The Public Broadcasting System produces “programming” toward a more manageable society. In fact, it is the network rather expressly for managers, and what it airs can best be understood by keeping in mind this service to the managing class. The …
FE Author: John Zerzan
Unionization in America
by John Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 275, August, 1976
The struggle for unionization in the 1930s has always been shrouded in myth and revered by both the labor movement and the Left as a period of labor militancy. A closer look at the developments shows a much different picture …
Medieval Revolts against Church and State
by John Zerzan, Paula Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 274, July 1976
In a fairly recent booklet, I came across a very standard view of pre-modern class society. It was stated that the life of the individual was completely controlled, and based on something quite external to him. “The central mode of …
“Revolt Against Work” or the End of Leftism?
by John Zerzan, Paula Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 281, March, 1977
FE Note. The December 1976 Fifth Estate carried a critique by Charles Reeve (see “The Revolt Against Work or Fight for the Right to Be Lazy,” p. 9) of the contentions of John and Paula Zerzan that the crisis point …
Do Unions Raise Wages?
by John Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 273, June 1976
Although unions have long been identified by left revolutionaries as auxiliary organs of capital whose function is to regulate the sale of their members’ labor power, the myth still persists that they are “defense organs of the working class.” Even …
Paradigms
by John Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 394, Summer 2015 - Technology
To many, it seems there will be no escape from the dominant reality, no alternative to an irredeemably darkened modernity as civilization’s final, lasting mode. We are indeed currently trapped, and the nature of our imprisonment is not subject to …
The Practical Marx
by John Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 393, Spring 2015
Karl Marx is always approached as so many thoughts, so many words. What connection is there between lived choices–one’s willful lifetime–and the presentation of one’s ideas? By 1846 Marx and Engels had written The German Ideology, which contains the full …
The Practical Marx
by John Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 299, October 22, 1979
FE Note: The following article, an attempt to come to grips with the implications of Karl Marx’s everyday life by long-time FE contributor John Zerzan, has stirred considerable controversy among those of us presently working on the paper and necessitates, …
Who Killed Ned Ludd?
by John Zerzan, Paula Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 271, April, 1976
The argument that the advent of capitalism brought a rise in the standard of living for workers has been refuted before, but is shown graphically in these two prints. Prior to the dominance of the capitalist economy and the establishment …
A Word on Civilization & Collapse
by John Zerzan
Fifth Estate # 392, Fall/Winter 2014 - Art & Anarchy
Civilizations have come and gone over the past 6,000 years or so. Now, there’s just one—-various cultures, but a single, global civilization.