Has Urban Life necessarily been characterised by anomie?

Durkheims influential treatise, The Division of Labour in society, put forward the
case that the transitional period between a primitive and an advanced society
would be an era of social anomie: a social condition characterized by the
breakdown of norms governing social interaction. 1 This transition can be placed
within a broad historical arc, encompassing the development of modern
industrial capitalism, and the emergence of the modern city. 2
This essay will examine the cities of Philadelphia, Buenos Aires and Liverpool in
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the era of globalisation... the
first time around, a period in which, according to Durkheims thesis, society at
all levels would have borne all the hallmarks of anomie. The establishment and
rapid growth of global networks that facilitated the flow of goods, people and
ideas at relative high speeds witnessed in this period had a huge impact across
the world, and nowhere more were these effects felt than in port cities, the axes
of this increasingly global market.3 Through a comparative analysis of the
syndicalist labour organisations that formed around the maritime industries of
these three cities, this essay will try and take aspects of what Durkheim saw as
symptomatic of an anomic society, and reframe them instead as positive forces.
Focusing specifically on class conflict and industrial action, it will contend that to
some extent, in fact, these phenomena can be regarded as reconcilable with
organic solidarity, one of the key tenets of an advanced and harmonious

1 Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill and Brian Turner (eds), The Penguin
Dictionary of Sociology (New York 1994), p. 18.
2 Anthony Giddens (ed.), Durkheim on Politics and the State (Oxford 1986), pp.
2-5.
3 Paul Mason, Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global
(London 2007) pp. 109-17.

society according to Durkheim, and as such seemingly anathema to the concept

of anomie.4 Within this context the novel social, cultural and geographic
transformations undergone in these cities were in fact fundamental to the
establishment of new, self-aware and militant communities, networks and
countercultures, with scopes that were undoubtedly international, but which
were distinctly the product of their unique urban geographies.

The emergence of multinational syndicalism

As has already been outlined, the status of these three cities as international
ports placed them in a unique position in regards to global exchange. Argentina
as an independent nation was less than a century old, and from the late
nineteenth century successive governments had encouraged European
immigration, working from the premise that such an influx would aid national
progress and provide a civilizing influence to further the nation building project of
the nascent nation state.5 However, due to increasing repression of political
intolerance throughout Europe at the time, in reality the Argentinean enthusiasm
for European migrants attracted entire communities of political radicals to the
country, and by proxy the main port, Buenos Aires. Anarchists, socialists and
syndicalists, predominantly from Spain and Italy but also from Russia, Poland and
other parts of Eastern Europe, flocked to the city, taking up residency on the
waterfront.6 Cramped tenement housing in many working-class districts resulted
in syndicalist ideas rapidly spreading throughout the labour force due to close
4 mile Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society (London 1964), pp. 111-33.
5 Jonathan C. Brown, A Brief History of Argentina (New York 2010), pp. 103-38.

proximity, and the appalling living conditions saw these ideas quickly
crystallising into hardened class consciousness and militancy. 7 However, as de
Laforcade notes, the syndicalist movement was only one strand of labour
organising in Buenos Aires, and its unifying message did not go unchallenged,
with nativist and ethnically divisive projections of working-class identity often
antagonising the projects of class unity being attempted by the syndicalists.
These predominantly Catholic and traditionally ethnically exclusive unions had
little control over those who would become the most ardent adherents of
syndicalism in the port: the ethnically diverse, socially outcast, and politically
disenfranchised labouring poor.8 However, these attempts to divide the
working-class through time-honoured processes of othering did have some
success, and the early years of the twentieth century saw increasingly bitter and
violent struggles between syndicalist unions (particularly the anarcho-syndicalist
Regional Workers Federation of Argentina (FORA)) and the nativist, reactionary
unions, with the state exacerbating tensions through the introduction of
numerous anti-left wing laws.9 This culminated in the Semana Tragica of 1919, in
6 David Rock, Argentina, 1516-1987: From Spanish Colonization to the Falklands
War and Alfonsn, (London 1987); David Cook-Martn, Rules, red tape, and
paperwork: The archeology of state control over migrants, Journal of Historical
Sociology 21(2008), pp. 82-119.
7 Juan Suriano, Paradoxes of Utopia: anarchist culture and politics in Buenos
Aires 1890-1910 (Oakland 2010); Lucien van der Waldt and Michael Schmidt,
Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism
(Oakland 2009), pp. 159-81.
8 Geoffrey de Laforcade, Straddling the Nation and the Working World:
anarchism and syndicalism on the docks and rivers of Argentina 1900-1930 in
Steven Hirsch and Lucien Van Der Waldt (eds), Anarchism and Syndicalism in the
Colonial and Postcolonial World 1870-1940 (Boston 2010) p. 325.
9 Victor Alba, Politics and the Labor Movement in Latin America (California 1968)
p. 41.

which clashes between anarchists and the Catholic Right sparked waves of
indiscriminate violence, directed largely at Jews, immigrants and indigenous
peoples (or indeed people who were perceived to be any of the above). 10 Yet
despite the outbursts of violence from racist traditionalists, it is evident that
thanks in no small part to an environment of fierce anarchist-inspired
opposition, the divisive forces of nationalism and Catholic conservatism were
unable to prevent the establishment of a powerful syndicalist tradition that was
extremely atypical in the context of contemporary labour movements due to its
diversity of members, its anti-nationalism and of course its anti-capitalism. This
was facilitated entirely by the specific urban geography: Buenos Aires historic
role as the port of entry of... ideas and activists in late 19 th Century Latin
America.11
The syndicalist movement in Philadelphia, by way of contrast, was somewhat
native in its genesis. The famous syndicalist union, The Industrial Workers of the
World (IWW) had formed in 1905 in Chicago, and by 1913 the dockworkers of
Philadelphia formed Local 8, one of the Wobblies 12 strongest and most durable
outposts... in Progressive Era Philadelphia. However, in Philadelphia too, Local 8
members consisted of immigrants from Poland, Lithuania, Spain and the West
Indies as well. 13 Local 8 was exceptional for the period, as over half of its
constituent members were African-American, rendering it the only biracial union
in the whole of North America furthermore, one with an African-American union
10 Rock, Argentina, pp. 201-2; Luis Alberto Romero,A History of Argentina in the
Twentieth Century (Pennsylvania 2002) pp. 31-7.
11 Ibid., p. 322.
12 Another term for the IWW.
13 Peter Cole, Philadelphias Lords of the Docks: Interracial Unionism, WobblyStyle, Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era 6:3 (2007) p. 314.

organiser, Ben Fletcher, who was the first of his kind in the US.

