Henry Laws

@henryglaws.bsky.social

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Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title above and around an artistic depiction of people maintaining the Zone to Defend/Zone à Défendre (ZAD) Notre-Dame-des-Landes.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title on top of an artistic depiction of blue flowers.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title on top of a picture of barricade in Paris during the Paris Commune with the following quote below the book title: ‘An extremely impressive study of true significance’ John Merriam
Image description: Picture of an artistic depiction of workers working on gears with the following text around the picture: "Developing a Model of Self-Managed Socialism: Lessons From the Spanish Revolution By Tom Wetzel This year marks the 90th anniversary of the onset of the civil war and revolution in Spain. In this essay I suggest that the efforts of the Spanish working class in that epic conflict provide elements for building a model of socialism based on direct working-class control and participatory, democratic planning of a socialized economy. With statist and managerialist conceptions of socialism widespread today, I think it is especially important for us to revive the focus on worker-centered socialism based on coordinated worker self-management of production."
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title below an artistic depiction of a tree in Rojava.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title around a picture of fighters in Rojava’s Women’s Protection Units/YPJ holding up several YPJ flags.
Image description: Picture of the following text: "What is Trade Union Bureaucracy? A Theoretical Account - David Camfield ‘Union bureaucracy’ is an important yet vexed term in the study of trade unions and in radical politics. At worst, it can be a label pinned by left-wing activists on those union officers whose actions or beliefs are seen as repugnant. This usage confers the label of ‘bureaucrat’ on some union officials but not on those whose behaviour is seen as praiseworthy. The term is also used in a more serious way. Many critical analysts (and others) have drawn attention to the existence of a layer of full-time union officers and staff and argued that this group of people – ‘the trade union bureaucracy’ – plays a conservative role in unions. There are many versions of this kind of analysis of ‘the bureaucracy,’ some much more insightful than others. Yet there have been scarcely any recent attempts to refine and present a coherent theory of union bureaucracy.2 Unfortunately, it remains the case that in the study of unions, as John Kelly (1988) argued over two decades ago, ‘Rarely is the term “bureaucracy” defined or its use justified on any theoretical grounds, and it is normally unclear which of several different definitions is actually being employed’ (p.155). Moreover, theories of ‘the trade union bureaucracy’ understood as a group of people can function as blinkers to a critical understanding of the character of union activity itself. A focus on official leaderships can lead us to ignore or neglect how union activity happens, how the relations among members and between officials and members are organized. To put the same point 1 David Camfield teaches Labour Studies at the University of Manitoba and is the author of Canadian Labour in Crisis: Reinventing the Workers’ Movement (2011). Thanks to David McNally, Charlie Post, Alan Sears and Sheila Wilmot for discussions about some of the ideas in this article, earlier versions o…
Image description: Picture of an artistic depiction of Territorio Doméstico protesting with the following text around the picture: "Bio-syndicalism from the Domestic Territories. An Introductory Selection Here you’ll find an introductory selection of the five main chapters of “Bio-syndicalism from the Domestic Territories. Our Reclaims and Our Ways of Doing”, written by Rafaela Pimentel Lara, Costanza Cisneros Sánchez, Amalia Caballero Richard and Ana Rojo Delgado in dialogue with Territorio Doméstico, illustrated by Ana Peñas and now translated by Liz Mason-Deese. The research and writing process of the booklet were funded by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, Madrid Liaison Office and the Foundation for Arts Initiatives. We hope you’ll enjoy the translation and find it useful in your struggles. What is Territorio Doméstico? Territorio Doméstico is a collective space of struggle and empowering women, mostly migrants and domestic and care workers. The important thing, which brings us together, is that we are women who do a hard, enormous, and invisibilized job: the work of caring for people and homes. From that starting point, we created a space in which to feel listened to and valued, to support one another and fight for improving our lives and also building a more liveable world for everyone. We fight for the recognition of our rights as domestic workers and carers, but also for the visibilization of the care work that sustains life and the urgent need to socially reorganize care."
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Anarchist Unionism: A Forgotten but Glorious History [For more of my posts on anarchism visit this page. An abbreviated pamphlet version of this post is available for download and printing here. A computer voice reading of the blog post can be listened to in the player below.] Why should we think about anarchist unionism? Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the push towards capitalist reforms in China, self-proclaimed Communist movements the world over have lost their main sponsors and sources of political inspiration and legitimacy. Subsequently, since the early 1990s anarchism has seen a resurgence within social movements in the US. Some movements, like the early anti-globalization movement and Occupy Wall Street, have more foregrounded anarchist ideas, while all social movements have been touched by an increased number of anarchists within them, such as the abolitionist wing of the Black Lives Matter movement. The labor movement has long been a central part of social movements in the US, sometimes radical and sometimes not, but always touching the lives of millions of people and putting them into varying degrees of action for reform and occasionally towards revolution. While the US labor movement is at a historical nadir in terms of union membership density, the last decade has seen a broad uptick in strike activity and public support."
