Original post:
I've always had trouble getting my mind around the idea of anarchists holding a meeting.
Anyhoo, we are going to be hearing sentiments similar to the following and it's probably better that you have a heads up.
Via the Anarchist Archives:
...But it has happened in the long run of ages that everything which permits men further to increase their production, or even to continue it, has been appropriated by the few.Old Pete was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, scientist, philologist, economist, geographer, writer, activist and revolutionary.
The land, which derives its value precisely from its being necessary for an ever-increasing population, belongs to the few, who may prevent the community from cultivating it.
The coal-pits, which represent the labour of generations, and which also derive their vale from the wants of the manufactures and railroads, from the immense trade carried on and the density of population (what is the value of coal-layers in Transbaikalia?), belong again to the few, who have even the right of stopping the extraction of coal if they choose to give another use to their capital.
The lace-weaving machine, which represents, in its present state of perfection, the work of three generations of Lancashire weavers, belongs again to the few; and if the grandsons of the very same weaver who invented the first lace-weaving machine claim their rights of bringing one of these machines into motion, they will be told 'Hands off!' this machine does not belong to you!
The railroads, which mostly would be useless heaps of iron if Great Britain had not its present dense population, its industry, trace, and traffic, belong again to the few—to a few shareholders, who may even not know where the railway is situated which brings them a yearly income larger than that of a medieval king; and if the children of those people who died by thousands in digging the tunnels would gather and go—a ragged and starving crowd—to ask bread or work from the shareholders, they would be met with bayonets and bullets....
He was also a Russian Prince and a prominent anarcho-communist.
Wikipedia
Updates:
Zeitgeist: Universal Basic Income
Zeitgeist: The Economics of Overripe Capitalism
