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Statistics Such distinctions can often be loosely correlated with data type in computer science, in that dichotomous categorical variables may be represented with the Boolean data type, polytomous categorical variables with arbitrarily assigned integers in the integral data type, and continuous variables with the real data type involving floating point computation. But the mapping of computer science data types to statistical data types depends on which categorization of the latter is being implemented. Other categorizations have been proposed. For example, Mosteller and Tukey (1977) distinguished grades, ranks, counted fractions, counts, amounts, and balances. Nelder (1990) described continuous counts, continuous ratios, count ratios, and categorical modes of data. See also Chrisman (1998), van den Berg (1991). The issue of whether or not it is appropriate to apply different kinds of statistical methods to data obtained from different kinds of measurement procedures is complicated by issues concerning the transformation of variables and the precise interpretation of research questions. "The relationship between the data and what they describe merely reflects the fact that certain kinds of statistical statements may have truth values which are not invariant under some transformations. Whether or not a transformation is sensible to contemplate depends on the question one is trying to answer" (Hand, 2004, p. 82) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics A descriptive statistic (in the count noun sense) is a summary statistic that quantitatively describes or summarizes features of a collection of information, while descriptive statistics in the mass noun sense is the process of using and analyzing those statistics. Descriptive statistics is distinguished from inferential statistics (or inductive statistics), in that descriptive statistics aims to summarize a sample, rather than use the data to learn about the population that the sample of data is thought to represent. Statistical inference is the process of using data analysis to deduce properties of an underlying probability distribution. Inferential statistical analysis infers properties of a population, for example by testing hypotheses and deriving estimates. It is assumed that the observed data set is sampled from a larger population. Inferential statistics can be contrasted with descriptive statistics. Descriptive statistics is solely concerned with properties of the observed data, and it does not rest on the assumption that the data come from a larger population. Consider independent identically distributed (IID) random variables with a given probability distribution: standard statistical inference and estimation theory defines a random sample as the random vector given by the column vector of these IID variables. The population being examined is described by a probability distribution that may have unknown parameters | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics A statistic is a random variable that is a function of the random sample, but "not a function of unknown parameters". The probability distribution of the statistic, though, may have unknown parameters. Consider now a function of the unknown parameter: an estimator is a statistic used to estimate such function. Commonly used estimators include sample mean, unbiased sample variance and sample covariance. A random variable that is a function of the random sample and of the unknown parameter, but whose probability distribution "does not depend on the unknown parameter" is called a pivotal quantity or pivot. Widely used pivots include the z-score, the chi square statistic and Student's t-value. Between two estimators of a given parameter, the one with lower mean squared error is said to be more efficient. Furthermore, an estimator is said to be unbiased if its expected value is equal to the true value of the unknown parameter being estimated, and asymptotically unbiased if its expected value converges at the limit to the true value of such parameter. Other desirable properties for estimators include: UMVUE estimators that have the lowest variance for all possible values of the parameter to be estimated (this is usually an easier property to verify than efficiency) and consistent estimators which converges in probability to the true value of such parameter | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics This still leaves the question of how to obtain estimators in a given situation and carry the computation, several methods have been proposed: the method of moments, the maximum likelihood method, the least squares method and the more recent method of estimating equations. Interpretation of statistical information can often involve the development of a null hypothesis which is usually (but not necessarily) that no relationship exists among variables or that no change occurred over time. The best illustration for a novice is the predicament encountered by a criminal trial. The null hypothesis, H, asserts that the defendant is innocent, whereas the alternative hypothesis, H, asserts that the defendant is guilty. The indictment comes because of suspicion of the guilt. The H (status quo) stands in opposition to H and is maintained unless H is supported by evidence "beyond a reasonable doubt". However, "failure to reject H" in this case does not imply innocence, but merely that the evidence was insufficient to convict. So the jury does not necessarily "accept" H but "fails to reject" H. While one can not "prove" a null hypothesis, one can test how close it is to being true with a power test, which tests for type II errors. What statisticians call an alternative hypothesis is simply a hypothesis that contradicts the null hypothesis | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics Working from a null hypothesis, two basic forms of error are recognized: Standard deviation refers to the extent to which individual observations in a sample differ from a central value, such as the sample or population mean, while Standard error refers to an estimate of difference between sample mean and population mean. A statistical error is the amount by which an observation differs from its expected value, a residual is the amount an observation differs from the value the estimator of the expected value assumes on a given sample (also called prediction). Mean squared error is used for obtaining efficient estimators, a widely used class of estimators. Root mean square error is simply the square root of mean squared error. Many statistical methods seek to minimize the residual sum of squares, and these are called "methods of least squares" in contrast to Least absolute deviations. The latter gives equal weight to small and big errors, while the former gives more weight to large errors. Residual sum of squares is also differentiable, which provides a handy property for doing regression. Least squares applied to linear regression is called ordinary least squares method and least squares applied to nonlinear regression is called non-linear least squares. Also in a linear regression model the non deterministic part of the model is called error term, disturbance or more simply noise | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics Both linear regression and non-linear regression are addressed in polynomial least squares, which also describes the variance in a prediction of the dependent variable (y axis) as a function of the independent variable (x axis) and the deviations (errors, noise, disturbances) from the estimated (fitted) curve. Measurement processes that generate statistical data are also subject to error. Many of these errors are classified as random (noise) or systematic (bias), but other types of errors (e.g., blunder, such as when an analyst reports incorrect units) can also be important. The presence of missing data or censoring may result in biased estimates and specific techniques have been developed to address these problems. Most studies only sample part of a population, so results don't fully represent the whole population. Any estimates obtained from the sample only approximate the population value. Confidence intervals allow statisticians to express how closely the sample estimate matches the true value in the whole population. Often they are expressed as 95% confidence intervals. Formally, a 95% confidence interval for a value is a range where, if the sampling and analysis were repeated under the same conditions (yielding a different dataset), the interval would include the true (population) value in 95% of all possible cases. This does "not" imply that the probability that the true value is in the confidence interval is 95% | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics From the frequentist perspective, such a claim does not even make sense, as the true value is not a random variable. Either the true value is or is not within the given interval. However, it is true that, before any data are sampled and given a plan for how to construct the confidence interval, the probability is 95% that the yet-to-be-calculated interval will cover the true value: at this point, the limits of the interval are yet-to-be-observed random variables. One approach that does yield an interval that can be interpreted as having a given probability of containing the true value is to use a credible interval from Bayesian statistics: this approach depends on a different way of interpreting what is meant by "probability", that is as a Bayesian probability. In principle confidence intervals can be symmetrical or asymmetrical. An interval can be asymmetrical because it works as lower or upper bound for a parameter (left-sided interval or right sided interval), but it can also be asymmetrical because the two sided interval is built violating symmetry around the estimate. Sometimes the bounds for a confidence interval are reached asymptotically and these are used to approximate the true bounds. rarely give a simple Yes/No type answer to the question under analysis. Interpretation often comes down to the level of statistical significance applied to the numbers and often refers to the probability of a value accurately rejecting the null hypothesis (sometimes referred to as the p-value) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics The standard approach is to test a null hypothesis against an alternative hypothesis. A critical region is the set of values of the estimator that leads to refuting the null hypothesis. The probability of type I error is therefore the probability that the estimator belongs to the critical region given that null hypothesis is true (statistical significance) and the probability of type II error is the probability that the estimator doesn't belong to the critical region given that the alternative hypothesis is true. The statistical power of a test is the probability that it correctly rejects the null hypothesis when the null hypothesis is false. Referring to statistical significance does not necessarily mean that the overall result is significant in real world terms. For example, in a large study of a drug it may be shown that the drug has a statistically significant but very small beneficial effect, such that the drug is unlikely to help the patient noticeably. Although in principle the acceptable level of statistical significance may be subject to debate, the p-value is the smallest significance level that allows the test to reject the null hypothesis. This test is logically equivalent to saying that the p-value is the probability, assuming the null hypothesis is true, of observing a result at least as extreme as the test statistic. Therefore, the smaller the p-value, the lower the probability of committing type I error | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics Some problems are usually associated with this framework (See criticism of hypothesis testing): Some well-known statistical tests and procedures are: Exploratory data analysis (EDA) is an approach to analyzing data sets to summarize their main characteristics, often with visual methods. A statistical model can be used or not, but primarily EDA is for seeing what the data can tell us beyond the formal modeling or hypothesis testing task. Misuse of statistics can produce subtle but serious errors in description and interpretation—subtle in the sense that even experienced professionals make such errors, and serious in the sense that they can lead to devastating decision errors. For instance, social policy, medical practice, and the reliability of structures like bridges all rely on the proper use of statistics. Even when statistical techniques are correctly applied, the results can be difficult to interpret for those lacking expertise. The statistical significance of a trend in the data—which measures the extent to which a trend could be caused by random variation in the sample—may or may not agree with an intuitive sense of its significance. The set of basic statistical skills (and skepticism) that people need to deal with information in their everyday lives properly is referred to as statistical literacy. There is a general perception that statistical knowledge is all-too-frequently intentionally misused by finding ways to interpret only the data that are favorable to the presenter | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics A mistrust and misunderstanding of statistics is associated with the quotation, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". Misuse of statistics can be both inadvertent and intentional, and the book "How to Lie with Statistics" outlines a range of considerations. In an attempt to shed light on the use and misuse of statistics, reviews of statistical techniques used in particular fields are conducted (e.g. Warne, Lazo, Ramos, and Ritter (2012)). Ways to avoid misuse of statistics include using proper diagrams and avoiding bias. Misuse can occur when conclusions are overgeneralized and claimed to be representative of more than they really are, often by either deliberately or unconsciously overlooking sampling bias. Bar graphs are arguably the easiest diagrams to use and understand, and they can be made either by hand or with simple computer programs. Unfortunately, most people do not look for bias or errors, so they are not noticed. Thus, people may often believe that something is true even if it is not well represented. To make data gathered from statistics believable and accurate, the sample taken must be representative of the whole. According to Huff, "The dependability of a sample can be destroyed by [bias]... allow yourself some degree of skepticism." To assist in the understanding of statistics Huff proposed a series of questions to be asked in each case: The concept of correlation is particularly noteworthy for the potential confusion it can cause | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics Statistical analysis of a data set often reveals that two variables (properties) of the population under consideration tend to vary together, as if they were connected. For example, a study of annual income that also looks at age of death might find that poor people tend to have shorter lives than affluent people. The two variables are said to be correlated; however, they may or may not be the cause of one another. The correlation phenomena could be caused by a third, previously unconsidered phenomenon, called a lurking variable or confounding variable. For this reason, there is no way to immediately infer the existence of a causal relationship between the two variables. (See Correlation does not imply causation.) "Applied statistics" comprises descriptive statistics and the application of inferential statistics. "Theoretical statistics" concerns the logical arguments underlying justification of approaches to statistical inference, as well as encompassing "mathematical statistics". Mathematical statistics includes not only the manipulation of probability distributions necessary for deriving results related to methods of estimation and inference, but also various aspects of computational statistics and the design of experiments. Statistical consultants can help organizations and companies that don't have in-house expertise relevant to their particular questions. Machine learning models are statistical and probabilistic models that capture patterns in the data through use of computational algorithms | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics is applicable to a wide variety of academic disciplines, including natural and social sciences, government, and business. Business statistics applies statistical methods in econometrics, auditing and production and operations, including services improvement and marketing research. In the field of biological sciences, the 12 most frequent statistical tests are: Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Chi-Square Test, Student’s T Test, Linear Regression, Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient, Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskal-Wallis Test, Shannon’s Diversity Index, Tukey’s Test, Cluster Analysis, Spearman’s Rank Correlation Test and Principal Component Analysis. A typical statistics course covers descriptive statistics, probability, binomial and normal distributions, test of hypotheses and confidence intervals, linear regression, and correlation. Modern fundamental statistical courses for undergraduate students focus on the correct test selection, results interpretation and use of open source softwares . The rapid and sustained increases in computing power starting from the second half of the 20th century have had a substantial impact on the practice of statistical science. Early statistical models were almost always from the class of linear models, but powerful computers, coupled with suitable numerical algorithms, caused an increased interest in nonlinear models (such as neural networks) as well as the creation of new types, such as generalized linear models and multilevel models | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics Increased computing power has also led to the growing popularity of computationally intensive methods based on resampling, such as permutation tests and the bootstrap, while techniques such as Gibbs sampling have made use of Bayesian models more feasible. The computer revolution has implications for the future of statistics with a new emphasis on "experimental" and "empirical" statistics. A large number of both general and special purpose statistical software are now available. Examples of available software capable of complex statistical computation include programs such as Mathematica, SAS, SPSS, and R. Traditionally, statistics was concerned with drawing inferences using a semi-standardized methodology that was "required learning" in most sciences. This tradition has changed with the use of statistics in non-inferential contexts. What was once considered a dry subject, taken in many fields as a degree-requirement, is now viewed enthusiastically. Initially derided by some mathematical purists, it is now considered essential methodology in certain areas. Statistical techniques are used in a wide range of types of scientific and social research, including: biostatistics, computational biology, computational sociology, network biology, social science, sociology and social research. Some fields of inquiry use applied statistics so extensively that they have specialized terminology | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Statistics These disciplines include: In addition, there are particular types of statistical analysis that have also developed their own specialised terminology and methodology: form a key basis tool in business and manufacturing as well. It is used to understand measurement systems variability, control processes (as in statistical process control or SPC), for summarizing data, and to make data-driven decisions. In these roles, it is a key tool, and perhaps the only reliable tool. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26685 |