Image description: Picture of an artistic depiction of three women workers with the following text below the picture: "July 14, 2022 From Farm Work to Care Work Towards a feminist and anti-racist syndicalism By Pastora Filigrana"
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title above a picture of a Kurdish women soldier in the field.
Image description: Picture of the following text: "The Big Break: General Strikes in the Past and Present The term “general strike” is re-entering the vocabulary of more and more workers in the US today. UAW president Shawn Fain’s call for unions to coordinate their contracts to expire on May 1st, 2028 provided the initial impetus for this. Labor Notes, which hosts the largest union conference in the US and produces the labor movement’s most-read website, has published half a dozen articles over the last year about general strikes. Some union leaders, like Sara Nelson of the Association of Flight Attendants, have discussed and called for general strikes publicly in recent years. Trump’s lurch further right in his second term has emboldened many to call for a general strike to fight back. Even relatively mainstream political figures, such as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, have recently called for a general strike amidst Trump’s violent crackdown on immigrant communities and federal occupations of major cities. A general strike is a work stoppage in a city or region that halts the majority of its economic activity. Historian Jeremy Brecher notes three essential features of such strikes: “an expanding challenge to established authority in workplaces and beyond; a tendency for workers to take control of their own activity; and a widening solidarity and mutual support among different groups of working people.” As the most powerful action of the working class, general strikes are easy to invoke in theory as the solution to every major social crisis and exceedingly difficult to execute in practice. On the left, calls for a general strike are as routine as the morning dew and as hackneyed as a sun wearing sunglasses."
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Breaking the Mould: Economic Utopias as Pathway to Peace Jonas Rusche Faculty of Humanities, Social Science & Education, Otto von Guericke University Magdeburg, Magdeburg, Germany ABSTRACT Extensive research shows how neoliberal economic policies, enforced through international peacebuilding interventions, exacerbate inequality and undermine their intended goal of fostering peace. Yet, the same body of literature makes no concerted effort to develop alternative economic policies. In response, this article develops an anarchist utopian epistemology and presents one exemplary historical anarchist economic utopia. Highlighting three key elements of this economic utopia, namely workers’ self-management, abandonment of private property, and council federalization, as possible alternatives to neoliberal peacebuilding. By employing utopia, scholarship can develop a repository of possibilities, pluralizing options for post-conflict communities to design policy outside hegemonic capitalist orders. KEYWORDS: Peacebuilding economy anarchism utopia Gustav Landauer"
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Don’t run for executive board”: How to Take Over Your Union from the Bottom Up [This post is part of my series on union organizational structures.] Many workers today find themselves asking, “If unions in general are good, why does my union suck?” The member meetings are unbearably tedious, abuses and unsavory conditions are widespread at work, wages keep falling against inflation, health insurance premiums keep going up, and, worst of all, none of the union’s initiatives or campaigns seem to be helping. For many workers who are dissatisfied with their union, taking over the executive board appears like the logical way to make their unions better. They think that the union itself is a good thing and all that needs to be done is replace the bad leadership with good leadership. As common as this mindset is among union activists, it ignores a deeper and structural critique of why today’s unions are so dissatisfying in the first place. More often than not, such efforts to win union leadership end up perpetuating the very structures that are responsible for the dissatisfaction in the first place."
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Is Another Unionism Possible? Solidarity Unionism in the Industrial Workers of the World in the U.S. and Canada Derek Keenan Abstract The article attempts to answer the question “Is another unionism possible?” by an examination of the theory and practice of Solidarity Unionism developing in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the U.S. and Canada. In the study, Solidarity Unionism is considered as a variety of unionism with distinct and definable characteristics that set it apart from mainstream trade union models. Taking the model of Solidarity Unionism in the IWW as a case study, the work outlines the historical-theoretical development of the model through the work of, among others, Staughton Lynd. The distinct and definable characteristics are elaborated and discussed and put into historical context. The research findings, gathered through interviews with IWW Solidarity Union organizers from the U.S. and Canada and a documentary/textual analysis of contemporary IWW literature, both official and unofficial, are organized under topic headings. These topics cover what Solidarity Unionism looks like and feels like; how it sustains participation and democratic involvement and the possibility of mainstreaming the model. The article concludes with a consideration of the prospects for Solidarity Unionism and the possibility of the Solidarity Union model, or elements of it, being adopted by the broader trade union movement in North America and beyond."