14

The

establishment of Local 8 served to empower a huge community of dockworkers

and as a result the union went on to control the docks for ten years: before its
formation, as was the case throughout America, employers had successfully
divided workforces along racial lines, breaking strikes by white unions with black
workers and vice-versa, however with the establishment of the industrial
syndicalist union the dockworkers quickly won huge improvements in conditions
and pay.15 This phenomenal and undoubtedly radical movement was made
possible precisely because of the urban (and specifically port) environment in
which it emerged: as Troltter notes, throughout many studies of the AfricanAmerican labour movement in Philadelphia [a] central theme seems quite clear:
in the face of hostility from without and substantial fragmentation from within,
African Americans created a new community in the urban environment. The
complicated transition of agricultural workers to a new urban-industrial
foundation stood at the centre of this process. 16 This was a process of dynamic
solidarity formation, forged in the face of oppression undoubtedly brought about
by divisions in labour, industrial capitalism and state-condoned racism, yet
successfully producing a new and cohesive community.
Liverpool as a key port city also had its own migr communities who played a
vital role in forming the earliest radical labour movements of this period, with
14 Ibid.
15 David Featherstone, Solidarity: Hidden Histories and Geographies of
Internationalism (London 2012) pp. 86-7; the active role played by mainstream
trade unions in maintaining inferior conditions for workers of colour whilst
fighting the cause of their own white members, all the way up to the date of
publishing is detailed in J.S. Auerbach, American Labour: The Twentieth Century
(New York 1968) pp. 143-60; 390-411.
16 Joe W. Troltter, African Americans in the City: The Industrial Era 1900-1950,
Journal of Urban History 21 (1995) p. 454.

Spanish, Jewish and Irish anarcho-syndicalists forming organisations from the

turn of the century onwards.17 This was a movement that would never have the
same uptake as in the other two cities, for many reasons, one of which was the
unique balance of control over the workers between the forces of capital and the
state: as Holton explains, the two often served to complement each other and as
such ameliorate the demands of organised labour enough to prevent the
emergence of militancy that could be witnessed in the USA, Argentina, Spain and
France (to name but a few).18 Syndicalists mainly operated from within
mainstream trade unions, attempting to radicalise members and occasionally
being expelled from the unions for their efforts. 19 However, in a similar fashion
to the other two cities, albeit on a smaller scale, the syndicalist tendency in
Liverpool drew increasing numbers in the years before the First World War,
through taking lessons from successful movements overseas such as the IWW
and the CNT in Spain, whilst developing a regional praxis in a fashion much
similar to that adopted by their Argentine and American counterparts. 20 Unique
to the Liverpudlian labour movement among these cities was the sectarian
tensions that hampered attempts at effective and widespread industrial action
before 1911. The combination of pre-existing tensions between Liverpudlian
Protestants and Catholics was aggravated by increasingly large numbers of
working-class Irish Catholics around the docklands, and attempts at unity around

17 Rudolf Rocker, The London Years (London 1956) pp. 107-11; Bob Holton,
Syndicalism and Labour on Merseyside 1906-14 in Harold R. Hikins (ed.),
Building the Union: Merseyside 1756-1967 (Liverpool 1973) p. 128.
18 Holton, Syndicalism on Merseyside p. 124.
19 Ibid., pp. 130-1; Bob Holton, British Syndicalism 1900-1914: Myths and
Realities (London 1976) pp. 46-7.
20 Holton, Syndicalism on the Merseyside pp. 123.

industrial action often failed, with 1909 being marred particularly by sectarian
violence.21 However, the General Transport Strike of 1911 bore witness to an
unprecedented convergence of class interests: this involved unity between
occupations and between traditionally hostile sectarian groups, a bond which
can be regarded as the greatest contribution of the syndicalists during the
strikes.22 The strike met vicious state repression, with troops injuring hundreds
and killing two men, yet this was also the apotheosis of the phenomenon of
syndicalism as a mood: the groundwork done in Liverpool, and throughout the
country by syndicalist leader and member of the 1911 strike committee Tom
Mann in the years previously had brought about an atmosphere in which rankand-file union members had gone against the wishes of their more moderate
officials and joined strikes across labour divisions and indeed, across the barriers
of labour aristocracy. 23 Key to this were Irish syndicalist militants, essential in
both organising the strike and promoting solidarity between Irish-Liverpudlian
communities and Protestant locals. Again, while on a more moderate scale,
reflective of a labour movement that has been historically more stable, this is an
example of grassroots action, shot through with syndicalist rhetoric and
indicative of an increasingly conscious and at times explicitly anti-capitalist
working-class community in Liverpool.24
Syndicalism as a counter-cultural phenomenon

21 Frank Neal, Sectarian Violence: The Liverpool Experience 1819-1914,

(Manchester 1988) p. 244.
22 Holton, Syndicalism on the Merseyside pp. 139-40.
23 Standish Meatcham, The Sense of an Impending Clash": English Working-Class Unrest
before the First WorldWar, The American Historical Review 77.5 (1972) pp. 1343-64;
Chushichi Tsuzuki, Tom Mann 1856-1941 (Oxford 1991) pp. 155-9.