Syndicalism is a radical current in the labor movement that was most active in the early 20th century. Its main idea is the establishment of local worker-based organizations and the advancement of the demands and rights of workers through strikes. According to the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm, it was predominant in the revolutionary left in the decade which preceded the outbreak of World War I because Marxism was mostly reformist at that time. Major syndicalist organizations included the General Confederation of Labor in France, the National Confederation of Labor in Spain, the Italian Syndicalist Union, the Free Workers' Union of Germany, and the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation. Although they did not regard themselves as syndicalists, the Industrial Workers of the World, the Irish Transport and General Workers' Union and the Canadian One Big Union are considered by most historians to belong to this current. A number of syndicalist organizations were and still are to this day linked in the International Workers' Association, but some of its member organizations left for the International Confederation of Labor, formed in 2018. The term "syndicalism" has French origins. In French, a "syndicat" is a trade union, usually a local union. The corresponding words in Spanish and Portuguese, "sindicato", and Italian, "sindacato", are similar. By extension, the French "syndicalisme" refers to trade unionism in general | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism The concept "syndicalisme révolutionnaire" or "revolutionary syndicalism" emerged in French socialist journals in 1903 and the French General Confederation of Labor ("Confédération générale du travail", CGT) came to use the term to describe its brand of unionism. "Revolutionary syndicalism", or more commonly "syndicalism" with the "revolutionary" implied, was then adapted to a number of languages by unionists following the French model. Many scholars, including Ralph Darlington, Marcel van der Linden, and Wayne Thorpe, apply the term "syndicalism" to a number of organizations or currents within the labor movement that did not identify as "syndicalist". They apply the label to one big unionists or industrial unionists in North America and Australia, Larkinists in Ireland, and groups that identify as revolutionary industrialists, revolutionary unionists, anarcho-syndicalists, or councilists. This includes the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the United States, for example, which claimed its industrial unionism was "a higher type of revolutionary labor organization than that proposed by the syndicalists". Van der Linden and Thorpe use "syndicalism" to refer to "all revolutionary, direct-actionist organizations". Darlington proposes that syndicalism be defined as "revolutionary trade unionism". He and van der Linden argue that it is justified to group together such a wide range of organizations because their similar modes of action or practice outweigh their ideological differences | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Others, like Larry Peterson and Erik Olssen, disagree with this broad definition. According to Olssen, this understanding has a "tendency to blur the distinctions between industrial unionism, syndicalism, and revolutionary socialism". Peterson gives a more restrictive definition of "syndicalism" based on five criteria: This definition excludes the IWW and the Canadian One Big Union (OBU). Peterson proposes the broader category "revolutionary industrial unionism" to encompass syndicalism, groups like the IWW and the OBU, and others. The defining commonality between these groups is that they sought to unite all workers in a general organization. originated in France and spread from there. The French CGT was the model and inspiration for syndicalist groups throughout Europe and the world. Revolutionary industrial unionism, part of syndicalism in the broader sense, originated with the IWW in the United States and then caught on in other countries. In a number of countries, however, certain syndicalist practices and ideas predate the coining of the term in France or the founding of the IWW. In Bert Altena's view, a number of movements in Europe can be called syndicalist, even before 1900. According to the English social historian E.P. Thompson and the anarcho-syndicalist theorist Rudolf Rocker, there were syndicalist tendencies in Britain's labor movement as early as the 1830s | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Syndicalists saw themselves as the heirs of the First International, the international socialist organization formed in 1864, particularly its anti-authoritarian wing led by Mikhail Bakunin. Bakunin and his followers advocated the general strike, rejected electoral politics, and anticipated workers' organizations replacing rule by the state. According to Lucien van der Walt, the Spanish section of the First International, formed in 1870, was in fact syndicalist. Kenyon Zimmer sees a "proto-syndicalism" in the influence the anarchist-led International Working People's Association (IWPA) and Central Labor Union, which originated in the American section of the First International, had in the Chicago labor movement of the 1880s. They were involved in the nationwide struggle for an eight-hour day. On May 3, 1886, the police killed three striking workers at a demonstration in Chicago. Seven policemen and four workers were killed the following day when someone, possibly a police member, threw a bomb into the crowd. Four anarchists were eventually executed for allegedly conspiring to the events. The Haymarket Affair, as these events become known, led anarchists and labor organizers, including syndicalists, in both the United States and Europe to re-evaluate the revolutionary meaning of the general strike. According to Émile Pouget, a French anarchist and CGT leader, from "the United States, the idea of the general strike fertilized by the blood of anarchists hanged in Chicago [...] was imported to France" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism In the 1890s, French anarchists, conceding that individual action such as assassinations had failed, turned their focus to the labor movement. They were able to gain influence, particularly in the "bourses du travail", which served as labor exchanges, meeting places for unions, and trades councils and organized in a national federation in 1893. In 1895, the CGT was formed as a rival to the "bourses", but was at first much weaker. From the start, it advocated the general strike and aimed to unite all workers. Pouget, who was active in the CGT, supported the use of sabotage and direct action. In 1902, the "bourses" merged into the CGT. In 1906, the federation adopted the Charter of Amiens, which reaffirmed the CGT's independence from party politics and fixed the goal of uniting all French workers. In 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World were formed in the United States by the Western Federation of Miners, the American Labor Union, and a broad coalition of socialists, anarchists, and labor unionists. Its base was mostly in the Western US where labor conflicts were most violent and workers therefore radicalized. Although Wobblies insisted their union was a distinctly American form of labor organization and not an import of European syndicalism, the IWW was syndicalist in the broader sense of the word. According to Melvyn Dubofsky and most other IWW historians, the IWW's industrial unionism was the specifically American form of syndicalism | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Nevertheless, the IWW also had a presence in Canada and Mexico nearly from its inception, as the US economy and labor force was intertwined with those countries. French syndicalism and American industrial unionism influenced the rise of syndicalism elsewhere. Syndicalist movements and organizations in a number of countries were established by activists who had spent time in France. Ervin Szabó visited Paris in 1904 and then established a Syndicalist Propaganda Group in his native Hungary in 1910. Several of the founders of the Spanish CNT had visited France. Alceste de Ambris and Armando Borghi, both leaders in Italy's USI, were in Paris for a few months from 1910 to 1911. French influence also spread through publications. Emile Pouget's pamphlets could be read in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, English, German, and Swedish translations. Journals and newspapers in a number of countries advocated syndicalism. For example, " L'Action directe", a journal mainly for miners in Charleroi, Belgium, urged its readers to follow "the example of our confederated friends of France". The IWW's newspapers published articles on French syndicalism, particularly the tactic of sabotage and the CGT's "La Vie Ouvrière" carried articles about Britain's labor movement by the British syndicalist Tom Mann. Migration played a key role in spreading syndicalist ideas. The Argentine Regional Workers' Federation ("Federación Obrera Regional Argentina", FORA), openly anarchist by 1905, was formed by Italian and Spanish immigrants in 1901 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Many IWW leaders were European immigrants, including Edmondo Rossoni who moved between the United States and Italy and was active in both the IWW and USI. International work processes also contributed to the diffusion of syndicalism. For example, sailors helped establish IWW presences in port cities around the world. Syndicalists formed different kinds of organizations. Some, like the French radicals, worked within existing unions to infuse them with their revolutionary spirit. Some found existing unions entirely unsuitable and built federations of their own, a strategy known as "dual unionism". American syndicalists formed the IWW, though William Z. Foster later abandoned the IWW after a trip to France and set up the Syndicalist League of North America (SLNA), which sought to radicalize the established American Federation of Labor (AFL). In Ireland, the ITGWU broke away from a more moderate, and British-based, union. In Italy and Spain, syndicalists initially worked within the established union confederations before breaking away and forming USI and the CNT respectively. In Norway, there were both the Norwegian Trade Union Opposition ("Norske Fagopposition", NFO), syndicalists working within the mainstream Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions ("Landsorganisasjonen i Norge" in Norwegian, LO), and the Norwegian Syndicalist Federation ("Norsk Syndikalistik Federation" in Norwegian, NSF), an independent syndicalist organization set up by the Swedish SAC | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism In Britain, there was a similar conflict between ISEL and the local IWW organization. By 1914, there were syndicalist national labor confederations in Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, the Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Spain, Italy, and France, while Belgian syndicalists were in the process of forming one. There were also groups advocating syndicalism in Russia, Japan, the United States, Portugal, Norway, Denmark, Hungary, and Great Britain. Outside of North America, the IWW also had organizations in Australia, New Zealand, where it was part of the Federation of Labour (FOL), Great Britain, though its membership had imploded by 1913, and South Africa. In Ireland, syndicalism took the form of the ITGWU, which espoused a mix of industrial unionism and socialist republicanism, and was labeled Larkinism. Scholars have given several explanations for the emergence of syndicalism. Werner Sombart, a German economist and sociologist, commenting in 1905, ascribes the rise of syndicalism to the Italian and particularly the French mentality. He writes: "The only people who could possibly act up to such a system of teaching are Frenchmen and Italians. They are generally men who do things impulsively [...], who are seized upon by a sudden passionate enthusiasm [...], but they have little application, perseverance, calm or steadiness." There was a significant uptick in workers' radicalism in most developed capitalist countries from 1911 to 1922, though it relented during World War I | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Strikes increased in frequency, numbers of workers involved, and duration. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, syndicalism was only one way this radicalization expressed itself. In the United Kingdom, for example, the period from 1910 to 1914 became known as the Great Labour Unrest. Many historians see syndicalism as a consequence of this unrest, but Elie Halévy and the politician Lord Robert Cecil claim it was its cause. Employers in France likewise blamed an upsurge in workers' militancy in the same period on syndicalist leaders. was further encouraged by employers' hostility to workers' actions. The economist Ernesto Screpanti hypothesized that strike waves such as the one from 1911 to 1922 generally occur during the upper turning-points of the periodic global long cycles of boom and bust known as Kondratieff waves. Such waves of proletarian insurgency, claims Screpanti, were global in reach, saw workers breaking free of the dynamics of the capitalist system, and aimed to overthrow that system. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, workers' radicalization manifested itself in their rejection of the dominant strategies in the, mostly socialist, labor movement, which was led by reformist trade unions and socialist parties. Lenin posited that "revolutionary syndicalism in many countries was a direct and inevitable result of opportunism, reformism and parliamentary cretinism | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism " A feeling that ideological disputes were draining workers' power led Dutch, French, and American syndicalist organizations to declare themselves independent of any political groups. In countries like Italy, Spain, and Ireland, which was still under British rule, parliamentary politics were not seen as a serious means for workers to express their grievances. Most workers were disenfranchised. Yet even in France or Britain, where most male workers had the right to vote, many workers did not trust party politics. The enormous numerical growth of well-organized socialist parties, such as in Germany and Italy, did not, in the minds of many workers, correlate with any real advance in the class struggle as these parties were thought to be overly concerned with building the parties themselves and with electoral politics than with the class struggle and had therefore lost their original revolutionary edge. The socialists preached the inevitability of socialism, but were in practice bureaucratic and reformist. Similarly, the trade unions frequently allied with those parties, equally growing in numbers, were denounced for their expanding bureaucracies, their centralization, and for failing to represent workers' interests. For example, between 1902 and 1913 the German free trade unions' membership grew by 350% but its bureaucracy by more than 1900%. Another common explanation for the rise of syndicalism is that it was a result of the economic backwardness of the countries in which it emerged, particularly France | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Newer studies have questioned this account. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, changes in labor processes contributed to the radicalization of workers and thereby to the rise of syndicalism. This rise took place during the Second Industrial Revolution. Two groups of workers were most attracted to syndicalism: casual or seasonal laborers who frequently changed jobs, and workers whose occupations were becoming obsolete as a result of technological advances. The first group includes landless agricultural workers, construction workers, and dockers, all of whom were disproportionately represented in several countries' syndicalist movements. Because they frequently changed jobs, such workers did not have close relationships with their employers and the risk of losing one's job as a result of a strike was reduced. Moreover, because of the time constraints of their jobs they were forced to act immediately in order to achieve anything and could not plan for the long term by building up strike funds or powerful labor organizations or by engaging in mediation. Their working conditions gave them an inclination to engage in direct confrontation with employers and apply direct action. The second group includes miners, railway employees, and certain factory workers. Their occupations were deskilled by technological and organizational changes. These changes made workers from the second group similar in some respects to the first group | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism They did not entirely result from the introduction of new technology, but were also caused by changes in management methods. This included increased supervision of workers, piecework, internal promotions, all designed make workers docile and loyal and to transfer knowledge and control over the process of production from workers to employers. Frustration with this loss of power led to formal and informal resistance by workers. Altena disagrees with this explanation. According to him, it was workers with significant autonomy in their jobs and pride in their skills who were most attracted to syndicalism. Moreover, he argues, explanations based on workers' occupations cannot explain why only a minority of workers in those jobs became syndicalists or why in some professions workers in different locations had vastly different patterns of organization. The small size of many syndicalist unions also makes observations about which workers joined statistically irrelevant. came to be seen as a viable strategy because the general strike became a practical possibility. Although it had been advocated before, there were not sufficient numbers of wage workers to bring society to a standstill and they had not achieved a sufficient degree of organization and solidarity until the 1890s, according van der Linden and Thorpe | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Several general or political strikes then took place before World War: in 1893 and in 1902 in Belgium, in 1902 and in 1909 in Sweden, in 1903 in the Netherlands, in 1904 in Italy in addition to significant work stoppages during the Russian Revolution of 1905. Darlington cites the significance of the conscious intervention by syndicalist militants. The industrial unrest of the period created conditions which made workers receptive to syndicalist leaders' agitation. They spread their ideas through pamphlets and newspapers and had considerable influence in a number of labor disputes. Finally, van der Linden and Thorpe point to spatial and geographical factors that shaped the rise of syndicalism. Workers who would otherwise not have had an inclination to syndicalism joined because syndicalism was dominant in their locales. Workers in the Canadian and American West for example, were generally more radical and drawn to the IWW and One Big Union than their counterparts in the East. Similarly, southern workers were more drawn to syndicalism in Italy. According to Altena, the emergence of syndicalism must be analyzed at the level of local communities. Only differences in local social and economic structures explain why some towns had a strong syndicalist presence, but others did not. was not informed by theory or a systematically elaborated ideology the same way socialism was by Marxism | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Émile Pouget, a CGT leader, maintained that: "What sets syndicalism apart from the various schools of socialism and makes it superior is its doctrinal sobriety. Inside the unions, there is little philosophising. They do better than that: they act!" Similarly, Andreu Nin of the Spanish CNT proclaimed in 1919: "I am a fanatic of action, of revolution. I believe in actions more than in remote ideologies and abstract questions." Though workers' education was important at least to committed activists, syndicalists distrusted bourgeois intellectuals, wanting to maintain workers' control over the movement. Syndicalist thinking was elaborated in pamphlets, leaflets, speeches, and articles and in the movement's own newspapers. These writings consisted mainly in calls to action and discussions of tactics in class struggle. The philosopher Georges Sorel's "Reflections on Violence" introduced syndicalist ideas to a broader audience. Sorel fancied himself the premier theorist of syndicalism and was frequently thought of as such, but he was not a part of the movement and his influence on syndicalism was insignificant, except in Italy and Poland. The extent to which syndicalist positions reflected merely the views of leaders and to what extent those positions were shared by syndicalist organizations' rank-and-file is a matter of dispute | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism The historian Peter Stearns, commenting on French syndicalism, concludes that most workers did not identify with syndicalism's long-range goals and that syndicalist hegemony accounts for the relatively slow growth of the French labor movement as a whole. Workers who joined the syndicalist movement, he claims, were on the whole indifferent to doctrinal questions, their membership in syndicalist organizations was partly accidental and leaders were unable to convert workers to syndicalist ideas. Frederick Ridley, a political scientist, is more equivocal. According to him, leaders were very influential in the drafting of syndicalist ideas, but syndicalism was more than a mere tool of a few leaders, but a genuine product of the French labor movement. Darlington adds that in the Irish ITGWU most members were won over by the union's philosophy of direct action. Bert Altena argues that, though evidence of ordinary workers' convictions is scant, it indicates that they were aware of doctrinal differences between various currents in the labor movement and able to defend their own views. He points out that they likely understood syndicalist newspapers and debated political issues. "Syndicalism" is used by some interchangeably with "anarcho-syndicalism". This term was first used in 1907, by socialists criticizing the political neutrality of the CGT, although it was rarely used until the early 1920s when communists used it disparagingly. Only from 1922 was it used by self-avowed anarcho-syndicalists | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism has traditionally been seen as a current within anarchism, but in some countries it was dominated by Marxists rather than anarchists. This was the case in Italy and much of the Anglophone world, including Ireland where anarchists had no significant influence on syndicalism. The extent to which syndicalist doctrine was a product of anarchism is debated. The anarchist Iain McKay argues that "syndicalism" is but a new name for ideas and tactics developed by Bakunin and the anarchist wing of the First International, while it is wholly inconsistent with positions Marx and Engels took. According to him, the fact that many Marxists embraced syndicalism merely indicates that they abandoned Marx's views and converted to Bakunin's. Altena too views syndicalism as part of the broader anarchist movement, but concedes there was a tension between this and the fact that it was also a labor movement. He also sees Marxist ideas reflected in the movement, as leading syndicalists such as F. Domela Nieuwenhuis and Christiaan Cornelissen as well as much of the Australian syndicalist movement were influenced by them, as well as older socialist notions. According to Darlington, anarchism, Marxism, and revolutionary trade unionism equally contributed to syndicalism, in addition to various influences in specific countries, including Blanquism, anti-clericalism, republicanism, and agrarian radicalism | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Bill Haywood, a leading figure in the IWW, defined the union's purpose at its founding congress as "the emancipation of the working class from the slave bondage of capitalism". Syndicalists held that society was divided into two great classes, the working class and the bourgeoisie. Their interests being irreconcilable, they must be in a constant state of class struggle. Tom Mann, a British syndicalist, declared that "the object of the unions is to wage the Class War". This war, according to syndicalist doctrine, was aimed not just at gaining concessions such as higher wages or a shorter working day, but at the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism. Syndicalists agreed with Karl Marx's characterization of the state as the "executive committee of the ruling class". They held that a society's economic order determined its political order and concluded that the former could not be overthrown by changes to the latter. Nevertheless, a number of leading syndicalist figures worked in political parties and some ran for elected office. Jim Larkin, the leader of the Irish ITGWU, was active in the Labour Party, Haywood in the Socialist Party of America. Yet, they saw the economic sphere as the primary arena for revolutionary struggle, while involvement in politics could at best be an "echo" of industrial struggle. They were skeptical of parliamentary politics | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism According to Father Thomas Hagerty, a Catholic priest and IWW leader, "dropping pieces of paper into a hole in a box never did achieve emancipation for the working class, and to my thinking it will never achieve it". Syndicalist trade unions declared their political neutrality and autonomy from political parties. Political parties, syndicalists reasoned, grouped people according to their political views, uniting members of different classes. Unions, on the other hand, were to be purely working-class organizations, uniting the entire class, and could therefore not be divided on political grounds. The French syndicalist Pouget explained: "The CGT embraces outside of all the schools of politics all workers cognisant of the struggle to be waged for the elimination of wage-slavery and the employer class." In practice, however, this neutrality was more ambiguous. The CGT, for example, worked with the Socialist Party in the struggle against the Three-Year Law, which extended conscription. During the Spanish Civil War the CNT, whose policy barred anyone who had been a candidate for political office or had participated in political endeavors from representing it, was intimately connected with the Iberian Anarchist Federation ("Federación Anarquista Ibérica", FAI). In the syndicalist conception, unions played a dual role. They were organs of struggle within capitalism for better working conditions, but they were also to play a key role in the revolution to overthrow capitalism | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Victor Griffuelhes expressed this at the CGT's 1906 congress in the following manner: "In its day-to-day demands, syndicalism seeks the co-ordination of workers' efforts, the increase of workers' well-being by the achievement of immediate improvements, such as the reduction of working hours, the increase of wages, etc. But this task is only one aspect of the work of syndicalism; it prepares for complete emancipation, which can be realised only by expropriating the capitalist class". For unions to fulfill this role, it was necessary to prevent bureaucrats "whose sole purpose in life seems to be apologising for and defending the capitalist system of exploitation", according to Larkin from inhibiting workers' militant zeal. Battling bureaucracy and reformism within the labor movement was a major theme for syndicalists. One expression of this was many syndicalists' rejection of collective bargaining agreements, which were thought to force labor peace upon workers and break their solidarity. The Wobblie Vincent St. John declared: "There is but one bargain that the Industrial Workers of the World will make with the employing class complete surrender of the means of production." The Argentine Regional Workers' Federation ("Federación Obrera Regional Argentina", FORA) and the OBU did, however, accept such deals and others began accepting them eventually | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Similarly, syndicalist unions did not work to build large strike funds, for fear that they would create bureaucracy separate from the rank-and-file and instill in workers the expectation that the union rather than they would wage the class struggle. Syndicalists advocated direct action, including working to rule, passive resistance, sabotage, and strikes, particularly the general strike, as tactics in the class struggle, as opposed to indirect action such as electoral politics. The IWW engaged in around 30 mostly successful civil disobedience campaigns they deemed free speech fights. Wobblies would defy laws restricting public speeches, in order to clog up prisons and court systems as a result of hundreds of arrests, ultimately forcing public officials to rescind such laws. Sabotage ranged from slow or inefficient work to destruction of machinery and physical violence. French railway and postal workers cut telegraph and signal lines during strikes in 1909 and 1910. The final step towards revolution, according to syndicalists, would be a general strike. It would be "the curtain drop on a tired old scene of several centuries, and the curtain raising on another", according to Griffuelhes. Syndicalists remained vague about the society they envisioned to replace capitalism, claiming that it was impossible to foresee in detail. Labor unions were seen as being the embryo of a new society in addition to being the means of struggle within the old | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Syndicalists generally agreed that in a free society production would be managed by workers. The state apparatus would be replaced by the rule of workers' organizations. In such a society individuals would be liberated, both in the economic sphere but also in their private and social lives. Syndicalist policies on gender issues were mixed. The CNT did not admit women as members until 1918. The CGT dismissed feminism as a bourgeois movement. Syndicalists were mostly indifferent to the question of women's suffrage. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, an IWW organizer, insisted that women "find their power at the point of production where they work", rather than at the ballot box. Of the 230 delegates present at the founding of Canada's One Big Union, a mere 3 were women. When a female radical criticized the masculinist atmosphere at the meeting, she was rebuffed by men who insisted that labor only concern itself with class rather than gender issues. The historian Todd McCallum concludes that syndicalists in the OBU advocated values of "radical manhood". Francis Shor argues that the "IWW promotion of sabotage represents a kind of masculine posturing which directly challenged the individualizing techniques of power mobilized by industrial capitalism". Thus, "the IWW's masculine identity incorporated features of working-class solidarity and protest [...] through 'virile' syndicalism | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism " For example, while defending a black fellow worker against a racist insult, an IWW organizer in Louisiana insisted that "he is a man, a union man, an IWW—a MAN! ... and he has proven it by his action". During WWI, one of the IWW's anti-war slogans was "Don’t Be a Soldier! Be a Man!" In some case syndicalist attitudes towards women changed. In 1901, the CGT's agricultural union in southern France was hostile to women, but by 1909 this had changed. The CNT, initially hostile to independent women's organizations, worked closely with the libertarian feminist organization "Mujeres Libres" during the Civil War. According to the historian Sharif Gemie, the male orientation of parts of the syndicalist labor movement reflected the ideas of the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, who defended patriarchy because women, of their own accord, are "chained to nature". Syndicalists were involved in a number strikes, labor disputes, and other struggles. In the United States, the IWW was involved in at least 150 strikes including miners' strikes in Goldfield, Nevada in 1906–1907, a steel workers' strike in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania in 1909, a textile workers' strike in Lawrence, Massachusetts, timber workers' strikes in Louisiana and Arkansas in 1912–1913, and a silk workers' strike in Paterson, New Jersey. The most prominent was the struggle in Lawrence. Wobblie leaders brought together 23,000 mostly immigrant workers, many of whom did not speak English | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism They arranged for workers' children to be sent to live with sympathetic families outside of Lawrence for the duration of the strike so their parents could focus on the struggle. Unlike most IWW-led strikes, the struggle was successful. In Mexico, syndicalism first emerged in 1906 during a violent miners' strike in Cananea and an even more violent textile workers' strike in Río Blanco, Veracruz. In 1912, during the 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution, anarchists formed the syndicalist union House of the World Worker ("Casa del Obrero Mundial"). It led a series of successful strikes in 1913 in Mexico City and central Mexico. After the Constitutionalist Army occupied the capital in 1914, syndicalists allied with the government it established to defeat rural forces such as the Zapatistas and therefore received government support. Once those forces had been suppressed, this alliance broke apart and the "Casa" campaigned for workers' control of factories and the nationalization of foreign capital. It contributed to a rise in labor unrest that began in mid-1915. It led general strikes in May and in July–August 1916 in greater Mexico City. The latter was quelled by the army, marking the defeat of the "Casa", which was also