akademische-veroeffentlichungen/%E2%80%9E-proce...

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Azzellini, Dario; Castronovo, Alioscia. “Fabbriche recuperate e nuova istituzionalità Mutualistica.” De Nicola, Alberto; Quattrocchi, Biagio (Eds.) (2016): Sindacalismo sociale. Lotte e invenzioni istituzionali nella crisi europea. Roma: DeriveAprrodi, 128-149.

Dentro questo lungo ciclo di crisi, in diversi paesi europei, sembrano prendere corpo inedite forme di partecipazione politica e di lotta sociale. Ben lungi dall’essere semplicemente reazioni difensive contro le politiche di austerità, di smantellamento del welfare state universale, di compressione dei salari, di aumento della precarizzazione del lavoro e dell’impoverimento, queste lotte presentano un carico di sperimentazione e innovazione capace forse di imprimere una nuova fisionomia alle forme di organizzazione dei conflitti sociali. Pratiche di riappropriazione del reddito e autogestione dei servizi, esperimenti di mutualismo, nuove forme di conflitti sul lavoro e per il salario, esperienze costituenti di nuove istituzionali autonome, fino ad arrivare all’ipotesi di costruzione di inedite soggettività politiche che reinventano lo spazio della rappresentanza istituzionale e del governo.

Contributi di: Adalgiso Amendola, Marco Assennato, Dario Azzellini e Alioscia Castronovo, Alberto De Nicola e Biagio Quattrocchi, Veronica Gago e Sandro Mezzadra, Michael Hardt, Toni Negri, Francesco Raparelli e Cristian Sica, Raúl Sanchez Cedilo e Lotta Meri Pirita Tenhunen.

http://www.azzellini.net/node/2954

http://www.deriveapprodi.org/2016/05/sindacalismo-sociale/

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3. Videos/Audios (English/Spanish)

Richard Wolff on Trump and Dario Azzellini on workers’ cooperatives.
Economic Update with Richard Wolff, democracy at work, Truthout: November 10, 2016. 55 min.

Economic Update is a weekly program hosted by Richard D. Wolff and is played on over 60 stations nationwide. Wolff takes complex economic issues and empowers listeners with information to analyze their own financial situation as well as the economy at large. By focusing on the economic dimensions of everyday life - wages, jobs, taxes, debts, and profits - the program explores alternative ways to organize markets and government policies.

http://www.azzellini.net/node/2984
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KK3ALCJ4K0M
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/38346-economic-update-trump-explained
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/economicupdates-podcast/id1053981528?mt=2
http://economicupdate.libsyn.com/rss

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Control Obrero.

IROLA IRRATIA 30 de enero de 2017, 58 min.

Esta semana recuperamos una entrevista de archivo, realizada hará cosa de un año en Berlín, al compañero Darío Azzellini, sociólogo y documentalista del control obrero, la autogestión y los consejos comunales -especialmente en América Latina.

"La democracia no puede ser democracia si es cosmopolita", dice este experimentado investigador y viejo militante. Efectivamente, y dado que no existen dos comunidades idénticas, los procedimientos de organización y de acción colectivas han de ser diferentes.

http://www.azzellini.net/es/interviews/control-obrero
http://www.sindominio.net/irola/spip.php?article4974&var_recherche=contr...

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4. Interviews and press articles (English/Spanish)

Roar Magazine Issue #2

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5. Reviews (English/Spanish)

28 March 2017, Journal of Labor and Society.  Azzellini, Darrio, ed. An Alternative Labour History: Worker Control and Workplace Democracy. London: Zed Books, 2015.

In an era of neo-liberal globalization where trade unions, the working-class and the working-poor are constantly under attack from vicious right-wing forces in the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, it is very refreshing to read a book that provides a comparative history of Workers’ control in factories where rank and file workers waged struggles that linked shop-floor issues to broader societal issues of democracy and the transformation of society where the working class as in the words of the late CLR James, “every cook can govern.”

read more:

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3004
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/wusa.12272/full

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27.08.2016 "El Negocio de la Guerra", comandoglucosa.blogspot.de

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6. Termine (NY)

09. Juni 2017 | 08:30 - 11. Juni 2017 | 14:00 Fordham University Lincoln Center | New York 10023

The Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy (ECWD): Contemporary Crisis, Recuperated Workplaces and Self-Management

June 11, 2017 11:40 am – 1:10 pm

Workplace occupations in order to produce are mainly known because of the take-overs around the Argentinian crisis 2000-2001. At the end of 2015 there were 360 recuperated enterprises in Argentina, 69 in Brazil, two dozen in Uruguay and about 100 in Venezuela.

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3006
https://east.usworker.coop/2017-conference/home/

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02. Juni 2017 | 15:00 - 04. Juni 2017 | 20:00 ohn Jay College, NYC | New York City, NY 10019

Left Forum, The Resistance: Cooperatives - path to a different society or alternative business model? Chances and risks of workers' self-management in capitalism

With the economic crisis of 2008 and in the aftermath of the Occupy movement workers’ cooperatives have re-entered conversations among community organizers, urban planners, community development practitioners, business, and organized labor. The meanings and purpose of economic democracy, however, differ in all of these contexts. In this workshop we want to discuss about the potential of workers’ cooperatives in putting forward different values that aim at a more just and participatory politics, economics, and society. Are cooperatives and workers’ controlled companies a viable alternative to the contemporary capitalist system? What are the contradictions and risks worker cooperatives face in a capitalist system?

http://www.azzellini.net/node/3005
https://www.leftforum.org/lf-2017-featured-speakers-announcement-1

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Dario Azzellini

www.azzellini.net                www.workerscontrol.net