In addition to forging creative and novel solidarities through direct action and
industrial unionism, the syndicalist currents in all three of these cities were
crucial in fostering new and vibrant countercultures. The impact of the IWW
across the U.S.A on folk culture is well documented, with The Little Red
Songbook, a collection of union songs written by Wobblies from across the
country remains in print and their militancy inspired many protest singers of the
Folk Revival movement, including Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie. 25 In
Liverpool, the immigrant community were responsible for maintaining a rich
tradition of self-education, with the legendary anarchist educationalist Francisco
Ferrer making several visits to the city in 1909 to speak, Irish anarchists teaching
regular classes on labour organising from 1906, and Tom Manns Industrial
Syndicalism League (ISEL) publishing its monthly journal from the city. 26
In the wake of the 1911 strike in Liverpool, the broadly syndicalist journal
Transport Worker had a readership of over 20,000.27 On a much larger scale,
many syndicalist organisations across Latin America, including the IWW,
published newspapers that had a phenomenally widespread readership, far
outstripping official membership their parent organisations. These papers were
circulated often through unionised maritime workers, who acted as conduits for
24 SolFed, Unit 6: Revolutionary Syndicalism in Britain and Ireland, 1910-17,
speaks of literature distributed by groups formed in the aftermath of the strike
calling for workers control of the means of production amongst other similarly
militant demands. http://www.solfed.org.uk/cache/normal/www.selfed.org.uk/a-shistory/unit-6-revolutionary-syndicalism-in-britain-and-ireland-1910-17_.html
25 Donald E. Winters, The Soul of the Wobblies: The I.W.W, Religion and
American Culture in the Progressive Era, 1905-1917 (Connecticut 1985).
26 Holton, Syndicalism, p. 135. In addition, Tom Manns syndicalism and the
strikes of 1911 played an influential role in the artistic movement of vorticism:
see David Kadlec, Pound, Blast and Syndicalism, ELH 60.4 (1993) pp. 1015-31.
27 Holton, British Syndicalism p. 103.

both information and concrete acts of solidarity between cities. These

publications are crucial to understandings of the solidarities underpinning
national and international syndicalism, simultaneously demonstrat[ing] a
mobility of both people and ideas across the seas in the 1910s and 1920s and
displaying that the spatial and cultural roots of these syndicalist communities
were primarily urban in nature.28 This is further indication of an essentially
urban phenomenon, namely industrial printing, being adopted by syndicalists to
consolidate solidarities and forge new, transnational working-class networks.
Indeed as Benedict Anderson has described, mass media was a key factor in the
construction of national identities imagined communities. While in this case
the communities in question are transnational, the fundamental point remains
the same: in sharing the same mass culture and a similar collective mythology,
these are examples of the creation of collective cultural documents that were
essential in fostering nascent political and class identities, and connecting
struggles between trades, cities, and ultimately nations. 29

Transnational syndicalism - conclusion

Through syndicalist marine workers, industrial unionism could take on a truly
international dimension. The syndicalist currents in all three cities had been
connected transnationally from their inception clearly this was a feature of their

28 Anthon Rosenthal, Radical Border Crossers: The Industrial Workers of the

World and their Press in Latin America, Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America
Latina y el Caribe (Tel Aviv), 22:2 2011 p. 41.
29Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York 1983) especially pp. 326.

urban setting and largely immigrant population, however these networks acted
as more than just channels of communication, with strikes and boycott action
being, where necessary, extended across borders in order to provide workers
with more economic clout. For example, in 1915, James Larkin, participant in the
1911 Liverpool strike, could offer Philadelphia Local 8 support from Irish and
Liverpudlian transport workers during a dispute between an American company
and Local 8, pledging to refuse to discharge any grain or cargo from ship loaded
with scab labour.30 Argentinean dockers offered similar gestures of support in
the 1920s, and throughout Latin America in to the 1930s IWW members at each
port would withdraw their labour from companies involved with disputes at other
branches. This was solidarity at its most powerful form, and represented the
beginnings of globalisation from below. 31
This seems to be a profound example of urban life fostering the very antithesis of
anomie: networks of self-conscious, militant workers, consolidating and creating
networks of solidarity across the globe on the basis of mutual aid and class unity.
As such, it seems hard to regard this as anomic, despite the fact that a strict
interpretation of the term would require one to do so. 32
Furthermore, Durkheims conception of an anomic society relies upon the
principle that the division of labour and industrialisation, in the context of urban
capitalism, will necessarily bring about the atomisation of the working class. In
this situation, We envisage a competitive war of all against all, a society in which
the ethic of possessive individualism has taken root in the consciousness of

30 Featherstone, Solidarity p. 83.

31 Ibid., p. 84.
32 Giddens, Durkheim on Politics, pp. 2-5.

workers in a very fundamental way.33 This premise is contrasted with, and

reliant upon an ahistorical and counterfactual presupposition, characterise by
Harvey as a prejudice that sees rurality as the true incarnation of authentic
community and the city as merely the site of social breakdown, of pure
individualism and social anomie34. Within this context Durkheim posits the
government as the only foil to the inevitability of atomisation and disorder in the
face of this unfortunate, but necessary division of labour. 35
However, this essay has demonstrated that the symptoms of anomie do not
necessarily indicate its presence: the rural/urban binary in the Philadelphian
context was no such thing, with the urban syndicalist proletariat containing a
huge proportion of workers whose roots lay in agricultural work. Furthermore, in
all three cities, to varying degrees the potential atomisation being fostered by
industrial capitalism was met with impressive expressions of working-class
solidarity. In this context, such solidarity served as transformative political
relation, a relation which served to actively generate and shape shared values
and identifications.36 The collective experiences of militant organising in often
life-threatening situations in all three cities forged vibrant communities, in which
huge numbers of ordinary working people were active participants. They
operated entirely outside of, or in defiance of the state, some with the intention
of improving their position in life, others with loftier goals of overthrowing the
state and capitalism. While, within Durkheims narrow framework of
mechanical and organic solidarities, these huge syndicalist organisations were
33 David Harvey, Consciousness and the Urban Experience (Oxford 1985) p. 58.
34 Ibid., p. 19.
35 Durkheim, Labour , pp. 357-62.
36 Featherstone, p. 23.

the epitome of anomie, they were in other ways the very essence of the term
solidarity. With constituent members who the state and the forces of capital
either informally disregarded and exploited, or in the case of the AfricanAmerican dockworkers in Philadelphia, formally classed as inferior to the
population at large, the syndicalists demonstrated the creative and positive
potential of urban life, and class consciousness.

