Cornelius Castoriadis, aka Paul Cardan, was the most prominent member of the Socialisme ou Barbarie group in France in the late 1940s-1960s, which advocated workers’ self-management in workplaces and society as opposed to capitalism in its private and state-run forms.
Here we present Maurice Brinton’s translation of Castoriadis’ classic On the content of socialism. The work is subtitled ‘From the Critique of Bureaucracy to the Idea of the Proletariat’s Autonomy’
Click here for part 1, here for part 2 and here for part 3. This text is among the recommended reading for our 19th January Sheffield discussion group on ‘what would our alternative society look like?’
Apologies for the repeated sexist use of ‘him’ and ‘his’ to refer to a worker throughout the piece, reflecting the prejudices of the time.
the commune 