About
What is Notes from Below?
Published online by the Notes from Below Collective in the UK: ISSN 2631-9284 (Online). All of our editors are volunteers. Privacy Notice.
Notes from Below is a publication that is committed to socialism, by which we mean the self-emancipation of the working class from capitalism and the state. To this end we use the method of workers’ inquiry.
Written contributions are divided into three types: “Inquiry” which involves original research into class composition; “Bulletins” written for and by workers and militants; “Theory”, perspectives on working class struggle from the most advanced and relevant parts of theoretical debate, or pieces about the historical co-development of class struggle and capitalist exploitation.
Contribute
We’re always looking for pitches, even if they’re unrelated to the topic of the upcoming issue. Contact us. We are flexible about the form contributions take. For example, they can involve original research, interviews, reporting, or new perspectives. Similarly, we can also host podcasts and videos on the website if this form is more suitable for the content. We would recommend reading pieces in previous issues to get a sense of what we’re looking for.
We draw our methods and theory from the class composition tradition, which seeks to understand and change the world from the worker’s point of view. We want to ground revolutionary politics in the perspective of the working class, help circulate and develop struggles, and build workers’ confidence to take action by and for themselves.
We argue that an understanding of ‘class composition’, that is to say, how the classes within society are formed and operate, is an essential task for contemporary socialist militants if we are to develop strategies adequate to our moment without relying solely upon the past for guidance. We divide our inquiries and our interventions over three interrelated categories of analysis. These are:
Technical
We understand ‘technical composition’ to be the knowledge of how workers are organised, that is to say ‘technically arranged’ within any given work; how our time is managed or dictated, what we must produce and in what conditions, what talents or skills we must use and what managerial or technological mechanisms mediate our work. By extension ‘technical composition’ also explains where workers may sit in a larger ‘production cycle’ or ‘distribution circuit’. These arrangements are in part informed by the ‘social’ composition of workers and the political power we are able to exert over these conditions.
Social
We understand ‘social composition’ to be the knowledge of how workers are composed in society; where we live and in what conditions, what familial relationships we hold, what our cultures are like, what access to support (such as the welfare state or citizenship) we are afforded and how these factors impact upon our technical and political composition.
Political
We understand ‘political composition’ to be the knowledge of how workers are organised politically; what forms of political organisation we engage with, create or attempt to influence in order to exert demands drawing from our own knowledge of our technical and social compositions.
‘Meaningful action, for revolutionaries, is whatever increases the confidence, the autonomy, the initiative, the participation, the solidarity, the equalitarian tendencies and the self-activity of the masses and whatever assists in their demystification. Sterile and harmful action is whatever reinforces the passivity of the masses, their apathy, their cynicism, their differentiation through hierarchy, their alienation, their reliance on others to do things for them and the degree to which they can therefore be manipulated by others - even by those allegedly acting on their behalf.’
‘As We See It’, The Solidarity Group.