Bibliography: Books:
Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill and Brian Turner (eds), The Penguin
Dictionary of Sociology (New York 1994)
Alba, Victor, Politics and the Labor Movement in Latin America (California 1968)
Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities (New York 1983)
Auerbach, Jerold S., American Labour: The Twentieth Century (New York 1968)
Brown, Jonathan C., A Brief History of Argentina (New York 2010)
Featherstone, David, Solidarity: Hidden Histories and Geographies of
Internationalism (London 2012)
Giddens, Anthony (ed.), Durkheim on Politics and the State (Oxford 1986)
Harvey, David, Consciousness and the Urban Experience (Oxford 1985)
Holton, Bob, British Syndicalism 1900-1914: Myths and Realities (London 1976)
Mason, Paul, Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global
(London 2007)

Neal, Frank, Sectarian Violence: The Liverpool Experience 1819-1914

(Manchester 1988)
Rocker, Rudolf, The London Years (London 1956)
Romero, Luis Alberto, A History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century
(Pennsylvania 2002)
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1890-1910 (Oakland 2010)
Tsuzuki, Chushichi, Tom Mann 1856-1941 (Oxford 1991)
van der Waldt, Lucien, and Michael Schmidt, Black Flame: The Revolutionary
Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism (Oakland 2009)
Winters, Donald E., The Soul of the Wobblies: The I.W.W, Religion and American
Culture in the Progressive Era, 1905-1917 (Connecticut 1985)
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Anthon Rosenthal, Radical Border Crossers: The Industrial Workers of the World
and their Press in Latin America, Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y
el Caribe (Tel Aviv), 22:2 2011
Cole, Peter, Philadelphias Lords of the Docks: Interracial Unionism, WobblyStyle, Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era 6:3 (2007) pp. 310-38
Cook-Martn, David, Rules, red tape, and paperwork: The archeology of state
control over migrants, Journal of Historical Sociology 21(2008), pp. 82-119
David Kadlec, Pound, Blast and Syndicalism, ELH 60.4 (1993) pp. 1015-31
de Laforcade, Geoffrey, Straddling the Nation and the Working World: anarchism
and syndicalism on the docks and rivers of Argentina 1900-1930, in Steven

Hirsch and Lucien Van Der Waldt (eds), Anarchism and Syndicalism in the
Colonial and Postcolonial World 1870-1940 (Boston 2010) pp. 321-363
Holton, Bob Syndicalism and Labour on Merseyside 1906-14 in Harold R. Hikins
(ed.), Building the Union: Merseyside 1756-1967 (Liverpool 1973)
Meatcham, Standish, The Sense of an Impending Clash": English Working-Class
Unrest before the First World War,The American Historical Review 77.5 (1972)
pp. 1343-64
Troltter, Joe W., African Americans in the City: The Industrial Era 1900-1950,
Journal of Urban History 21 (1995) pp. 438-457
Websites
Solidarity Federation: Unit 6: Revolutionary Syndicalism in Britain and Ireland,
1910-1917 (No date),
http://www.solfed.org.uk/cache/normal/www.selfed.org.uk/a-s-history/unit-6revolutionary-syndicalism-in-britain-and-ireland-1910-17_.html [accessed 20th
January 2014]

-Clearly, no. Cities have been spaces of unprecedented social interaction, and
while urban growth may have led in some ways to greater atomisation, many
new, creative and more authentic (need a better phrase) identities,
communities and solidarities have been formed as a result of urban life.
-Fundamental concepts of anomie seem to be predicated on exclusive binaries,
of community vs society, personal vs impersonal, urban vs rural etc. These are
reductive categories and the industrial syndicalist union is a very good way
example of the manner in which this is the case: the federative model means

that, as a system of organisation it is at once local and national, with basic units
hinging around the workplace, area or community (these revolutionary unions
were often distinct from traditional unions in that they were not exclusive to
professions and often enfranchised traditionally marginalised and dispossessed
groups) but being able to have weight at national and international level, through
processes of direct democracy these processes were in some ways irrelevant or
arguably anathema to Durkheims theories of politics and state. 37
- However, this is clearly not the case indeed, urban life for even the
moderate trade unionists of this era, and indeed of much of the modern era, has
been characterised by unity in opposition, in one form or another, to the
government. The syndicalists are merely the most explicit manifestation of this
men38 of many different professions, forming solidarity networks on the basis of
shared oppressions and a unifying attitude of opposition to the government and
capitalism, of whatever form. Surely, this is genuine organic solidarity, springing
out of conditions that, for Durkheim, epitomise anomie?
-In the introduction and/or conclusion, should include some theory behind
solidarity cast it as a transformative political relation, emphasising the
powerful potential of urbanisation to forge totally new kind of social interaction
and mobilisation. The examination of ports - conduits for international
movements of both the physical and political variety - will demonstrate that in
many cases urban life was characterised not by the development of an
aggressively individualised society (or in other words, Durkheims depiction of
urban life and organic solidarity) but instead by the active construction of
agency from below, a process that cut across the fixed containers of the
nation-state. 39
-Essay will focus on three cities, with the unifying thread being ports. Ports
generally have seen even greater interaction, between even more diverse groups
in terms of nationality, ethnicity, class, background etc. As such, new identities
and solidarities formed across these differences are even more powerful and
resonant, and therefore make compelling evidence for the case against anomie.
37 Giddens, Durkheim on Politics and the State p. 29.
38 Despite the extremely progressive nature of the syndicalist movements in the
various cities, militant labour movements across the globe in this period were
still predominantly men, notwithstanding notable exceptions such a Lucy Parsons
and Emma Goldman in the USA, and some early anarcha-feminist organisations
in Argentina. See Patrick Renshaw, The Wobblies pp. 77, 118-19, 236-7; Maxine
Molyneux, No Gods, No Boss, No Husband, Latin American Perspectives 13.1
(1986) pp. 119-145; Gwendolyn Windpassinger, Queering anarchism in post2001 Buenos Aires, Sexualities 13 (2010), pp. 495-509.
39 Featherstone, Solidarity, pp. 15-39; for more on the construction of the nation
state and nationalisms, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities.