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title in front of pictures of a Kurdish carpet and a plain in Rojava used for agriculture
Image description: Picture of striking Burgerville Workers Union members with the following text above the picture: "theory and strategy Towards a Revolutionary Union Movement We need a new, revolutionary type of unionism that can confront the power of the employing class. We propose nine traits revolutionary unions must possess to succeed. Angry Education Workers, Proletarian Pedagogue, Anonymous Education Worker 9 Nov 2025"
Image description: Picture of Sandro Rosta as Caleb Mir, Karim Diané as Jay-Den Kraag, Kerrice Brooks as Sam, George Hawkins as Darem Reymi, Bella Shepard as Genesis Lythe and Zoë Steiner as Tarima Sadal sitting together on the ground with the following text in front of the picture: "Paramount+ Original Star Trek: Starfleet Academy New Series Streaming Jan 15"
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title above a picture of a group of Kurdish women cyclists in Rojava.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title above a picture of a Syrian Kurdish girl smiling and holding a Rojava flag at a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Rojava’s formation in Qamishli.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title on top of a picture of Tehran and a picture of Iranian and other politicians who participated in the negotiations of the 2015 Iranian nuclear deal standing next to each other.
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Karl Marx and the Body: Towards an Eco-Marxist Philosophical Anthropology Søren Mau Abstract This article argues that the body occupies a central place in Marx’s thought, and that a critical reconstruction of his dialectical understanding of the relationship between humans and the rest of nature and his concepts of corporeal organisation, labour, tools and metabolism provides a foundation for an eco-Marxist theory of human nature and the corporeal roots of human historicity and freedom. Keywords corporeality, historicity, Marx, Marxism, metabolism, the body, tools"
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Henri Lefebvre and the spatial revolution that never ends: Towards the reconciliation of anarchist and Marxist approaches in geography? Hamish Kallin School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK Correspondence Hamish Kallin, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9XP, UK. Abstract It is widely accepted that Henri Lefebvre's Marxism had anarchistic traits, but few have tried to specify what these traits are, or what they mean. This paper argues that Lefebvre's work should be seen as first and foremost an anti-authoritarian theory that uses space, rather than a spatial theory. Written from a position that refuses to be either just ‘Marxist’ or just ‘anarchist’, this paper makes a claim to the possibility of a radical geography that can engage with and beyond both. KEYWORDS anarchism, Henri Lefebvre, Marxism, radical geography, right to the city [T]he purpose of the struggle is to go beyond democracy and beyond the democratic state, to build a society without state power. Henri Lefebvre, 1973, p. 138 Away with all bosses, leaders, and those apostles of language who turn words into Sacred Scripture. Avoid idolatry and value the words even of your closest friend or the wisest professor only for the truth that you find in them. Élisée Reclus, 2013, p. 235"
Image description: Picture of the following text: "The Eccentric Commodity: Why Only Labor-Power Produces Value Jan Overwijk Abstract Who or what produces surplus value across the economy-ecology nexus? The question is central to Marxism and to eco-Marxism more specifically. This article argues that only labor-power produces value and develops what it calls the work theory of value. It argues, first, that abstract labor, the source of all value, comes onto the historical scene as labor-power. Second, it shows that labor-power has both a use-value, its capacity to do thermodynamic “work,” and an exchange-value, its wage, and that neither of these are unique to labor-power. Third and fourth, the article offers an immanent critique of labor-power and capital respectively. On this basis, the article concludes that labor-power “produces” value because it is an eccentric commodity, the unique part of the economy that has the power to refuse the transition from ecology to economy. In its struggle with capital, labor-power transforms ecological energy into economic “work” or value. Keywords value, ecology, Marxism, eco-Marxism, labor-power, abstract labor, value-form theory, ecological economics, critical theory"
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title on top of a picture of Tahrir Square during the 2011 Egyptian Revolution.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title and author above a piece of art on the wall of a building created during the Arab Spring.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title above a diagram of a decentralised network.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title with a pool of oil on top of the title above a red background.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title around an art piece depicting workers raising the red flag of socialism on top of the fortifications of the Cartagena Canton.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title on top of a background consisting of coloured diagonal shapes.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title on top of a book and a red background.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title around a picture of a Venezuelan communal market.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title on top of a book and a green background.
Image description: Picture of the Marty Supreme poster, which consists of the film's title below a picture of Timothée Chalamet as Marty Supreme with pictures of the main cast below him.
