ZEROWORK
The journal, with background and supplementary materials


This webpage makes available the content of the two published issues of Zerowork, a journal published in the 1970s, the content of the unpublished third issue and a variety of background essays and materials designed to facilitate the situating of the journal, its theoretical and political tendencies, within the times. The creation and publication of Zerowork, a political intervention into contemporary discussions of the crisis of capitalism and its relationship to working class struggle, consisted of a synthesis of several lines of Marxist theory and strategic thinking. Supplementary materials have been chosen either because they were influential in the formation of the perspectives contained in the journal or because they were produced by the editors as part of their political work in the same period. This webpage undergoes periodic modification. Materials are added as they are prepared. The background essays are modified as research proceeds and in light of feedback from readers. (Date of the most recent changes: September 10, 2014)

"Yet do not miss the moral, my good readers.
For Saint Marx says that all that's written well,
Is written down some truth to tell.
Then take the wheat and let the chaff lie still."
Apologies to Chaucer

General Introduction

Very brief intoduction to these web pages about Zerowork - the idea, the collective and the journal - including a few words about the people involved, the historical context of their work and the motivations for the creation of these pages.

Background: Genesis of Zerowork #1

Historical Sketch: The results of research into the background of the formation of the original Zerowork Collective and the work that led to the crafting and publication of the first issue of the journal. That background includes 1) earlier political and theoretical work on both sides of the Atlantic — both known and unknown to the various editors — that informed, directly and indirectly, their approach to analyzing the crisis in class relations of the early 1970s, and 2) brief biographies of the individuals involved that trace their lives and how they came to know each other and work together.

Supplemental (Historical) Materials

Cover of The American Worker 
edition 1972
(1947)
Cover of pamphlet Punching Out
(1952)
Cover of Facing Reality 1958 edition
(1958)
Cover of pamphlet that includes the 
article Be His Payment High or Low
(1965)
History of Quaderni Rossi
(All)
Cover of Operai e capitale
(1966)
Cover of Operai e Stato
(1972)
Cover of From Sundown to Sunup
(1972)
Cover of the May-June 1972 issue of Radical America
(1972)
Cover of an Italian - marsilio editori - edition of Mariarosa Dalla Costa's Essay
Women and the Subversion of the Community published with Selma James' 1953 
piece A Woman's Place, White lettering on blue background
(1972)
Cover of an English - Falling Wall Press - edition of Mariarosa Dalla Costa's 
essay Women and the Subversion of the Community published along with Selma James' 1953 piece A Woman's Place. The pamphlet is titled The Power of Women and the Subversion of the Community and includes an introduction by James. Black 
lettering on a purple background.
(1972)
Cover of the pamphlet Working - and Not-Working - at the Post Office, 
published in Toronto, Canada in 1974.
(1974)
Cover of the first edition of Sex, Race and Class, published by Falling 
Wall Press in February 1975.
(1975)
(1975)

Material from the American tradition of the Johnson-Forest Tendency and Facing Reality
Material from the European tradition, especially the Italian area of autonomia Material associated with the Wages for Housework Movement.
Cover of first issue of the journal Zerowork, black 
and white lettering on orange background

Zerowork: Political Materials #1, December 1975

Front Material, [pdf of original], [MSWord version]

Table of Contents, [pdf of original], [MSWord version]

Editor's Note

Introduction, [pdf of original] [MSWord version]

Paolo Carpignano, "U.S. Class Composition in the Sixities", [pdf of original], [MSWord version], [Italian version]

Mario Montano, "Notes on the International Crisis", [pdf of original], [MSWord version]

Peter Linebaugh and Bruno Ramirez, "Crisis in the Auto Sector", [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

Peter Taylor, "The Sons of Bitches Just Won't Work, Postal Workers Against the State", [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

William Cleaver, "Wildcats in the Appalacian Coal Fields", [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

George Caffentzis, "Throwing Away the Ladder: The Universities in Crisis", [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

Bruno Ramirez, "The Working Class Struggle Against the Crisis: Self-Reduction of Prices in Italy", [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

NEW! Background: From Zerowork #1 to Zerowork #2

Historical Sketch: The results of research into the evolution of the Zerowork collective from the publication of Zerowork #1 to that of Zerowork #2. This background includes the interwoven intellectual and political history of the editors, their relations with others and their internal debates. During the period covered by this essay, some left the editorial collective and others joined. The internal debates eventually became serious enough to provoke a split. As a result, the second issue of the journal was produced by a recomposed group and benefited from new input. Included here are brief biographies of the new individuals who joined the collective.