-Should make explicit my focus on syndicalism, because while of course not the
only, or even necessarily the majority, form of working-class self-organisation, it
was historically by far the most inclusive, and as such represents a major
example of anti-anomie Syndicalism is caricatured as a form of economistic or
workerist unionism by Marxists like Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Nicos Poulantzas.
However, embedded in larger popular movements and countercultures, linked to
other organised popular constituencies, taking up issues that went well beyond
the workplace, playing a central role in community struggles, and at the heart of
a project of revolutionary counterculture , including the production of mass
circulation daily and weekly newspapers, the historical syndicalist unions were
social movements that never reduced the working class to wage earners, or the
aspirations of the working class to wages. Economism and workerism are
particularly inappropriate labels for syndicalism 40
-In concluding, more excerpts from Featherstone can be used: he illustrates the
generative process of collective struggles and [t]his positions solidarity as
actively generating and shaping shared values and identifications. 41 This is
borne out by for example Turcatos portrayal of the regionalising of Italian
anarchism in Argentina seen below.
-Importantly, it has often been argued that the syndicalist movement in Britain
did not modify its own syndicalism in the same way, with many historians
suggesting instead that the revolutionary industrial philosophy was essentially
an importation from abroad (mainly from France and the USA). 42
Liverpool
-However, Holton goes on to suggest that while international influences
(including the CGT, CNT and IWW) were certainly significant, it does not
necessarily follow that as such these influences rendered the concepts alien to
British (Liverpudlian) workers and indeed the distribution of anti-worker power
in Britain, relatively even between the largely complementary forces of State and
Capital, was distinct from corporatist America and centrist France. 43
-The international sea port nature of Liverpool meant that transnational
solidarities were, once again constructed and maintained formation of IWW
branch in Liverpool and significantly, American Wobblies often fled to
Liverpool as a refuge from repression at home. 44 Furthermore, before being
expanded upon by Tom Mann and his ISEL, the precursors to a mass Liverpudlian
syndicalist movement were Jewish migrs of the anarcho-syndicalist tradition,
40 The Black Flame, p. 21.
41 Featherstone, p. 23.
42 Holton, Syndicalism on Merseyside p. 123.
43 Ibid., 124.

who held alliances with Irish anarchists and had connections with many other
radicals overseas, for example the Spanish anarchist educationalist Francisco
Ferrer again, this suggests more than just labour-based ties but instead the
fostering of a counter-culture, running outside of or against popular (statist, antiworker, ruling class, hegemonic) cultural and social phenomena. 45
-Tensions with prevalent Catholicism amongst working class for me this
represents antagonisms between pre-existing social ties with ancient roots,
presumably of the kind idolised by Durkheim in the pre-anomie era, and
emergent, creative social and cultural movements based around emergent
solidarities that existed outside of prevailing hierarchies. While in Latin America
liberation theology certainly placed organised Catholicism on the side of the
worker against repressive state and capital, in Liverpool this was less of the case
and the orthodox Catholic churchs efforts in Spain were totally in the service of
the state, capital and latterly fascism. Regardless, this again is an example of
how syndicalist solidarities and movements were not universally inclusive, and
clearly the radical class politics (especially when aligned with the often
aggressively antitheistic anarchist movement) that the Merseyside syndicalists
espoused served to exclude those who had allegiances with other spiritual or
social movements.
-Further complicated by large Irish contingent within both the syndicalists and
the wider Merseyside labour movement: often Catholic, but this did not
necessarily mean that they were moderate trade unionists as a result, which is
made apparent in the conflicts between legendary Irish organiser Jim Larkin and
the general secretary of the Liverpool-based National Union of Dock Labourers
(NUDL).
-One sees distinct parallels here, then, between the hampering of militant labour
action by ineffectual mainstream unions in Liverpool (leading to greater
syndicalist sympathy, the formation of more genuine, horizontal and radical
labour communities) 46 and the toothless, divisive nature of segregated
dockworker unions in Philadelphia being superseded by the radical and
progressive Local 8. Indeed, this radicalising influence led to Larkin having huge
influence in the legendary Dublin lock-out of 1913 again showing how the
creative solidarities fostered through urban industrial action gained their own
momentum throughout this period.47
-As Mason goes on to say, despite the syndicalists (often in parallel rather than in
adversity to trade unions in the UK) not achieving their aims of mass general
strike leading to insurrection and appropriation, the control they exercised was
over communities and the self-education of the working-class. Not only did the
44 Ibid., p. 127.
45
46 Dick Geary, European Labour Protest 1848-1939 p. 124