suppressed. In Portugal, the deposition of the King in 1910 was followed by a strike wave throughout the country. After the police occupied the offices of an agricultural union, syndicalists called for a general strike | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism During the strike, Lisbon was controlled by workers and there were armed uprisings in several other cities. In 1912, the strike wave ebbed off. Italian syndicalists successfully organized agricultural workers in the Po Valley by uniting different parts of agricultural working class. They were most successful in areas where the reformist union "Federterra" had been thwarted by employers. Syndicalists led large strikes by farm workers in Parma and Ferrara in 1907–1908, but these strikes failed as a result of employers' strikebreaking tactics and infighting among workers. In 1911–1913, syndicalists played an important role in a large strike wave in Italy's industrial centers. The syndicalist union confederation USI was formed in 1912 by veterans of both strike movements. British Wobblies were involved in two major strikes in Scotland, one at Argyll Motor Works and the second at a Singer's sewing machine factory in Clydebank. In 1906, several industrial unionists began to spread their ideas and organize workers at Singer's. In 1911, they organized a strike after a woman was fired for not working hard enough. The strike was cleverly defeated by management and most activists lost their jobs. The ISEL leader Tom Mann was also at the center of several labor disputes during the Great Labour Unrest, including the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike where he chaired the strike committee. In Ireland, Jim Larkin and the ITGWU led 20,000 during the 1913 Dublin lockout | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism After the ITGWU attempted to unionize Dublin's trams and tram workers went on strike, the city's employers threatened to fire any workers who did not sign a pledge to not support the ITGWU, thereby turning the dispute into a city-wide conflict in late September. Workers' resistance crumbled in January 1914. There was no international syndicalist organization prior to World War I. In 1907, CGT activists presented the Charter of Amiens and syndicalism to an international audience a higher form of anarchism at the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam in 1907. Discussions at the Congress led to the formation of the international syndicalist journal "Bulletin international du mouvement syndicaliste". The CGT was affiliated with the International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centers (ISNTUC), which brought together reformist socialist unions. Both the Dutch NAS and the British ISEL attempted to remedy the lack of a syndicalist counterpart to ISNTUC in 1913, simultaneously publishing calls for an international syndicalist congress in 1913. The CGT rejected the invitation. Its leaders feared that leaving ISNTUC, which it intended to revolutionize from within, would split the CGT and harm working-class unity. The IWW also did not participate, as it considered itself an international in its own right. The First International Syndicalist Congress was held in London from September 27 to October 2 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism It was attended by 38 delegates from 65 organizations in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Discussions were contentious and did not lead to the founding of a syndicalist international. Delegates did agree on a declaration of principles describing syndicalism's core tenets. They also decided to launch an International Syndicalist Information Bureau and to hold another congress in Amsterdam. This congress did not take place due to the outbreak of World War I. Syndicalists had long opposed nationalism and militarism. Haywood held that "it is better to be a traitor to your country than to your class". French syndicalists viewed the Army as the primary defender of the capitalist order. In 1901, the CGT published a manual for soldiers encouraging desertion. Similarly, in 1911 British syndicalists distributed an "Open Letter to British Soldiers" imploring them not to shoot on striking workers, but to join the working class's struggle against capital. Patriotism, syndicalists argued, was a means of integrating workers into capitalist society by distracting them from their true class interest. In 1908, the CGT's congress invoked the slogan of the First International, proclaiming that the "workers have no fatherland" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism When World War I broke out in July 1914, socialist parties and trade unions both in neutral and belligerent countries supported their respective nations' war efforts or national defense, despite previous pledges to do the opposite. Socialists agreed to put aside class conflict and vote for war credits. German socialists argued that war was necessary to defend against Russia's barbaric Tsarism, while their French counterparts pointed to the need to defend against Prussian militarism and the German "instinct of domination and of discipline". This collaboration between the socialist movement and the state was known as the "union sacrée" in France, the "Burgfrieden" in Germany, and "godsvrede" in the Netherlands. Moreover, a number of anarchists led by Peter Kropotkin, including the influential syndicalist Christiaan Cornelissen, issued the Manifesto of the Sixteen, supporting the Allied cause in the war. Most syndicalists, however, remained true to their internationalist and anti-militarist principles by opposing the war and their respective nation's participation in it. The majority of the French CGT and a sizable minority in the Italian USI did not. The CGT had long had a moderate, reformist wing, which gained the upper hand. As a result, according to historians like Darlington or van der Linden and Thorpe, the CGT was no longer a revolutionary syndicalist organization after the start of World War I | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism It followed the French president's call for national unity by agreeing to a no-strike pledge and to resolve labor disputes through arbitration and by actively participating in the French war effort. Most of its members of military age were conscripted without resistance and its ranks shrank from 350,000 in 1913 to 49,000 dues-paying members in 1915. CGT leaders defended this course by arguing that France's war against Germany was a war between democracy and republicanism on the one side and barbaric militarism on the other. Italy did not initially participate in World War I, which was deeply unpopular in the country, when it broke out. The Socialist Party and the reformist General Confederation of Labor opposed Italian intervention in the Great War. Once Italy became a participant, the socialists refused to support the war effort, but also refrained from working against it. From the start of the war, even before Italy did so, a minority within USI, led by the most famous Italian syndicalist, Alceste De Ambris, called on the Italian state to take the Allies' side. The pro-war syndicalists saw Italian participation in the war as the completion of nationhood. They also felt compelled to oppose the socialists' neutrality and therefore support the war. Finally, they gave similar arguments as the French, warning of the dangers posed by the "suffocating imperialism of Germany", and felt obliged to follow the CGT's lead | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism USI's pro-war wing had the support of less than a third of the organization's members and it was forced out in September 1914. Its anarchist wing, led by Armando Borghi, was firmly opposed to the war, deeming it incompatible with workers' internationalism and predicting that it would only serve elites and governments. Its opposition was met with government repression and Borghi and others were interned by the end of the war. The anti-war faction in the CGT, on the other hand, was a small minority. It was led by the likes of Pierre Monatte and Alphonse Merrheim. They would link up with anti-war socialists from around Europe at the 1915 Zimmerwald conference. They faced considerable difficulties putting up meaningful resistance against the war. The government called up militants to the Army, including Monatte. He considered refusing the order and being summarily executed, but decided this would be futile. Syndicalist organizations in other countries nearly unanimously opposed the war. "Let Germany win, let France win, it is all the same to the workers," José Negre of the CNT in neutral Spain declared. The CNT insisted that syndicalists could support neither side in an imperialist conflict. A wave of pro-British sentiment swept Ireland during the war, although the ITGWU and the rest of the Irish labor movement opposed it, and half of the ITGWU's membership enlisted in the British military. The ITGWU had also been significantly weakened in 1913 in the Dublin Lockout | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism After Jim Larkin left Ireland in 1914, James Connolly took over leadership of the union. Because of the organization's weakness, Connolly allied it along with its paramilitary force, the Irish Citizen Army, with the Irish Republican Brotherhood. Together, they instigated the Easter Rising, seeking to weaken the British Empire and hoping that the insurrection would spread throughout Europe. The uprising was quickly quelled by the British army and Connolly was executed. In Germany, the small FVdG opposed the socialists' "Burgfrieden" and Germany's involvement in the war, challenging the claim that the country was waging a defensive war. Its journals were suppressed and a number of its members were arrested. The United States did not enter the war until the spring of 1917. The start of the war had induced an economic boom in the US, tightening the labor market and thereby strengthening workers' bargaining position. The IWW profited from this, more than doubling its membership between 1916 and 1917. At the same time, the Wobblies fervently denounced the war and mulled calling an anti-war general strike. Once America became a combatant, the IWW maintained its anti-war stance, while its bitter rival, the AFL, supported the war. It did not, however, launch an anti-war campaign, as it feared the government would crush it if it did and wanted to focus on its economic struggles. The IWW's practical opposition to the war was limited, 95% of eligible IWW members registered for the draft, and most of those drafted served | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Syndicalists in the Netherlands and Sweden, both neutral countries, criticized the truce socialists entered with their governments in order to shore up national defense. The Dutch NAS disowned Cornelissen, one of its founders, for his support for the war. Syndicalists from Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, Brazil, Argentina, Italy, and Cuba met at an anti-war congress in El Ferrol, Spain, in April 1915. The congress was poorly planned and prohibited by the Spanish authorities, but delegates managed to discuss resistance to the war and extending international cooperation between syndicalist groups. Argentine, Brazilian, Spanish, and Portuguese delegates later met in October in Rio de Janeiro to continue discussions and resolved to deepen cooperation between South American syndicalists. While syndicalists were only able to put up a rather limited practical struggle against World War I, they also looked to challenge the war on an ideological or cultural level. They pointed to the horrors of war and spurned efforts to legitimate it as something noble. German syndicalists drew attention to the death, injury, destruction, and misery that the war wrought. German, Swedish, Dutch, and Spanish syndicalists denounced nationalism with "Tierra y Libertad", a syndicalist journal in Barcelona, calling it a "grotesque mentality". The Dutch newspaper "De Arbeid" criticized nationalism, because "it finds its embodiment in the state and is the denial of class antagonism between the haves and the have-nots" | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism German and Spanish syndicalists went further still by putting into question the concept of nationhood itself and dismissing it as a mere social construct. The Germans pointed out that most inhabitants of the German Empire identified not as Germans, but in regional terms as Prussians or Bavarians and the like. Multilingual countries like Germany and Spain also could not claim a common language as a defining characteristic of the nation nor did members of the same nation share the same values or experiences, syndicalists in Spain and Germany argued. Syndicalists also argued against the notion that the war was a clash of different cultures or that it could be justified as a defense of civilization. Various cultures were not mutually hostile, they claimed, and the state should not be seen as the embodiment of culture, since culture was the product of the entire population, while the state acted in the interests of just a few. Moreover, they argued that if culture was to be understood as "high culture", the very workers dying in the war were denied access to that culture by capitalist conditions. Finally, syndicalists railed against religious justifications for war. Before the war, they had rejected religion as divisive at best, but support for the war by both Catholic and Protestant clergy revealed their hypocrisy and disgraced the principles Christianity claimed to uphold, they claimed | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism As the war progressed, disaffection with worsening living conditions at home and a growing numbers of casualties at the front eroded the enthusiasm and patriotism the outbreak of war had aroused. Prices were on the rise, food was scarce, and it became increasingly clear that the war would not be short. In Germany, for example, food shortages led to demonstrations and riots in a number of cities in the summer of 1916. At the same time, anti-war demonstrations started. Strikes picked up from around 1916 or 1917 on across Europe and soldiers began to mutiny. Workers distrusted their socialist leaders who had joined the war effort. Thanks in part to their fidelity to internationalism, syndicalist organizations profited from this development and expanded as the war drew to an end. Disaffection with the war condensed in the post-World War I revolutions that began with the 1917 Russian Revolution. In February 1917, strikes, riots, and troop mutinies broke out in Petrograd, forcing the Russian Tsar Nicholas II to abdicate on March 2 in favor of a provisional government. Immediately, anarchist groups emerged. Russian syndicalists organized around the journal "Golos Truda" ("The Voice of Labor"), which had a circulation of around 25,000, and the Union of Anarcho-Syndicalist Propaganda. Anarchists found themselves agreeing with the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin, who returned to Russia in April, as both sought to bring down the provisional government | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Lenin abandoned the idea that capitalism is a necessary stage on Russia's path to communism; dismissed the establishment of a parliament, favoring that power be taken by soviets; and called for the abolition of the police, the army, the bureaucracy, and finally the state all sentiments syndicalists shared. Although the syndicalists also welcomed the soviets, they were most enthusiastic about the factory committees and workers' councils that had emerged in all industrial centers in the course of strikes and demonstrations in the February Revolution. The committees fought for higher wages and shorter hours, but above all for workers' control over production, which both the syndicalists and Bolsheviks supported. The syndicalists viewed the factory committees as the true form of syndicalist organization, not unions. Because they were better organized, the Bolsheviks were able to gain more traction in the committees with six times as many delegates in a typical factory. Despite the goals they had in common, syndicalists became anxious about the Bolsheviks' growing influence, especially after they won majorities in the Petrograd and Moscow soviets in September. The Petrograd Soviet established the 66-member Military Revolutionary Committee, which included four anarchists, among them the syndicalist Shatov. On October 25, this committee led the October Revolution; after taking control of the Winter Palace and key points in the capital with little resistance, it proclaimed a Soviet government | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Anarchists were jubilant at the toppling of the provisional government. They were concerned about the proclamation of a new government, fearing a dictatorship of the proletariat, even more so after the Bolsheviks created the central Soviet of People's Commissars composed only of members of their party. They called for decentralization of power, but agreed with Lenin's labor program, which endorsed workers' control in all enterprises of a certain minimum size. The introduction of workers' control led to economic chaos. Lenin turned to restoring discipline in the factories and order to the economy in December by putting the economy under state control. At a trade union congress in January, the syndicalists, who had paid little attention to the unions, only had 6 delegates, while the Bolsheviks had 273. No longer depending on their help in toppling the provisional government, the Bolsheviks were now in a position to ignore the syndicalists' opposition and outvoted them at this congress. They opted to disempower local committees by subordinating them to the trade unions, which in turn became organs of the state. The Bolsheviks argued that workers' control did not mean that workers controlled factories at the local level and that this control had to be centralized and put under a broader economic plan. The syndicalists criticized