Image description: Picture of the poster of One Battle After Another, which consists of a picture of Pat Calhoun (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) and Charlene Calhoun (played by Chase Infiniti) with the following text around the picture: "One Battle After Another Written and Directed By Paul Thomas Anderson Leonardo DiCaprio Sean Penn Benicio Del Toro Regina Hall Teyana Taylor Chase Infiniti"
Image description: Picture of the poster for the film Sinners, which consists of Elijah "Smoke" Moore played by Michael B. Jordan in front of the sun and shows with the following text in front: "From Ryan Coogler Director of Black Panther and Creed Michael B. Jordan Sinners Dance with the Devil"
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Labour politics in China’s platform economy: Contending discourses in trade union building under party-state hegemony Yujin Chao University of Amsterdam Abstract This study centres on the role of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in shaping labour politics in China’s platform economy. More specifically, a Gramscian framework is developed to understand trade union building not simply as an ideological project, but as a set of materially embedded practices marked by tension, negotiation, and a shared yet unstable ‘language of contention’. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Zhengzhou and Xiamen, the article explores how a language of care arises and is practised differently across local contexts, shaped by distinct political-economic conditions. In doing so, it argues that union building in the platform economy should be understood not as a unified top–down initiative, but as a contested terrain where institutional strategies and grassroots agency are embedded in local distinct political economies. Among the first to explore the role of the ACFTU in China’s platform economy, this study encourages future studies on struggles and ruptures in the field of labour and trade union studies in China."
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title and author in front of a book and a yellow background.
Image description: Picture of Pluribus' protaganist Carol Sturka screaming with the following text above her on top of a yellow background: "From the creator of Breaking Bad Pluribus"
Image description: Picture of the film's poster, which consists of the film's title around an artistic depiction of the Yautja protaganist Dek, the synthetic Thia, the creature the Kalisk, a powerloader fighting Dek with the shadow of Njohrr, Dek's father with the following text above the picture: "First Hunt. Last Chance."
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title above an artistic depiction of several workers.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title on top of an artistic depiction of two arrows pointing up and down.
Image description: Picture of a meme of the girl from the Old El Paso ad saying “Substack or WordPress? Why Not Both?” and then the girl being picked up by a crowd in celebration with the following text above it: "Change of plan: why I'll be publishing on both Substack and WordPress going forward Or: Why the WordPress Free Plan just doesn't cut it"
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title and author on top of a black background.
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Hezza's Hot Takes About Kia ora and welcome to Hezza’s Hot Takes! On this website, I’ll be posting my thoughts on books that I’ve read, my articles and my other writings."
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title above an artistic depiction of Karl Marx.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title around a picture of a statue of Karl Marx.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title and author around a reproduction of the artistic piece “Tribute to Freedom. In memory of the 1893 Reichstag Election”.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of an artistic depiction of Mikhail Bakunin with the book’s title and author around the artistic depiction.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title around an artistic depiction of a group of people holding up a globe of the Earth.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book title around an artistic depiction of a Zapatista raising their fist.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title below a picture of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and a picture of a protest in post-Soviet Russia.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title around an artistic depiction of a workers’ uprising on top of a red background.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title on top of a white and yellow background.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title on top of a book on table, with the book, the table and the background coloured in red.
Image description: Picture of the cover of the PhD thesis, which consists of the thesis title above an artistic depiction of oil workers striking during the Iranian revolution.
Image description: Picture of the book cover, which consists of the book’s title on top of a picture of a dark blue book.
Image description: Picture of a gender strike in Spain with the following text above the picture: "Women workers deserve a stronger union response to pay equity cuts Eleanor Pollard 20 September 2025"
Image description: Picture of the following text: "Aaron Benanav Beyond Capitalism—2 Institutions for a multi-criterial economy How might a modern economy work if it were driven by multiple social goals instead of the pursuit of private profit? The first part of this contribution discussed the ways the classical socialist tradition addressed this question, from the nineteenth-century utopians to the crash industrializers of Soviet Russia, the planners of Red Vienna, the guild socialists of Edwardian Britain and the architects of the postwar welfare state.footnote1 A major problem they failed to resolve was how to design the institutions through which multiple democratically determined aims could be articulated and composed, with resources allocated accordingly. Early ideas of a simple community-regulated economy could not survive the growing differentiation of economic and social structures thrown up by capitalist development from the 1870s on, which had created complex, layered processes of production and correspondingly specialized, sometimes mutually unintelligible forms of knowledge and world outlooks. New social struggles—feminist, anti-colonial, anti-racist—advanced competing, perhaps incompatible values: autonomy, equality, recognition. Imposing a uniform plan overrode broader aims in pursuit of maximized output and ignored real local differences, with perverse results. Organizing an economy around multiple goals dramatically increases the complexity of decision-making. Enduring ethical and political disagreements will persist. Even if broad consensus were achieved, material and technical constraints would mean that not all ambitions could be realized, requiring negotiated trade-offs. Besides, irreducible uncertainty about the future means we can never wholly predict the consequences of our decisions or anticipate new wants and needs; course correction"
Image description: Picture of the book’s cover, which consists of the book’s title around a picture of the Chilean Leninist group the Revolutionary Left Movement/MIR.