syndicalists, at the core of radical labour movements, exercise control over

communities in many ways they were the communities, new and radical
communities of hitherto disparate and often antagonistic groups, in contact with
each other, formed exactly because of their urban environments and across the
divisions of labour forced upon them by industrial capitalism. In the face of
oppression, poverty and adversity in all three cities the powerful forces that had
enabled the globalisation of capital were appropriated by these labour
movements in phenomenally creative ways using international shipping to
export and modify ideas and connections, and create communities across
borders, to create a striking force that could at times terrify their various states,
and halt entire cities. In economic and social situations that, as Durkheim
argues, very easily have fostered social disorder and anomie, these labour
movements successfully used the situation to forge the exact opposite
international solidarity, against the oppressive forces of capital that Durkheim
disregards in his work of anomie, and in defiance of the state, the organ which
Durkheim held as essential to the mediation and maintenance of non-anomic
organic solidarity.48
-Also, unquestionable, explicit international solidarities and networks between
syndicalist unions recognising the commonality of struggles and oppressions
Bill Haywood, for example, meeting with Tom Mann in 1910 and asserting the
need for better organisation., both political and industrial, of the working class,
urging closer solidarity among the workers. 49
-The growth of syndicalist-inspired movements in Britain in the years after 1906
was a crucial feature of the so-called Labour Unrest. 50 Holton goes on to
provide a useful definition of syndicalism, which serves to demonstrate why, as a
form of labour organisation, it is an even more pertinent example of the
transformative and unifying solidarities that urban life could engender than more
conventional types of workers associations: Syndicalist groups in Britain shared
in common a belief in revolutionary industrial movements ... [stressing] Direct
Action... as the main agency of social emancipation. In the industrial sphere, this
meant a reappraisal of trade union methods away from craft sectionalism and
conciliatory bargaining policies, towards an all-embracing industrial unionism...
47 NEED a reference here from the Merseyside book; also, E. Coyle, Larkinism
and the 1913 County Dublin Farm Labourer's Dispute, Dublin Historical Record
58.2 (2005) pp. 176-90 suggests that Larkins influence, and his syndicalist
politics, had influence deeper than just the events in urban Dublin.
48 Giddens pp. 2-5.
49 Tsuzuki, Tom Mann, 1856-1941 p. 147.
50 Bob Holton, Syndicalism and Labour on Merseyside 1906-14 in Harold R.
Hikins (ed) Building the Union: Merseyside 1756-1967 (Liverpool 1973) p. 122.

revolutionary industrial organisation was visualised not only as a weapon of

conflict, but also as the nucleus of a new social order.51
-In SolFeds unit on the general strike of 1911, the class unity fostered by the
industrial action (and the clear divisions between the working class and the state
demarcated by the military response and the actions of scabbing middle-class
volunteers) was so profound that it overcame long-standing and deep
Protestant/Catholic sectarian tensions. This is an example, again, of the urban
centre being a locus for creative solidarities. 52 If one considers a general
transport strike, particularly in this era, as a phenomenon with distinctly
syndicalist characteristics, then the influence of radical unionism of that sort in
this case is evident. The concessions gained by the action were not the ends
sought by the Liverpudlian syndicalists, with literature distributed at the time
placing the ultimate goal as the capture of the means of production.
MUST INCLUDE CONCEPTIONS OF BUILDING THE NEW WORLD IN THE
SHELL OF THE OLD THIS IS AN AMBITION THAT IS WHOLLY POSITIVE,
WHOLLY ORDERED, AND WHOLLY COMPATIBLE WITH CONCEPTIONS OF
ORGANIC SOLIDARITY IT MERELY CIRCUMVENTS THE NEED FOR
DURKHEIMS ARBITER OF SOCIETAL RELATIONS (the state) AND
IDENTIFIES THE ROOT CAUSE OF DISORDER (capital)
Interestingly, as well, the resolution of sectarian tensions for the duration of the
general transport strike partly through the unifying message of syndicalism was
a technique adopted by the Liverpudlian syndicalists, with Tom Mann key, having
witnessed its efficacy when adopted by Jim Larkin during the Belfast transport
strike another example of the usefulness of cross-national networks, and
connections between syndicalists of different nationalities/immigrant
communities.
-The SolFed article details how, in the wake of the Liverpool general transport
strike, a syndicalist newspaper was set up which quickly garnered a very large
readership. Similarly to the article on IWW press literature in Latin America, this
is an example of the urban environment and concordant labour activity forging
new attempts at mass communication. Without urbanisation and
industrialisation, access to machinery that enabled the mass production of
affordable literature would be impossible. In this context, the new geographies
of the city facilitated the democratisation of print media, and the spread of ideas.
As such, information regarding shared experiences, oppressions and political
views could be spread by the working classes for the first time, inverting existing
power dynamics. As Benedict Anderson has described, mass media was a key
factor in the construction of national identities however in this case the mass
51 Ibid.
52 http://www.solfed.org.uk/cache/normal/www.selfed.org.uk/a-s-history/unit-6revolutionary-syndicalism-in-britain-and-ireland-1910-17_.html ; Holton,
Syndicalism pp. 139-40.

media in question was essential in fostering nascent political and class identities,
and connecting struggles between trades, cities, and ultimately nations. 53
-In terms of regional variation, can write about how British (and Liverpudlian)
syndicalists, through their organisations and their focuses on the genuine needs
of the working classes and an impressive grasp of broader politics, were one of
the few groups even on the British Left who were openly and radically anti-war in
the lead up to and during WW1 leading to many of their arrests. Again, this is
an example of newly-created solidarities, brought about by urban industrial
phenomena, becoming self-generating, leading to the genesis of an anti-war
movement. Surely war, working from the perspective of anomie being social
disorder, represents the apotheosis of anomic behaviour?
-If (big if) the line of cultural mass movement as a product of syndicalism, contra
anomie, is being pushed then perhaps the article connecting the vorticists and
syndicalism could be useful in a British context. 54
-The exclusionary and racist nature of the Liverpudlian situation adds nuance to
the argument and (yet again) gives further weight to Featherstones assertion
that solidarities can be as exclusionary as they are empowering, creative and
inclusive. Also, can show that syndicalism was not, and does not necessarily
have to be a positive force of working-class empowerment the well-established
connection between the powerful Italian syndicates and emergent Italian fascism
show this.55 THIS IS ALL DUBIOUS
-Mason has some interesting points on the unifying theme of syndicalism in this
period definitely international, a huge threat to the established order in the
popular imagination, and based on strong networks of solidarity between urban
centres: a force that, according to one breathless business magazine,
threatened to bring the world face-to-face with the greatest crisis of modern
civilization perhaps any civilization.56
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

53 Anderson, Imagined Communities, especially pp. 32-6.

54 David Kadlec, Pound, Blast and Syndicalism, ELH 60.4 (1993) pp. 1015-31
(Liverpool reference p. 1027).
55 See, for example, The Black Flame pp. 150-2; Carl Levy, Antonio Gramsci,
Anarchism, Syndicalism and Sovverismo in Prichard, Alex, Ruth Kinna, Saku Pinta
and David Berry (eds), Libertarian Socialism: Politics in Black and Red
(Basingstoke 2012) pp. 108-12.
56 Mason, Live Working pp. 138-9.