the Bolshevik regime bitterly, characterizing it as state capitalist | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism They denounced state control over the factories and agitated for decentralization of power in politics and the economy and "syndicalization" of industry. The Civil War against the White Army split anarchists. The syndicalists were criticized harshly, because most supported the Bolshevik regime in the war even as they excoriated Bolshevik policy. They reasoned that a White victory would be worse and that the Whites had to be defeated before a third revolution could topple the Bolsheviks. Yet, syndicalists were harassed and repeatedly arrested by the police, particularly the Cheka, from 1919 on. Their demands had some sway with workers and dissidents within the Bolshevik party and the Bolshevik leadership viewed them as the most dangerous part of the libertarian movement. After the Civil War ended, workers and sailors, including both anarchists and Bolsheviks, rose up in 1921 in Kronstadt, a bastion of radicalism since 1905, against what they saw as the rule of a small number of bureaucrats. Anarchists hailed the rebellion as the start of the third revolution. The government reacted by having anarchists throughout the country arrested, including a number of syndicalist leaders. The Russian syndicalist movement was thereby defeated. Syndicalists in the West who had opposed World War I reacted gushingly to the Russian Revolution | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Though they were still coming to grips with the evolving Bolshevik ideology and despite traditional anarchist suspicions of Marxism, they saw in Russia a revolution that had taken place against parliamentary politics and under the influence of workers' councils. They also, at this point, had only limited knowledge of the reality in Russia. Augustin Souchy, a German anarcho-syndicalist, hailed it "the great passion that swept us all along. In the East, so we believed, the sun of freedom rose." The Spanish CNT declared: "Bolshevism is the name, but the idea is that of all revolutions: economic freedom. [...] Bolshevism is the new life for which we struggle, it is freedom, harmony, justice, it is the life that we want and will enforce in the world." Borghi recalled: "We exulted in its victories. We trembled at its risks. [...] We made a symbol and an altar of its name, its dead, its living and its heroes." He called on Italians to "do as they did in Russia". Indeed, a revolutionary wave, inspired in part by Russia, swept Europe in the following years. In Germany, strikes and protests against food shortage, mainly by women, escalated and by 1917 had eroded public confidence in the government. The German Emperor was forced to abdicate in November 1918 after sailors' mutinies sparked an insurrectionary movement throughout the country. The syndicalist FVdG, which had just 6,000 members before the war and was almost completely suppressed by the state during the war, regrouped at a conference in Berlin in December 1918 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism It was active in the revolutionary events of the following years, particularly in the Ruhr area. It supported spontaneous strikes and championed direct action and sabotage. The FVdG started to be held in high regard for its radicalism by workers, particularly miners, who appreciated the syndicalists' ability to theorize their struggles and their experience with direct action methods. Starting in the second half of 1919, workers disappointed by the socialist party's and unions' support for the war and previously non-unionized unskilled workers who were radicalized during the war flocked to the FVdG. The revolution also saw the introduction to Germany of industrial unionism along the lines of the IWW with some support from the American organization, but also with links to the left wing of the Communist Party. In December 1919, the Free Workers' Union of Germany (Syndicalists) ("Freie Arbeiter-Union Deutschlands (Syndikalisten)", FAUD) was formed, claiming to represent over 110,000 workers, more than eighteen times the FVdG's pre-war membership. Most of the new organization came from the FVdG, but industrial unionists, whose influence was dwindling, were also involved. Rudolf Rocker, an anarchist recently returned to Germany after spending several years in London, wrote the FAUD's program. Class struggle peaked in Italy in the years 1919–1920, which became known as the "biennio rosso" or red biennium | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Throughout this wave of labor radicalism, syndicalists, along with anarchists, formed the most consistently revolutionary faction on the left as socialists sought to rein in workers and prevent unrest. The Italian syndicalist movement had split during the war, as the syndicalist supporters of Italian intervention left USI. The interventionists, led by Alceste de Ambris and Edmondo Rossoni, formed the Italian Union of Labor ("Unione Italiana del Lavoro", UIL) in 1918. The UIL's national syndicalism emphasized workers' love of labor, self-sacrifice, and the nation rather than anti-capitalist class struggle. Both USI and the UIL grew significantly during the "biennio rosso". The first factory occupation of the "biennio" was carried out by the UIL at a steel plant in Dalmine in February 1919, before the military put an end to it. In July, a strike movement spread through Italy, culminating in a general strike on July 20. While USI supported it and was convinced by the workers' enthusiasm that revolution could be possible, the UIL and the socialists were opposed. The socialists succeeded in curtailing the general strike and it imploded with a day. The government, unsettled by the radicalism on display, reacted with repression against the far left and concessions to workers and peasants. In Portugal, working class unrest picked up from the start of the war | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism In 1917, radicals began to dominate the labor movement as a result of the war, the dictatorship established that year, and the influence of the Russian Revolution. In November 1918, a general strike was called but failed and in 1919 the syndicalist General Confederation of Labour ("Confederação Geral do Trabalho", CGT) was formed as the country's first national union confederation. In Brazil, in both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, syndicalists, along with anarchists and socialists, were leaders in a cycle of labor struggles from 1917 to 1919. It included a general strike in 1917, a failed uprising in 1918 inspired by the Russian Revolution, and a number of smaller strikes. The movement was put down by increased organization by employers to resist workers' demands and by government repression, including the closure of unions, arrests, deportations of foreign militants, and violence, with some 200 workers killed in São Paulo alone. In Argentina, FORA had split into the anarcho-communist FORA V and the syndicalist FORA IX. While FORA V called for a futile general strike in 1915, FORA IX was more careful. It called off general strikes it had planned in 1917 and 1918. In January 1919, five workers were by the authorities during a strike led by a union with tenuous links to FORA V. At the funeral, police killed another 39 workers. Both FORA organizations called for a general strike, which continued after FORA IX reached a settlement. Vigilantes, supported by business and the military, attacked unions and militants | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism In all, between 100 and 700 people died in what became known as the Tragic Week. Nevertheless, strikes continued to increase and both FORA V and IX grew. The United States underwent an increase in labor militancy during the post-war period. 1919 saw a general strike in Seattle, large miners' strikes, a police strike in Boston, and a nationwide steel strike. The IWW, however, had been nearly destroyed in the previous two years by local criminal syndicalism laws, the federal government, and vigilante violence. It attempted to take credit for some of the strikes, but in reality was too weak to play a significant role. The post-war Red Scare intensified the attacks on the IWW and by the end of 1919 the IWW was practically powerless. In 1919 Canada was hit by a labor revolt, leading to the formation of One Big Union, which was only partly industrial unionist. Though the Bolsheviks suppressed syndicalism in Russia, they courted syndicalists abroad as part of their international strategy. In March 1919, the Comintern or Third International was founded at a conference in Moscow. The Bolsheviks acknowledged syndicalism's opposition to socialist reformism and saw them as part of the revolutionary wing of the labor movement. No syndicalists attended the founding convention, mainly because the blockade of Russia by the Allies powers made travel to Moscow near impossible | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism After long discussions, the CNT opted to join the Comintern, though it classified its adherence as provisional as a concession to detractors of Bolshevism. USI also decided to join, though some like Borghi had reservations about the course of events in Russia. In France, the CGT's radical minority that had opposed the war enthusiastically supported Bolshevism. They formed the Revolutionary Syndicalist Committees and attempted to push the CGT as a whole to support the Comintern. The General Executive Board of the IWW decided join the Comintern, but this decision was never confirmed by a convention. German and Swedish syndicalists were more critical of Bolshevism from the start. Rocker declared already in August 1918 that the Bolshevik regime was "but a new system of tyranny". Syndicalists became more estranged from the Comintern in 1920. The second congress of the Comintern in the summer of 1920 was attended by numerous syndicalists. The Italian USI, the Spanish CNT, the British shop stewards, and the revolutionary minority of the CGT had official representatives, but others like John Reed of the American IWW, Augustin Souchy of the German FAUD, and the Japanese Wobbly Taro Yoshiharo also attended in an unofficial capacity. This was the first major international gathering of syndicalists since the end of the war. Western syndicalists' knowledge of the facts on the ground in Russia was at this point rather limited | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism They thought of the soviets as organs of workers' control over production and the Bolsheviks depicted them as such. Syndicalists were not aware of the extent to which they were in reality subordinated to the communist party. The congress, however, revealed the irreconcilable differences between the syndicalist and the Bolshevik approach. Before the congress, the Comintern's Executive Committee arranged discussions with syndicalists to challenge the reformist International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). A document proposed by Alexander Lozovsky derided the apolitical unions as "lackeys of imperialist capitalism" for their betrayal during the war, to which syndicalists replied that of the syndicalist unions this only applied to the CGT. Throughout the preliminary meetings, syndicalists clashed with other delegates on the questions of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the conquest of state power as well as on relations with communists and the Comintern. Eventually all syndicalists agreed to the formation of a council tasked with spreading revolutionizing the trade union movement. Disagreements continued at the congress itself. The International Workers' Association, formed in 1922, is an international syndicalist federation of various labour unions from different countries. At its peak, it represented millions of workers and competed directly for the hearts and minds of the working class with social democratic unions and parties | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism From the early 1920s, syndicalist movements in most countries began to wane. State repression played a significant role, but movements that were not suppressed also declined. Faced with this decline, syndicalist organizations had three choices: They could stay true to their revolutionary principles and be marginalized. They could give up those principles in order to adapt to new conditions. Finally, they could disband or merge into non-syndicalist organizations. The IWW is an example of the first case. The French CGT, which according to van der Linden and Thorpe was no longer syndicalist after 1914, went the second route. By the end of the 1930s, meaningful legal syndicalist organizations existed only in Bolivia, Chile, Sweden and Uruguay. Georges Sorel played a role in shaping the views of Benito Mussolini and by extension the wider Italian fascist movement. In March 1921, Sorel wrote that Mussolini was "a man no less extraordinary than Lenin". After Sorel's death in 1922, Agostino Lanzillo, a one-time syndicalist leader who had become a fascist, wrote in the Italian fascist review "Gerarchia", which was edited by Mussolini: "Perhaps fascism may have the good fortune to fulfill a mission that is the implicit aspiration of the whole oeuvre of the master of syndicalism: to tear away the proletariat from the domination of the Socialist party, to reconstitute it on the basis of spiritual liberty, and to animate it with the breath of creative violence | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism This would be the true revolution that would mold the forms of the Italy of tomorrow". This movement has been often called Fascist syndicalism. Syndicalists were involved in the resistance against fascism in several countries. In Germany, the FAUD had already been reduced to a small organization, with a membership of just over 4000 in 1932. Augustin Souchy had urged his comrades to prepare for illegality and the FAUD congress in 1932 had made plans for this. When the Nazis took power in January 1933, most local groups preemptively dissolved and hid their money and other resources to use them in their illegal work. On March 9, shortly after the Reichstag fire, the FAUD's headquarters in Berlin were searched by the police and ten people were arrested. As the SS and SA rounded up opponents of Nazism, so too many anarcho-syndicalists were put in prisons, concentration camps, and torture chambers. Syndicalists distributed a number of newspapers, pamphlets, and leaflets, some smuggled from the Netherlands and Czechoslovakia, some printed in Germany. They passed information on the situation in Germany to their fellow syndicalists abroad. They organized clandestine meetings to coordinate their activities and build an underground resistance network. Illegal syndicalist activity peaked in 1934, but by late 1934 the Gestapo started to infiltrate the underground organization and another round of arrests began | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Although the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 briefly revitalized syndicalist activity, the syndicalist network was ultimately crushed by the Gestapo by 1937 or 1938. Most syndicalists who had not been arrested gave up at this point. Several dozen German syndicalists went into exile and some ended up in Barcelona, working for the CNT and fighting in the Spanish Civil War. In France, too, many anarchists and syndicalists were involved in the Resistance. For instance, the anarchist Georges Gourdin, an activist in the CGT's Technicians' Federation, organized links between anarchists and aided them and other refugees in escaping the Gestapo. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1944, tortured without giving up any information, and died at a camp near Nordhausen. The best known French anarchist resister was the pacifist Jean-René Saulière. He organized an anarchist resistance group which included the exiled Russian syndicalist Volin. The same day Toulouse was liberated in August 1944, a leaflet titled "Manifesto of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Libertarian Groups" was distributed by Saulière's network throughout the city. In Poland, syndicalists were among the first to organize resistance against Nazism. In October 1939, they formed Union of Polish Syndicalists (ZSP) with 2,000–4,000 members. It published newspapers, but also had fighting units in the resistance. In 1942, it joined the Home Army (AK) led by the Polish government-in-exile | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Syndicalists also formed the "Freedom" Syndicalist Organisation (SOW), which comprised several hundred activists and also had combatant units. The ZSP and the SOW were involved in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. They formed a company consisting of several hundred soldiers who wore red and black bands and hung red and black flags on the building they captured. The anarcho-syndicalist revolution during the Spanish Civil War resulted in the widespread implementation of anarchist and more broadly socialist organisational principles throughout various portions of the country for two to three years, primarily Catalonia, Aragon, Andalusia and parts of the Levante, with the main organisation being the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo. Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control—in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75%. On the other side, there was a national syndicalist thread represented originally by the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista of Onésimo Redondo and Ramiro Ledesma, inspired by Georges Sorel and Action Française, and primarily based amongst students in Madrid and workers and peasants in and around Valladolid. Ledesma failed to win approval for his ideas from the CNT in 1931, and instead merged into the Falange, creating the "Central Obrera Nacional-Sindicalista" in 1934. After the nationalist victory in the civil war, a corporatist and vertical Spanish Labour Organization became the sole legal trade union in Francoist Spain | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Syndicalism's decline was the result of a number of factors. In Russia, Italy, Portugal, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands, syndicalist movements were suppressed by authoritarian governments. The IWW in the United States and the Mexican House of the World Worker were weakened considerably by state repression. Syndicalist movements that were not suppressed also declined. According to van der Linden and Thorpe, this was primarily the result of the integration of the working class into capitalist relations. Proletarian families became units of individualized consumption as standards of living increased. This was partly the result of state intervention, particularly the emergence of the welfare state. Avenues for social reform opened up and the franchise was widened, giving parliamentary reformism legitimacy. Altena agrees that the state's growing influence in society was decisive for syndicalism's diminished influence. In addition to the welfare state, he refers to the increased significance of national policies, which eroded local autonomy. This made centralized unions able to negotiate national agreements more important and national and parliamentary politics more enticing for workers. They therefore turned to social democracy in larger numbers. Additionally, according to Altena syndicalism lost out to sports and entertainment in the cultural sphere. Vadim Dam'e adds to this that the development of capitalist production and changes in the division of labor diminished syndicalism's recruitment base | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism According to authors like Stearns, Edward Shorter, Charles Tilly, and Bob Holton, who deem syndicalism a transitional form of workers' resistance between older craft-based and modern factory-based industry, syndicalism's decline was a product of that transition having been completed and workers being assimilated to capitalist factory discipline. Darlington counters that syndicalism attracted a variety of workers, not just artisans and skilled workers, but concedes that such changes did play a role in Spain, France, and some other countries. Several authors claim that syndicalism's demise was the result of workers' inherent pragmatism or conservatism, causing them to only be interested in immediate material gains, rather than long-term goals like overthrowing capitalism. Robert Hoxie, Selig Perlman, and Patrick Renshaw invoke this argument to explain the IWW's decline and Stearns, Dermot Keogh, and G. D. H. Cole do so with respect to French, Irish, and British syndicalism, respectively. Darlington disputes the assumption that workers are incapable of developing a revolutionary consciousness. Seeking material gains is not incompatible, he claims, with developing class consciousness, which entails the awareness that workers' material interests conflict with capitalism, particularly in times of crisis. According to many Marxists, syndicalism was a reaction to reformism in the labor movement and could not survive without it. The collapse of reformism after the war therefore automatically weakened syndicalism | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism According Eric Hobsbawm, the biggest reason for syndicalism's decline, however, was the rise of communism. Several communist parties drew their cadres from the syndicalists' ranks. To radical workers, the programmatic distinctions between syndicalism and communism were not all that relevant. The key is that after the war communism represented militancy or revolutionary attitude as such. Darlington, too, sees the effects of the Russian Revolution as an important reason for the decline of syndicalism. The emergence of communism highlighted syndicalism's inherent weaknesses: the contradiction of building organizations that sought to be both revolutionary cadre organizations and mass labor unions, the emphasis on economic struggle to the detriment of political action and the commitment to localism limiting its ability to provide an effective centralized organization and leadership. Bolshevism's overcoming of these limitations and its success in Russia drew syndicalist leaders and members. It also exacerbated splits within the syndicalist camp. The Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War put an end to syndicalism as a mass movement. Immediately after World War II, there were attempts to rekindle anarcho-syndicalism in Germany, but they were thwarted by Cold War anti-communism, Stalinism, and a failure to attract newer younger activists. Syndicalists maintained some influence in Latin American labor movements into the 1970s | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism The protest movements of the late 1960s saw renewed interest in syndicalism by activists in Germany, the US, and Britain. During its Hot Autumn of 1969, Italy experienced labor actions reminiscent of syndicalism, but syndicalists did not actually exert any influence, according to Carl Levy. In the 1980s, in communist Poland, the trade union Solidarity ("Solidarność"), though not strictly syndicalist, attracted masses of dissident workers by reviving many syndicalist ideas and practices. The IWA exists to this day, but with very little influence. At most, it is a "flicker of history, the custodian of doctrine" according to Wayne Thorpe. Among its member organizations is the British Solidarity Federation, which was formed in 1994, but has roots going back to 1950. The German Free Workers' Union ("Freie Arbeiterinnen- und Arbeiter-Union", FAU) was formed to carry on the FAUD's tradition in 1977, but has a membership of just 350 as of 2011. It left the IWA in 2018 to form the International Confederation of Labor (ICL). Spain has several syndicalist federations, including the CNT, which has around 50,000 members as of 2018. It, too, was a member of the IWA until 2018, when it joined the FAU in forming the ICT. After being defeated in the Civil War, tens of thousands of CNT militants went into exile, mostly in France. In exile, the organization atrophied, with just 5,000 mostly older members by 1960. During Spain's transition to democracy, the CNT was revived with a peak membership of over 300,000 in 1978 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism However, it was soon weakened, first by accusations of having been involved in the bombing of a nightclub, then by a schism. Members who favored participation in state-sponsored union elections left and formed an organization they would eventually name the General Confederation of Labor ("Confederación General del Trabajo", CGT). Despite these concessions, the CGT still views itself as an anarcho-syndicalist organization and has around 100,000 members as of 2018. According to Darlington, syndicalism left a legacy that was widely admired by labor and political activists in a number of countries. For example, the IWW song "Solidarity Forever" became part of the American labor movement's canon. The strike wave, including the recruitment of unskilled and foreign-born workers by the Congress of Industrial Organizations, that swept the United States in the 1930s followed in the IWW's footsteps. The tactic of the sit-down strike, made famous by the United Auto Workers in the Flint sit-down strike, was pioneered by Wobblies in 1906. In his study of French syndicalism, Stearns concludes that it was a dismal failure. The radicalism of syndicalist labor leaders, he claims, shocked French workers and the government and thereby weakened the labor movement as a whole. was most popular among workers not yet fully integrated into modern capitalist industry, but most French workers had adapted to this system and accepted it | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Syndicalism Therefore, syndicalism was not able to seriously challenge prevailing conditions or even scare politicians and employers. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=26775 |
Okun's law In economics, (named after Arthur Melvin Okun, who proposed the relationship in 1962) is an empirically observed relationship between unemployment and losses in a country's production. The "gap version" states that for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate, a country's GDP will be roughly an additional 2% lower than its potential GDP. The "difference version" describes the relationship between quarterly changes in unemployment and quarterly changes in real GDP. The stability and usefulness of the law has been disputed. may more accurately be called "Okun's rule of thumb" because it is an approximation based on empirical observation rather than a result derived from theory. is approximate because factors other than employment (such as productivity) affect output. In Okun's original statement of his law, 2% increase in output corresponds to a 1% decline in the rate of cyclical unemployment; a 0.5% increase in labor force participation; a 0.5% increase in hours worked per employee; and a 1% increase in output per hours worked (labor productivity). states that a one-point increase in the cyclical unemployment rate is associated with two percentage points of negative growth in real GDP. The relationship varies depending on the country and time period under consideration. The relationship has been tested by regressing GDP or GNP growth on change in the unemployment rate. Martin Prachowny estimated about a 3% decrease in output for every 1% increase in the unemployment rate | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=627957 |
Okun's law However, he argued that the majority of this change in output is actually due to changes in factors other than unemployment, such as capacity utilization and hours worked. Holding these other factors constant reduces the association between unemployment and GDP to around 0.7% for every 1% change in the unemployment rate (Prachowny 1993). The magnitude of the decrease seems to be declining over time in the United States. According to Andrew Abel and Ben Bernanke, estimates based on data from more recent years give about a 2% decrease in output for every 1% increase in unemployment (Abel and Bernanke, 2005). There are several reasons why GDP may increase or decrease more rapidly than unemployment decreases or increases: As unemployment increases, One implication of is that an increase in labor productivity or an increase in the size of the labor force can mean that real net output grows without net unemployment rates falling (the phenomenon of "jobless growth") Okun's Law is sometimes confused with Lucas wedge. The gap version of may be written (Abel & Bernanke 2005) as: In the United States since 1955 or so, the value of c has typically been around 2 or 3, as explained above. The gap version of Okun's law, as shown above, is difficult to use in practice because formula_3 and formula_5 can only be estimated, not measured | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=627957 |
Okun's law A more commonly used form of Okun's law, known as the difference or growth rate form of Okun's law, relates changes in output to changes in unemployment: At the present time in the United States, k is about 3% and c is about 2, so the equation may be written The graph at the top of this article illustrates the growth rate form of Okun's law, measured quarterly rather than annually. We start with the first form of Okun's law: Taking annual differences on both sides, we obtain Putting both numerators over a common denominator, we obtain Multiplying the left hand side by formula_20, which is approximately equal to 1, we obtain We assume that formula_23, the change in the natural rate of unemployment, is approximately equal to 0. We also assume that formula_24, the growth rate of full-employment output, is approximately equal to its average value, formula_14. So we finally obtain Through comparisons between actual data and theoretical forecasting, proves to be an invaluable tool in predicting trends between unemployment and real GDP. However, the accuracy of the data theoretically proved through compared to real world numbers proves to be generally inaccurate. This is due to the variances in Okun's coefficient. Many conclude that information proved by to be acceptable to a certain degree. Also, some findings have concluded that tends to have higher rates of accuracy for short-run predictions, rather than long-run predictions | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=627957 |
Okun's law Forecasters have concluded this to be true due to unforeseen market conditions that may affect Okun's coefficient. As such, is generally acceptable by forecasters as a tool for short-run trend analysis between unemployment and real GDP, rather than being used for long run analysis as well as accurate numerical calculations. The San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank determined through the use of empirical data from past recessions in the 1970s, 1990s, and 2000s that Okun’s law was a useful theory. All recessions showed two common main trends: a counterclockwise loop for both real-time and revised data. The recoveries of the 1990s and 2000s did have smaller and tighter loops. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=627957 |
Europe, the Middle East and Africa EMEA is a shorthand designation meaning Europe, the Middle East and Africa. The acronym is used by institutions and governments, as well as in marketing and business when referring to this region: it is a shorthand way of referencing the two continents (Africa & Europe) and the Middle Eastern sub-continent all at once. It is particularly common among North American companies, and it is mostly used when dividing a company's operations by geography. As the name suggests, the region includes all of the countries found on the continents of Africa and Europe, as well as the countries that make up the Middle East. The region is generally accepted to include all European nations and all African nations, and extends east to Iran, including Russia. It may also include Kazakhstan, but typically the acronym does not include independent overseas territories of mainland countries in the region, such as French Guiana. However, the term is not completely clear, and while it usually refers to Europe, the Middle East and Africa, it is not uncommon for business and other institutions to slightly tweak the countries they include under this umbrella term. One of the reasons why the term is vastly used is because it is useful for business purposes, as most of the region falls within four time zones, which facilitates communication and travel. The related term "EMEAA" refers to "Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Asia". | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=628999 |
International political economy (IPE), also known as global political economy (GPE), refers to either economics or an interdisciplinary academic discipline that analyzes economics, politics and international relations. When it is used to refer to the latter, it usually focuses on political economy and economics, although it may also draw on a few other distinct academic schools, notably political science, also sociology, history, and cultural studies. IPE is most closely linked to the fields of macroeconomics, international business, international development and development economics. The term political economy is derived from the Greek polis, meaning “city” or “state,” and oikonomos, meaning “one who manages a household or estate.” Political economy thus can be understood as the study of how a country—the public’s household—is managed or governed, taking into account both political and economic factors. Political economy is a very old subject of intellectual inquiry. IPE scholars are at the center of the debate and research surrounding globalization, international trade, international finance, financial crises, microeconomics, macroeconomics, development economics, (poverty and the role of institutions in development), global markets, political risk, multi-state cooperation in solving trans-border economic problems, and the structural balance of power between and among states and institutions. Political economy was synonymous with economics until the nineteenth century when they began to diverge | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=630327 |
International political economy Early political economists included John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, and Roger Moore. According to International Relations scholar Chris Brown, Susan Strange was "almost single-handedly responsible for creating international political economy". International Trade and Finance is a major topic in IPE. Economics, as some may claim, has been viewed as dawning with the "Smithian" revolution against Mercantilism. The liberal view point generally has been strong in Western academia since it was first articulated by Smith in the eighteenth century. Only during the 1940s to early 1970s did an alternative system, Keynesianism, command wide support in universities. Keynes was concerned chiefly with domestic macroeconomic policy. The Keynesian consensus was challenged by Friedrich Hayek and later Milton Friedman and other scholars out of Chicago as early as the 1950s, and by the 1970s, Keynes' influence on public discourse and economic policy making had somewhat faded. After World War II the Bretton Woods system was established, reflecting the political orientation described as Embedded liberalism. In 1971 President Richard Nixon ended the convertibility of gold that had been established under the IMF in the Bretton Woods system. Interim agreements followed. Nonetheless, until 2008 the trend has been for increasing liberalization of both international trade and finance. From later 2008 world leaders have also been increasingly calling for a New Bretton Woods System | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=630327 |
