San Jose

The San Jose talk was the largest yet, with over 30 people in attendance. The talk was organized by the South Bay IWW and was held at the San Jose Peace and Justice Center. As is becoming a really common occurrence at these talks, there was another member of the Worker Solidarity Alliance present, Tom Wetzel. It's been exciting to have the WSA be a common element of many of the talks! There was also a recently confirmed member of Miami Autonomy and Solidarity in the room, which is great since this tour wasn't able to go all the way to Miami. That member of MAS is the author of the article "Especifismo: The Anarchist Praxis of Building Popular Movements and Revolutionary Organization in South America." That article has really been the basis of a large chunk of the presentation, and is one that I really wish I had brought printed versions with me to each stop around the country!

It was at this conversation that I finally began feeling like I had a pretty comfortable rap down for the presentation. The presentation has been changing slightly at each stop based on the different crowds and this one was no different.

This presentation had a larger portion of people that were there out of an interest in organizing worker cooperatives. It's probably silly that I was surprised by this, given that time I spent around cooperatives in Argentina is much of the premise of the talk. But, my reflection on the form of workplace cooperatives has been one that doesn't really prioritize the creation of cooperatives as the best way to challenge capitalism - or even to establish worker democracy internal to capitalist economies.

To me, cooperatives are a tool. Without a similar degree of class consciousness and without an orientation of the cooperative as a tool to further a broad class struggle in favor of worldwide worker and community self-management, I find cooperatives can often simply be small businesses with multiple owners rather than anti-capitalist counter-economies. So, I've increasingly found myself thinking of cooperatives as something I'm excited about only when they're created as part of a larger class struggle. I can think now of two forms in which cooperatives can be just that: 1) offensive expropriation of a workplace away from capitalist ownership and 2) as part of an survival program initiated by unemployed workers movements.

There were some really friendly people here building a very new IWW branch in San Jose. I think they'll be very successful based on their ability to be good with new folks in town! On to Eureka!