-One port to focus on will be Buenos Aires. Prevalence of syndicalist unions show
solid class identities, strong political understanding, and most importantly were
totally internationalist, containing huge varieties of migrants of different
professions about as anti-anomie as one can get. Therefore, urban life in this
case characterised by formative class consciousness and cities as facilitators of
critiques of nationalism and other artificial constructs responsible for internal
class tensions etc.
-Throughout the entire period leading up to the Second World War, waterfront
unions articulated class-based expressions of unity in the context of recurrent
strike movements. Such expressions of class unity were not limited to
workplace direct action, nor was their focus purely on economic/revolutionary
concerns, with counter-cultural community activism being a distinctive feature
of syndicalist communities in Argentina throughout this period. 57 This shows how
syndicalist organising in Argentina, which was certainly initially undertaken in the
interests of overcoming the anomic effects of the divisions of labour and of
capitalist oppression, developed further transformative potential, embedding the
economic solidarities of the workplace in to the cultural and social landscape of
the working-class city. As such, in this case the anomic potential of the city of
Buenos Aires in fact created cultural, social and class unity and identity the
polar opposite of Durkheims vision of urban life.
-In regard to the binaries already outlines, the de Laforcade essay outlines how,
by 1929, networks of syndicalist movements across Latin America had gained
enough support to hold a successful conference (transnational allegiances) the
essay also shows how syndicalists had successfully crossed the urban/rural
divide that seems essential to Durkheims theory. Part of the beauty of this
radical syndicalism, as already detailed, is that it enfranchised the traditionally
dispossessed as such, migrant workers (not just internationally, but internally)
who moved seasonally from rural to urban labour, became members of labour
federations such as FORA, and as such enabled the formation of networks of
solidarity between agrarian and industrial workers. This is an example of the
port city, as the locus for syndicalist organisation and the entry point for radical
politics, actually enabling the formation of widespread and effective solidarities.
58
This needs some Durkheim technical language.
-This relates to how syndicalism, which often sprung from anarchist movements,
was in many ways quintessentially a European idea (i.e. Argentinean syndicalism
being a product of Malatestas influence). However, despite syndicalisms
genesis being initially European, by interacting with local movements and social
contexts Argentinean syndicalist organisation quickly became imbued with a
57 Geoffrey de Laforcade, Straddling the Nation and the Working World:
anarchism and syndicalism on the docks and rivers of Argentina 1900-1930 in
Steven Hirsch and Lucien Van Der Waldt (eds), Anarchism and Syndicalism in the
Colonial and Postcolonial World 1870-1940 (Boston 2010) p. 322.
58 Ibid., pp. 324-330.

distinctly regional character so again, placing the city as a creative structure. 59

[M]ilitants like Malatesta did not simply export ideas to other countries. Rather,
their views were modied by their experiences abroad 60.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-Philadelphia - Dock workers organised by an African American, Ben Fletcher

with strong IWW tendencies.61
-Could mention the role played by IWW in anti-WW1 movements again, identity
fostered by, and facilitating, genuine class concerns.
-IWW facilitated the end of racial segregation in dockworkers unions in Philly.
Before 1913, Durkheims claims regarding the divisions of labour within a city
fostering social disorder were in many ways vindicated by the actions of
employers in Philadelphia. By pitting white and black workers against each other
in competition for employment, in time-honoured fashion, the longshore workers
were forced to pursue individualistic goals, or unionise in ineffective, racially
distinct unions which, in the event of industrial action, were merely undercut by
workers of another race. However, through the efforts of the IWW, the multiracial Local 8 of the Marine Transport Workers (MTW) were able to dominate their
workplace, the Philadelphia docks, for over a decade and obtain many material
gains for their membership. Of course, the proximity of workers of different
races o each other was not a phenomenon exclusive to the urban environment in
the US. However, the unique extent, and diversity, of migration fostered by the
port city of Philadelphia was doubtless a decided factor in nurturing radical
unionism amongst some of the most downtrodden and dispossessed in the city.
-This is not to say that the urban environment was necessarily a deciding factor
in bringing about racial integration and furthering working class solidarity.
Indeed, Philadelphia is a compelling case study precisely because the interracial
solidarity and militant unionism this enabled is completely exceptional in this era
of American labour history.62 However, what -Can mention the decline of the
Wobs in Philadelphia the result of an enormous split regarding alignment with
59 MUNCK, R., FALCN, R. & GALITELLI, B. 1987. Argentina : from anarchism to
Peronism : workers, unions, and politics, 1855-1985, London ; Atlantic Highlands ,
N.J., Zed Books
60 Davide Turcato, Italian Anarchism as a Transnational Movement, 18851915
International Review of Social History 52 (2007) p. 417.
61 Philip S. Foner, History of the American Labour Movement, Volume IV: The
Industrial Workers of the World 1905-1917 p. 125.

the Communist Party. This led, in 1920, to accusations being levelled at Local 8
of their alleged assistance in helping load ships destined to intervene, on the
side of the opposition, in the Russian Civil War. This groundless claim by the
Communists destroyed the largest and most effective racially integrated union of
the era, and was part of the wholesale dismantling of the IWW by Communists
within the union and abroad, at the behest of the Third International. 63