International political economy Topics such as the International Monetary Fund, Financial Crises (see Financial crisis of 2007–2008 and 1997 Asian financial crisis), exchange rates, Foreign Direct Investment, Multinational Corporations receive much attention in IPE. IPE studies International trade theory such as the Heckscher–Ohlin model and Ricardian economics. Global trade, strategic trade theory, trade wars, the national balance of payment and trade deficits are topics that IPE scholars are interested in. The mercantilist view largely characterised policies pursued by state actors from the emergence of the modern economy in the fifteenth century up to the mid-twentieth century. Sovereign states would compete with each other to accumulate billion either by achieving trade surpluses or by conquest. This wealth could then be used to finance investment in infrastructure and to enhance military capability. The post Washington consensus view regards international trade as a win-win phenomenon where firms should be allowed to collaborate or compete depending on market forces. After WWII a notable success story for the developmentalist approach was found in South America where high levels of growth and equity were achieved partly as a result of policies originating from Raul Prebisch and economists he trained, who were assigned to governments around the continent. IPE is also concerned with development economics and explaining how and why countries develop | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=630327 |
International political economy Benjamin Cohen provides a detailed intellectual history of IPE identifying American and British camps. The Americans are positivist and attempt to develop intermediate level theories that are supported by some form of quantitative evidence. British IPE is more "interpretivist" and looks for "grand theories". They use very different standards of empirical work. Cohen sees benefits in both approaches. A special edition of "New Political Economy" has been issued on The ‘British School' of IPE and a special edition of the "Review of International Political Economy" (RIPE) on American IPE. One forum for this was the "2008 Warwick RIPE Debate: ‘American’ versus ‘British’ IPE" where Cohen, Mark Blyth, Richard Higgott, and Matthew Watson followed up the recent exchange in RIPE. Higgott and Watson in particular, queried the appropriateness of Cohen's categories. The contemporary view is that IPE is composed of niche groups for research while teaching follows a common tradition with distinct leanings towards explanations that favor economic theory or political and sociological insights. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=630327 |
Private product remaining Private Product Remaining or PPR is a means of national income accounting similar to the more commonly encountered GNP. Since government is financed through taxation and any resulting output is not (usually) sold on the market, what value is ascribed to it is disputed (see calculation problem), and it is counted in GNP. Murray Rothbard developed the GPP (Gross Private Product) and PPR measures. GPP is GNP minus income originating in government and government enterprises. PPR is GPP minus the higher of government expenditures and tax revenues plus interest received. formula_1 For example, in an economy in which the private expenditures total $1,000 and government expenditures total $200, the GNP would be $1,200, GPP would be $1,000, and PPR would be $800. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=632085 |
Putting-out system The Putting-Out System is a means of subcontracting work. Historically, it was also known as the workshop system and the domestic system. In putting-out, work is contracted by a central agent to subcontractors who complete the work in off-site facilities, either in their own homes or in workshops with multiple craftsmen. It was used in the English and American textile industries, in shoemaking, lock-making trades, and making parts for small firearms from the Industrial Revolution until the mid-19th century. After the invention of the sewing machine in 1846, the system lingered on for the making of ready-made men's clothing. The domestic system was suited to pre-urban times because workers did not have to travel from home to work, which was quite impracticable due to the state of roads and footpaths, and members of the household spent many hours in farm or household tasks. Early factory owners sometimes had to build dormitories to house workers, especially girls and women. Putting-out workers had some flexibility to balance farm and household chores with the putting-out work, this being especially important in winter. The development of this trend is often considered to be a form of proto-industrialization, and remained prominent until the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. At that point, it underwent name and geographical changes. However, bar some technological advancements, the putting-out system has not changed in essential practice | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=633717 |
Putting-out system Contemporary examples can be found in China, India, and South America, and are not limited to the textiles industry. Historian David A. Hounshell writes: All of the processes were carried out under different cottage roofs. It was replaced by inside contracting and the factory system. The "domestic system" was a popular system of cloth production in Europe. It was also used in various other industries, including the manufacture of wrought iron ironware such as pins, pots, and pans for ironmongers. It existed as early as the 15th century, but was most prominent in the 17th and 18th centuries. It served as a way for capitalists and workers to bypass the guild system, which was thought to be cumbersome and inflexible, and to access a rural labour force. Having the workers work in their homes was convenient for both parties. Workers would work from home, manufacturing individual articles from raw materials, then bring them to a central place of business, such as a marketplace or a larger town, to be assembled and sold. In other cases travelling agents or traders would tour the villages, supplying the raw materials and collecting the finished goods. The raw materials were often provided by the merchant, who received the finished product, hence the synonymous term putting-out system | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=633717 |
Putting-out system The advantages of this system were that workers involved could work at their own speed while at home, and children working in the system were better treated than they would have been in the factory system, although the homes might be polluted by the toxins from the raw materials. As the woman of a family usually worked at home, someone was often there to look after any children. The domestic system is often cited as one of the causes of the rise of the nuclear family in Europe, as the large amount of profits gained by common people made them less dependent on their extended family. These considerable sums of money also led to a much wealthier peasantry with more furniture, higher-quality food, and better clothing than they had had before. It was mostly centralized in Western Europe and did not take a strong hold in Eastern Europe. Thomas Hood's poem "The Song of the Shirt" (1843) describes the wretched life of a woman in Lambeth labouring under such a system. It was written in honour of a Mrs. Biddell, a Lambeth widow and seamstress living in wretched conditions. In what was, at that time, common practice, Mrs. Biddell sewed trousers and shirts in her home using materials given to her by her employer, for which she was forced to give a £2 deposit. In a desperate attempt to feed her starving infants, Mrs. Biddell pawned the clothing she had made, thus accruing a debt that she could not pay. Mrs | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=633717 |
Putting-out system Biddell, whose first name has not been recorded, was sent to a workhouse, and her ultimate fate is unknown; however, her story became a catalyst for those who actively opposed the wretched conditions of England’s working poor, who often spent seven days a week labouring under inhuman conditions, barely managing to survive and with no prospect for relief. Anders Jonsson (1816–1890) was a famous Swedish entrepreneur who continued a putting-out business at Holsljunga. He contracted up to 200 domestic workers, who came to his house to get the raw material and returned after a couple of weeks with textiles, that local pedlars from the city of Borås then bought and went out to sell, among other things, around Sweden and Norway. A cottage industry is an industry—primarily manufacturing—which includes many producers, working from their homes, typically part-time. The term originally referred to home workers who were engaged in a task such as sewing, lace-making, wall hangings, electronics, or household manufacturing. Some industries which are usually operated from large, centralized factories were cottage industries before the Industrial Revolution. Business operators would travel around the world, buying raw materials, delivering them to people who would work on them, and then collecting the finished goods to sell, or typically to ship to another market | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=633717 |
Putting-out system One of the factors which allowed the Industrial Revolution to take place in Western Europe was the presence of these business people who had the ability to expand the scale of their operations. Cottage industries were very common in the time when a large proportion of the population was engaged in agriculture, because the farmers (and their families) often had both the time and the desire to earn additional income during the part of the year (winter) when there was little work to do farming or selling produce by the farm's roadside. They also used horses. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=633717 |
Voluntary childlessness Voluntary childlessness, also described by some as being childfree, is the voluntary choice to not have children. In most societies and for most of human history, choosing not to have children was both difficult and undesirable. The availability of reliable contraception along with support provided in old age by one's government rather than one's family has made childlessness an option for people in some, though they may be looked down upon in certain communities. The usage of the term "childfree" to describe people who choose not to have children was coined in the English language late in the 20th century. The meaning of the term "childfree" extends to encompass the children of others (in addition to one's own children) and this distinguishes it further from the more usual term "childless", which is traditionally used to express the idea of having no children, whether by choice or by circumstance. The term 'child free' has been cited in Australian literature to refer to parents who are without children at the current time. This may be due to them living elsewhere on a permanent basis or a short-term solution such as childcare (Australian Institute of Family Studies, 2011). Supporters of living childfree (e.g | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness Corinne Maier, French author of "No Kids: 40 Reasons For Not Having Children") cite various reasons for their view: According to economist David Foot of the University of Toronto, the level of a woman's education is the most important factor in determining whether she will reproduce: the higher her level of education, the less likely she is to bear children (or if she does, the fewer children she is likely to have). Overall, researchers have observed childless couples to be more educated, and it is perhaps because of this that they are more likely to be employed in professional and management occupations, more likely for both spouses to earn relatively high incomes, and to live in urban areas. They are also less likely to be religious, subscribe to traditional gender roles, or subscribe to conventional roles. Being a childfree, American adult was considered unusual in the 1950s. However, the proportion of childless adults in the population has increased significantly since then. The proportion of childlessness among women aged 40–44 was 10% in 1976, reached a high of 20% in 2005, then declined to 15% in 2014. In Europe, childlessness among women aged 40–44 is most common in Austria, Spain and the United Kingdom (in 2010-2011). Among surveyed countries, childlessness was least common across Eastern European countries, although one child families are very common there. From 2007 to 2011 the fertility rate in the U.S. declined 9%, the Pew Research Center reporting in 2010 that the birth rate was the lowest in U.S | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness history and that childfreeness rose across all racial and ethnic groups to about 1 in 5 versus 1 in 10 in the 1970s. The CDC released statistics in the first quarter of 2016 confirming that the U.S. fertility rate had fallen to its lowest point since record keeping started in 1909: 59.8 births per 1,000 women, half its high of 122.9 in 1957. Even taking the falling fertility rate into account, the U.S. Census Bureau still projected that the U.S. population would increase from 319 million (2014) to 400 million by 2051. The National Center of Health Statistics confirms that the percentage of American women of childbearing age who define themselves as childfree (or voluntarily childless) rose sharply in the 1990s—from 2.4 percent in 1982 to 4.3 percent in 1990 to 6.6 percent in 1995. In 2010, updated information on childlessness, based on a 2008 US Census Population Survey, was analyzed by Pew Research. While younger women are more likely to be childfree, older women are more likely to state that they intend to remain childfree in the future. Being unmarried is one of the strongest predictors of childlessness. It has also been suggested through research that married individuals who were concerned about the stability of their marriages were more likely to remain childless. Most studies on this subject find that higher income predicted childlessness. However, some women report that lack of financial resources was a reason why they decided to remain childless | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness Childless women in the developed world often express the view that women ultimately have to make a choice between motherhood and having a career. The 2004 Census Bureau data showed nearly half of women with annual incomes over $100,000 are childless. Among women aged 35–44, the chance of being childless was far greater for never-married (82.5%) than for married women (12.9%). When the same group is analyzed by education level, increasing education correlates with increasing childlessness: non-H.S. graduate (13.5%), H.S. graduate (14.3%), Some College no degree (24.7%), Associate Degree (11.4%), Bachelor's degree (18.2%) and Graduate or Professional degree (27.6%). Most societies place a high value on parenthood in adult life, so that people who remain childfree are sometimes stereotyped as being "individualistic" people who avoid social responsibility and are less prepared to commit themselves to helping others. However, certain groups believe that being childfree is beneficial. With the advent of environmentalism and concerns for stewardship, those choosing to not have children are also sometimes recognized as helping reduce our impact, such as members of the voluntary human extinction movement. Some childfree are sometimes lauded on moral grounds, such as members of philosophical or religious groups, like the Shakers. There are three broad areas of criticism regarding childfreeness, based upon socio-political, feminist or religious reasons | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness There are also considerations relating to personal philosophy and social roles. Feminist author Daphne DeMarneffe links larger feminist issues to both the devaluation of motherhood in contemporary society, as well as the delegitimization of "maternal desire" and pleasure in motherhood. In third-wave handbook "Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future", authors Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards explore the concept of third-wave feminists reclaiming "girlie" culture, along with reasons why women of Baby Boomer and Generation X ages may reject motherhood because, at a young and impressionable age, they witnessed their own mothers being devalued by society and family. On the other hand, in "The Bust Guide to the New Girl Order" and in "Utne Reader" magazine, third-wave feminist writer Tiffany Lee Brown described the joys and freedoms of childfree living, freedoms such as travel previously associated with males in Western culture. In "Motherhood Lite," she celebrates being an aunt, co-parent, or family friend over the idea of being a mother. Some believe that overpopulation is a serious problem and some question the fairness of what they feel amount to subsidies for having children, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (US), free K–12 education paid for by all taxpayers, family medical leave, and other such programs | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness Others, however, do not believe overpopulation to be a problem in itself; regarding such problems as overcrowding, global warming, and straining food supplies to be problems of public policy and/or technology. Some have argued that this sort of conscientiousness is self-eliminating (assuming it is heritable), so by avoiding reproduction for ethical reasons the childfree will only aid deterioration of concern for the environment and future generations. Some regard governmental or employer-based incentives offered only to parents—such as a per-child income tax credit, preferential absence planning, employment legislation, or special facilities—as intrinsically discriminatory, arguing for their removal, reduction, or the formation of a corresponding system of matching incentives for other categories of social relationships. Childfree advocates argue that other forms of caregiving have historically not been