The experiences of the last few years have allowed us to conclude that
the established or institutionalised left is totally incapable (on either
a theoretical or practical level) of responding concretely to the needs
and demands of the people. The rugged debate around the themes of
federalism and use of language by groups who have nothing to do with
such concepts and the continual attempt to present oneself as 'new' in
order to cover up past skeletons provide us with the general framework
within which has fermented the experiences and movements which, over the
years, have started to redefine, in practice and with a self-managed
development, new ways to face up to the demands of daily life. In this way
people began to turn to craft, agricultural and entertainment activities
which either used modern technology or reproduced more traditional modes
of production, but always had as their final objective the effective
control of people's work and their lives. Social centres, alternative
banks, self-managed schools, squats, producer or consumer co-operatives,
self-managed musical productions... such are some of the phenomena which
have been adopted by the self-management method.
In the 80s, such practices were recognised by a denial of the
"projectual' and political dimension to which was opposed a kind
of minimalism which can be summed up in the small is beautiful slogan.
Over the following years these groups began to realise that shutting
yourself off in your own cocoon was pointless; in fact it ran the risk
of bringing with it a progressive implosion that would wipe out or
denaturalise the experience, giving ground to market forces and those of
profit (or quite simple extinction). In addition a long and painful
process was begun (still today in its early stages) of confronting and
opposing to similar groupings which had usurped the self-management
label. It was in this way that the first exchanges began, the first
contacts: we were painfully seeking to escape from the margins, a kind
of ghettoisation to which the dominant society would send these ideas
which in the long run could put the organisational terms and conditions
of the state in jeopardy, which in itself reveals a fragility and more
and more clearly an incapacity to answer to, in an acceptable fashion,
the demands of ordinary people.
Thus, after a meeting which took place in Bologna, over the last few
months we sought to verify in a concrete fashion the potential for a
movement both divided and contradictory but also full of energy and
potential. That is to say that we thought the value of this exchange,
of concrete experiences as abstract elaborations, would be that it
could provide a new springboard for expansion and bring about the
opportunity for further exchanges and the spreading of the movement.
Moreover, if the economic crisis (and above all the question of
employment) brings to light the inability of capitalism to answer
to the primary needs of a large part of the planet... then it seems
to us that the moment has arrived for us to begin to set up the
opportunities for dialogue between the different tendencies which
exist amongst those concerned with self-management.
In essence, our ambition is to develop an atmosphere in which the
different groupings concerned can be put in contact with one another
so that opportunities for dialogue can be brought into being and
nurtured concerning the fascinating if difficult area of concrete
utopias. This is a necessary first step for those who wish to escape
from the marginality of the ghettos into which those with power would
condemn us, contributing towards the opening up of new political and
social spaces of co-operation and exchange outside of the market.
Freedom International News (Dec 1994)