-While the Local 8 phenomenon can justifiably be seen as a notable intersection

for the American labour movement, and in all 3 cities in question the
multinational nature of these syndicalist unions are admirable examples of the
creative solidarities fostered by urban maritime geographies, there are notable
absences from these groups. In Buenos Aires, Liverpool and Philadelphia the
labour movements, and indeed the working class politics in general, were almost
entirely gender exclusive and also, contra the multinational, multiracial and
immigrant constituents of the Philadelphia and Buenos Aires syndicalist unions,
the Liverpool labour movement in question was far more exclusionary and white
see Featherstones detailing of widespread racial assaults on communities and
seafarers of colour in Liverpool in 1919.64 This is not to say that immigration
was not a feature of the radical labour movement, just that it was more broadly
seen as antagonistic rather than a positive and necessary component.
-Focus on radical unionism/syndicalism in cities should be tempered by
acknowledging that unionism and the identity fostered by it is not a uniquely
urban phenomenon CNT in Spanish countryside, Mexican agricultural workers
(?), IWW strength amongst unemployed throughout rural America. 65
-Equally, while this is aiming at being a refutation of the concept of anomie, must
acknowledge that the emergence of modern urban life was/is not a wholly
positive concept, of course, and that some of the underpinning principles of
anomie are not entirely wrong. However, thrust of the argument should be that
atomisation, anonymity and an increase in organic (?) relations and broader,
impersonal relations are not exclusively, or even particularly urban phenomena.
Instead, this is a product if anything of modern economic relationships, fostered
by the emergence of industrial capitalism. This is further vindicated by Mason:
he details how, from the mid-1700s through to the late 1800s American unionism
62 Peter Cole, Philadelphias Lords of the Docks: Interracial Unionism WobblyStyle, Journal of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era 6:3 (2007) pp. 310-12.
63 Patrick Renshaw, The Wobblies: The Story of Syndicalism in the United States
(London 1967) pp. 248-50.
64 Featherstone pp. 92-4.
65 Featherstone, Solidarity. 83.

had ebbed and flowed, with a myriad short campaigns over single issues, without
lasting or striking with real force. Mason argues that this was precisely due to
the temporary and febrile feel of American capitalism in this period the
dominance of the Southern slave plantation economy ensured that industrialism
was uneven and relatively hampered. However, after the Civil War
industrialisation and urbanisation boomed. In accordance with Durkheims
theory of anomie, this would foster a growth in the division of labour and all of
the ills associated with it. However, instead this witnessed an unprecedented
solidification of labour organisation and workers power, with class consciousness
and unionism coming to the fore in direct proportion to developments in
American industry.66 Furthermore, the American example also provides a
conclusive critique of another key tenet of Durkheims anomie, the harmonious
pre-urban idyll against which disorderly, amoral urban modernity is contrasted
in the North American context, the entire history of European colonisation is
characterised by the horrific repression and abuse of vast slave populations in
the interests of profit, alongside the deliberate ethnic cleansing of indigenous
peoples and the brutal mistreatment of predominantly Chinese immigrants to
further expansion in to the heartland America.

-Many of these binaries, while perhaps having some root in fact, are not mutually
exclusive in the way that Durkheim portrays them. For example, whilst indeed
there were and are many differences and tensions between rural populations and
those in urban centres, they are not necessarily antagonistic. Certainly, the 20 th
Century phenomenon of suburbia equally disrupts these conveniently
constructed geographies. Equally, in the Wob article it is made clear that for
example the IWW both in Mexico itself and across the border in the US were key
in defending attempts by a fundamentally urban party (PLM) to create a rural
anarchist commune.
-Anomie tied up with conceptions of social disorder. For Durkheim,
fundamentally a liberal/conservative, reformist statist, working-class selforganisation, class consciousness and struggle are archetypal of anomie.
Indeed, class struggle being interpreted and presented by the mainstream media
and amongst the wealthier classes as inherently chaotic was a very common
feature of the cities in question from the time of Durkheim onwards, and in fact
political action seen as radical by the establishment was frequently discredited
as deviant, criminal and insane.67 However, is this the case? By critically
examining the concept itself, and then addressing the subjective nature of
disorder one can reconcile the urban environment with the working class, whilst
66 Paul Mason, Live Working or Die Fighting: How the Working Class Went Global
pp. 82-3.
67Christopher Wellbrook, Seething With The Ideal: Galleanisti and Class Struggle in Late
Nineteenth-Century and Early Twentieth-Century USA in WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labour and
Society 12.3 (2009) pp. 403-20.

recognising some of the valid concerns Durkheims conception of anomie and

industrialisation raised.
-Review of Rebel Voices makes a very interesting point at the birth of the
Wobs, workplaces were unionised in very divisive ways: in a steel factory, rather
than having single steelworkers unions, instead individual skills/crafts were
unionised. The Wobs worked to form broader, more effective industrial unions in
order to facilitate genuinely effective strikes, through the mass withdrawal of
labour. While Durkheim argues that industrialisation was responsible for the
mass division of labour that brought about social disorder/anomie (this is
debatable perhaps?), in fact syndicalist (and also of course traditional) unions
brought about unity across different labour divisions. 68
-In Paul Masons book, he describes the period of around 1880s/90s onwards as
globalisation the first time around. Monopolies operating nationally and
transnationally clearly facilitate mass oppressions however, these also provide
opportunities for transnational solidarities of labour to strike at the heart of these
capitalist companies, and it is in this economic situation that the syndicalist
union becomes such a powerful tool for the working class, in urban centres.
-Transnational, multi-urban solidarities are clearly the most potent example of
anti-anomie.
-

Further references to Mann in Libertarian Socialism, the chapter on the Durham

Coalfield. Contains IWW references as well.
-This is interesting because while, broadly the IWW was a force for oppositionism
during the First World War there is an implication that Local 8 was complicit in
assisting the navy. However, also significant because individuals tied closely
with syndicalism were crucial in opposing conscription and the war in both the
UK and the US Goldmans writings at the time, with a distinct union flavour,
earning her jail time.69

Anton Rosenthal, Radical Border Crossers: The Industrial Workers of the World and their Press
in Latin America

68 http://libcom.org/library/review-rebel-voices-iww-anthology-staughton-lynd
69 Emma Goldman, The Promoters of the War Mania and The No-Conscription
League in Peter Glassgold (ed), Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldmans
Mother Earth (Berkeley 2012) pp. 391-9.