considered equal—that "only babies count"—and that this is an outdated idea that is in need of revision. Caring for sick, disabled, or elderly dependents entails significant financial and emotional costs but is not currently subsidized in the same manner. This commitment has traditionally and increasingly fallen largely on women, contributing to the feminization of poverty in the U.S. The focus on personal acceptance is mirrored in much of the literature surrounding choosing not to reproduce | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness Many early books were grounded in feminist theory and largely sought to dispel the idea that womanhood and motherhood were necessarily the same thing, arguing, for example, that childfree people face not only social discrimination but political discrimination as well. Abrahamic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, as well as Hinduism place a high value on children and their central place in marriage. In numerous works, including an Apostolic letter written in 1988, Pope John Paul II has set forth the Roman Catholic emphasis on the role of children in family life. However, the Catholic Church also stresses the value of chastity in the non-married state of life and so approves of nominally childfree ways of life for the single. There are, however, some debates within religious groups about whether a childfree lifestyle is acceptable. Another view, for example, is that the biblical text Gen. 1:28 "", is really not a command but a blessing formula and that while there are many factors to consider as far as people's motives for remaining childless, there are many valid reasons, including dedicating one's time to demanding but good causes, why Christians may choose to remain childless for a short time or a lifetime. Matthew 19:12 describes Jesus as listing three types of eunuchs including one type who chooses it intentionally, noting that whoever is willing to become one, should. Brian Tomasik cites ethical reasons for people to remain childfree | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness Also, they will have more time to focus on themselves, which will allow for greater creativity and the exploration of personal ambitions. In this way, they may benefit themselves and society more than if they had a child. Some opponents of the childfree choice consider such a choice to be selfish. The rationale of this position is the assertion that raising children is a very important activity and so not engaging in this activity must therefore mean living one's life in service to one's self. The value judgment behind this idea is that individuals should endeavor to make some kind of meaningful contribution to the world, but also that the best way to make such a contribution is to have children. For some people, one or both of these assumptions may be true, but others prefer to direct their time, energy, and talents elsewhere, in many cases toward improving the world that today's children occupy (and that future generations will inherit). Proponents of childfreedom posit that choosing "not" to have children is no more or less selfish than choosing to have children. Choosing to have children may be the more selfish choice, especially when poor parenting risks creating many long term problems for both the children themselves and society at large. As philosopher David Benatar explains, at the heart of the decision to bring a child into the world often lies the parents' own desires (to enjoy child-rearing or perpetuate one's legacy/genes), rather than the potential person's interests | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness At the very least, Benatar believes this illustrates why a childfree person may be just as altruistic as any parent. There is also the question as to whether having children really is such a positive contribution to the world in an age when there are many concerns about overpopulation, pollution and depletion of non-renewable resources. Some critics counter that such analyses of having children may understate its potential benefits to society (e.g. a greater labor force, which may provide greater opportunity to solve social problems) and overstate the costs. That is, there is often a need for a non-zero birth rate. Childfree individuals do not necessarily share a unified political or economic philosophy, and most prominent childfree organizations tend to be social in nature. Childfree social groups first emerged in the 1970s and 1980s, most notable among them the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood and No Kidding! in North America where numerous books have been written about childfree people and where a range of social positions related to childfree interests have developed along with political and social activism in support of these interests. The term "childfree" was used in a July 3, 1972 Time article on the creation of the National Organization for Non-Parents. It was revived in the 1990s when Leslie Lafayette formed a later childfree group, the Childfree Network. The National Organization for Non-Parents (N.O.N.) was established in Palo Alto, California by Ellen Peck and Shirley Radl in 1972. N.O.N | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness was formed to advance the notion that men and women could choose not to have children—to be childfree. Changing its name to the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood, it continued into the early 1980s both as a support group for those making the decision to be childfree and an advocacy group fighting pronatalism (attitudes/advertising/etc. promoting or glorifying parenthood). According to its bylaws, the purpose of the National Alliance for Optional Parenthood was to educate the public on non-parenthood as a valid lifestyle option, support those who choose not to have children, promote awareness of the overpopulation problem, and assist other groups that advanced the goals of the organization. N.O.N.'s offices were located in Reisterstown, Maryland; then Baltimore; and ultimately in Washington, D.C. N.O.N. designated August 1 as Non-Parents' Day. Just as people with children come from all shades of the political spectrum and temper their beliefs accordingly, so do the childfree. For example, while some childfree people think of government welfare to parents as "lifestyle subsidies," others accept the need to assist such individuals but think that their lifestyle should be equally compensated. Still others accept the need to help out such individuals and also do not ask for subsidies of their own | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Voluntary childlessness There are suggestions of an emergence of political cohesion, for example an Australian Childfree Party (ACFP) proposed in Australia as a childfree political party, promoting the childfree lifestyle as opposed to the family lifestyle. Increasing politicization and media interest has led to the emergence of a second wave of childfree organizations that are openly political in their raisons d'être, with a number of attempts to mobilize political pressure groups in the U.S. The first organization to emerge was British, known as Kidding Aside. | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=634139 |
Economic model In economics, a model is a theoretical construct representing economic processes by a set of variables and a set of logical and/or quantitative relationships between them. The economic model is a simplified, often mathematical, framework designed to illustrate complex processes. Frequently, economic models posit structural parameters. A model may have various exogenous variables, and those variables may change to create various responses by economic variables. Methodological uses of models include investigation, theorizing, and fitting theories to the world. In general terms, economic models have two functions: first as a simplification of and abstraction from observed data, and second as a means of selection of data based on a paradigm of econometric study. "Simplification" is particularly important for economics given the enormous complexity of economic processes. This complexity can be attributed to the diversity of factors that determine economic activity; these factors include: individual and cooperative decision processes, resource limitations, environmental and geographical constraints, institutional and legal requirements and purely random fluctuations. Economists therefore must make a reasoned choice of which variables and which relationships between these variables are relevant and which ways of analyzing and presenting this information are useful. "Selection" is important because the nature of an economic model will often determine what facts will be looked at and how they will be compiled | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=638834 |
Economic model For example, inflation is a general economic concept, but to measure inflation requires a model of behavior, so that an economist can differentiate between changes in relative prices and changes in price that are to be attributed to inflation. In addition to their professional academic interest, uses of models include: A model establishes an "argumentative framework" for applying logic and mathematics that can be independently discussed and tested and that can be applied in various instances. Policies and arguments that rely on economic models have a clear basis for soundness, namely the validity of the supporting model. Economic models in current use do not pretend to be "theories of everything economic"; any such pretensions would immediately be thwarted by computational infeasibility and the incompleteness or lack of theories for various types of economic behavior. Therefore, conclusions drawn from models will be approximate representations of economic facts. However, properly constructed models can remove extraneous information and isolate useful approximations of key relationships. In this way more can be understood about the relationships in question than by trying to understand the entire economic process. The details of model construction vary with type of model and its application, but a generic process can be identified. Generally any modelling process has two steps: generating a model, then checking the model for accuracy (sometimes called diagnostics) | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=638834 |
Economic model The diagnostic step is important because a model is only useful to the extent that it accurately mirrors the relationships that it purports to describe. Creating and diagnosing a model is frequently an iterative process in which the model is modified (and hopefully improved) with each iteration of diagnosis and respecification. Once a satisfactory model is found, it should be double checked by applying it to a different data set. According to whether all the model variables are deterministic, economic models can be classified as stochastic or non-stochastic models; according to whether all the variables are quantitative, economic models are classified as discrete or continuous choice model; according to the model's intended purpose/function, it can be classified as quantitative or qualitative; according to the model's ambit, it can be classified as a general equilibrium model, a partial equilibrium model, or even a non-equilibrium model; according to the economic agent's characteristics, models can be classified as rational agent models, representative agent models etc. At a more practical level, quantitative modelling is applied to many areas of economics and several methodologies have evolved more or less independently of each other. As a result, no overall model taxonomy is naturally available. We can nonetheless provide a few examples that illustrate some particularly relevant points of model construction. Most economic models rest on a number of assumptions that are not entirely realistic | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=638834 |
Economic model For example, agents are often assumed to have perfect information, and markets are often assumed to clear without friction. Or, the model may omit issues that are important to the question being considered, such as externalities. Any analysis of the results of an economic model must therefore consider the extent to which these results may be compromised by inaccuracies in these assumptions, and a large literature has grown up discussing problems with economic models, or at least asserting that their results are unreliable. One of the major problems addressed by economic models has been understanding economic growth. An early attempt to provide a technique to approach this came from the French physiocratic school in the Eighteenth century. Among these economists, François Quesnay was known particularly for his development and use of tables he called "Tableaux économiques". These tables have in fact been interpreted in more modern terminology as a Leontiev model, see the Phillips reference below. All through the 18th century (that is, well before the founding of modern political economy, conventionally marked by Adam Smith's 1776 Wealth of Nations) simple probabilistic models were used to understand the economics of insurance. This was a natural extrapolation of the theory of gambling, and played an important role both in the development of probability theory itself and in the development of actuarial science. Many of the giants of 18th century mathematics contributed to this field | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=638834 |
Economic model Around 1730, De Moivre addressed some of these problems in the 3rd edition of "The Doctrine of Chances". Even earlier (1709), Nicolas Bernoulli studies problems related to savings and interest in the Ars Conjectandi. In 1730, Daniel Bernoulli studied "moral probability" in his book Mensura Sortis, where he introduced what would today be called "logarithmic utility of money" and applied it to gambling and insurance problems, including a solution of the paradoxical Saint Petersburg problem. All of these developments were summarized by Laplace in his Analytical Theory of Probabilities (1812). Clearly, by the time David Ricardo came along he had a lot of well-established math to draw from. In the late 1980s the Brookings Institution compared 12 leading macroeconomic models available at the time. They compared the models' predictions for how the economy would respond to specific economic shocks (allowing the models to control for all the variability in the real world; this was a test of model vs. model, not a test against the actual outcome). Although the models simplified the world and started from a stable, known common parameters the various models gave significantly different answers. For instance, in calculating the impact of a monetary loosening on output some models estimated a 3% change in GDP after one year, and one gave almost no change, with the rest spread between | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=638834 |
Economic model Partly as a result of such experiments, modern central bankers no longer have as much confidence that it is possible to 'fine-tune' the economy as they had in the 1960s and early 1970s. Modern policy makers tend to use a less activist approach, explicitly because they lack confidence that their models will actually predict where the economy is going, or the effect of any shock upon it. The new, more humble, approach sees danger in dramatic policy changes based on model predictions, because of several practical and theoretical limitations in current macroeconomic models; in addition to the theoretical pitfalls, (listed above) some problems specific to aggregate modelling are: Complex systems specialist and mathematician David Orrell wrote on this issue in his book Apollo's Arrow and explained that the weather, human health and economics use similar methods of prediction (mathematical models). Their systems—the atmosphere, the human body and the economy—also have similar levels of complexity. He found that forecasts fail because the models suffer from two problems : (i) they cannot capture the full detail of the underlying system, so rely on approximate equations; (ii) they are sensitive to small changes in the exact form of these equations. This is because complex systems like the economy or the climate consist of a delicate balance of opposing forces, so a slight imbalance in their representation has big effects | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=638834 |
Economic model Thus, predictions of things like economic recessions are still highly inaccurate, despite the use of enormous models running on fast computers. See Unreasonable ineffectiveness of mathematics #Economics and finance. Economic and meteorological simulations may share a fundamental limit to their predictive powers: chaos. Although the modern mathematical work on chaotic systems began in the 1970s the danger of chaos had been identified and defined in "Econometrica" as early as 1958: It is straightforward to design economic models susceptible to butterfly effects of initial-condition sensitivity. However, the econometric research program to identify which variables are chaotic (if any) has largely concluded that aggregate macroeconomic variables probably do not behave chaotically. This would mean that refinements to the models could ultimately produce reliable long-term forecasts. However the validity of this conclusion has generated two challenges: More recently, chaos (or the butterfly effect) has been identified as less significant than previously thought to explain prediction errors. Rather, the predictive power of economics and meteorology would mostly be limited by the models themselves and the nature of their underlying systems (see Comparison with models in other sciences above). A key strand of free market economic thinking is that the market's invisible hand guides an economy to prosperity more efficiently than central planning using an economic model | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=638834 |
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