Supplemental (Historical) Materials

Cover of the Venetian New Left journal Lavoro Zero
(2/1976)
Cover of CSE Pamphlet no.1 The Labour Process & 
Class Strategies
(1976)
Cover of the New York Struggle Against Work  pamphlet 
We Want Everything, black lettering on yellow background
(1976)
Cover of New York Struggle Against Work pamphlet on the 
New York City fiscal crisis
(6/1976)
Thumbnail of cover of the New York Struggle Against 
Work pamphlet If We're so Powerful, Why aren't we Free?
(7/1976)
Struggle Against Work Collective (Toronto), "The Perspective of the Working Class Struggle in the 1970s: Suggested Readings", 1976(?). This list of readings includes some articles from Zerowork #1.

Toronto Collective, Letter to Wages for Students on SAWC Split, June 1976.

Tim Grant, "Wages for Homework", The Chevron, March 5, 1976 [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

Harry Cleaver, "The Internationalization of Capital and the Mode of Production in Agriculture," Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 11, No. 13, March 27, 1976 [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

We Want Everything: An Introduction to the Income Without Work Committee, Brooklyn, New York, 1976. [pdf of original pamphlet], [MSWord version].

New York Struggle Against Work, Developing and Underdeveloping New York: The "Fiscal Crisis" and a Strategy for Fighting Austerity by Philip Mattera and Donna Demac, June 1976. [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

Larry Cox, If We're So Powerful, Why Aren't We Free? White Men, the Total Wage and the Struggle Against Work - a New York Struggle Against Work pamphlet, July 1976. [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

Raniero Panzieri, "Surplus Value and Planning: notes on the reading of Capital", CSE, The Labour Process and Class Strategies, CSE Pamphlet no. 1, 1976, pp. 4-25. Originally in Quaderni Rossi, No. 4, 1964, pp. 257-288.

Cover of second issue of the journal Zerowork, 
black and white lettering on green background

Zerowork: Political Materials #2, Fall 1977

Front Material, [pdf of original], [MSWord version]

Table of Contents, [pdf of original], [MSWord version]

Introduction, [pdf of original] [MSWord version]

Harry Cleaver, "Food, Famine and the International Crisis", [pdf of original], [MSWord Version]

Philip Mattera, "National Liberation, Socialism and the Struggle Against Work: The Case of Vietnam, [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

Christian Marazzi, "Money in the World Crisis: The New Basis of Capitalist Power", [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

Donna Demac & Philip Mattera, "Developing and Underdeveloping New York: The 'Fiscal Crisis' and the Imposition of Austerity", [pdf of original], [MS Word Version]

Letters, [pdf of original], [MSWord Version].

Back Cover.

Background: From Zerowork #2 to Zerowork #3

Historical Sketch

Forthcoming

Supplemental (Historical) Materials

Cover of 1977 pamphlet Call to Action
(1977)
Marty Glaberman, A Letter to Zerowork, December 28, 1977.

Zerowork: Political Materials #3, Special Issue on Immigration, Never published

Introduction

Peter Bell & Harry Cleaver, "1970's: Decade of Crisis"

Special Section on Immigration


General Introduction

Editors' Introduction to Flores

Estevan T. Flores, A Call to Action: An Analysis of Our Struggles and Alternatives to Carter's Immigration Program, Pamphlet, 1977. Originally written and published for a 1977 conference of immigration activists. [pdf of original], [MSWord version].

Beyond the Select Commission, 1982. Prepared for Zerowork #3. [MS Word version].

Box Insert: "Next Stop 1984: Computers, Identification Cards and Immigration Control", prepared for Zerowork #3. [MSWord version].

Editors' Introduction to Ramirez, [MSWord version].

Bruno Ramirez, "Immigration, Class Composition, and the Crisis of the Labor Market in Canada", prepared for Zerowork #3, [pdf version], [MSWord version].

Editors' Introduction to Moulier & Ewenzyck, [pdf version], [MSWord version].

Yann Moulier and Pierre Ewenzyck, "Immigration: The Blockage of Mobility in the Mediterranean Basin," originally published in Critique de l'Economie Politique, Nouvelle Serie, No. 3, Septembre 1978. Translated for Zerowork #3.

Mogniss, "The Meditations of Young Immigrant Workers", Patchwork, Paris: CINEL, 1980.

Editors' Introduction to Dalla Costa [MSWord version].

Mariarosa Dalla Costa, "Reproduction and Immigration", 1974. Originally written and published in A. Serafini, et al., "L'Operaio multinazionale in Europa, 1974. Translated, in part, for Zerowork #3. [pdf version], [MSWord version].

NEW! Ferruccio Gambino, Class Composition and U.S. Direct Investment Abroad. Originally written and published in Luciano Ferrari Bravo (ed), Imperialismo e classe operaia multinazionale, Milano: Feltrinelli, 1975 — translated into English for Zerowork. [pdf of Italian original], [MSWord version].


Editors' Introduction to articles on repression in Europe

Karl-Heinz Roth, "The German Model against Mass Autonomy," Autonomie, No. 10, Winter 1978, pp. 116-120. [pdf of original German], [MSWord Version]

Statement on the April 7th Arrests and Repression in Italy