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Anarcho-syndicalism

Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in broader society. The goal of syndicalism is to abolish the wage system, regarding it as wage slavery. Anarcho-syndicalist theory generally focuses on the labour movement. Reflecting the anarchist philosophy from which it draws its primary inspiration, anarcho-syndicalism is centred on the idea that power corrupts and that any hierarchy that cannot be ethically justified must be dismantled.

The basic principles of anarcho-syndicalism are solidarity, direct action (action undertaken without the intervention of third parties such as politicians, bureaucrats and arbitrators), and workers' self-management. Anarcho-syndicalists believe their economic theories constitute a strategy for facilitating proletarian self-activity and creating an alternative cooperative economic system with democratic values and production centred on meeting human needs. Anarcho-syndicalists perceive the primary purpose of the state as the defence of private property in the forms of capital goods and thereby of economic, social and political power. In maintaining this status quo, the state denies most of its citizens the ability to enjoy material independence and the social autonomy that springs from it.

Origins
The roots of anarcho-syndicalism lie in the anarchist faction of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), which upheld the central role of trade unions in the class struggle and called for a general strike to replace the state with a free association of producers. This was in opposition to the Marxist faction, which proposed the seizure of state power by a political party. The IWA's largest section was the Spanish Regional Federation (FRE), which adopted the anarchist platform of revolutionary trade unionism and organised itself according to a structure that anticipated syndicalism. The FRE was driven underground following the suppression of the FRE-led Petroleum Revolution in 1873, after which they were succeeded by a series of unions such as the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region (FTRE) and the Union and Solidarity Pact (PUS). The FRE's model was also taken up by Cuban anarchists, who established their own union federations to organise Cuban workers and recently-emancipated slaves.

In the United States, the anarchists of the International Working People's Association (IWPA) also adopted the proto-syndicalist platform of Albert Parsons and established a large trade union federation in Chicago. Despite its suppression after the Haymarket affair, the IWPA was strongly influential on the development of syndicalism (described as "anarchism made practical") and left behind a legacy commemorated in International Workers' Day. Anarchists also participated in the trade union movement in Mexico, where they established the Mexican Workers' General Congress (CGOM) and dedicated it towards using unions as their vehicle for social revolution. While the influence of the anarchists was strong in the Spanish and American labour movements, most of Europe's trade unions fell under the control of social-democratic political parties. During the 1880s, a period of economic growth had encouraged the development of reformist tendencies such as social democracy, resulting in the sidelining of the anarchists, who had largely neglected labour organisation in favour of individual acts of "propaganda of the deed".

But the technological innovations achieved during the Second Industrial Revolution also preceded a simultaneous rise in profits and decline of wages, while new management strategies resulted in the increase of both workload and working time. Increasing levels of the division of labour brought with it a rise in alienation among workers, which led to the development of calls for workers' self-management and workers' control over the means of production. Even as strike actions became more common around the world, social-democratic union leaders remained largely reluctant to engage in strikes and limited the decision-making power of individual members through internal bureaucracy. Despite protests by the membership, these centralised trade unions often preferred to form compromised "wage agreements" with their employers rather than risk opening their accumulated strike fund. The moderate tendencies of the union leadership eventually provoked widespread dissillusionment among the rank-and-file union members, with some such as Karl Roche coming to characterise paid union officials as a new upper class.

Increasing tensions between the union leadership and membership led to the development of a current that had by now become known as syndicalism, which called for workers themselves to take direct action in order to improve their own material conditions. Anarchists also began to move away from insurrectionism and back towards the labour movement, increasingly promoting syndicalism as a "practical form of organisation for the realisation of anarchist-communism" and even beginning to capture some unions from the social-democrats.

Growth of syndicalism
The birth of the revolutionary syndicalist movement took place in France, at the end of the 19th century. After the French state's suppression of the Paris Commune and the First International, trade unions were left disorganised and many fell under the control of republican and socialist political parties. At this time, workers began to establish the Bourses du Travail (Labour Exchanges), which provided mutual aid, encouraged the self-organisation of independent trade unions and organised strike actions. These institutions were established outside of political party control by a broad coalition of rank-and-file trade union members, revolutionary socialists and anarchists. Led by Fernand Pelloutier, the anarchists saw the bourses as an embryo for the formation of a stateless society, conceiving of them as a means for workers to negotiate short-term gains while preparing for a revolutionary general strike. By the turn of the 20th century, the bourses had joined together with other independent trade unions to form the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), which eventually came to include 60% of French workers across all economic sectors within its ranks. Holding to the principles of revolutionary syndicalism, in 1905, the CGT launched a campaign for workers themselves to institute the eight-hour day. On International Workers' Day of 1906, this campaign culminated in a general strike, which secured a reduction in working time and workload, an increase in wages and the introduction of the weekend. But the years that followed brought increased state repression against the CGT, eventually forcing it to turn towards reformism.

By this time, revolutionary syndicalism had already spread throughout Europe. In the Netherlands, the National Labor Secretariat moved away from social democracy and adopted syndicalism. In Italy, a series of syndicalist-led general strikes brought about the establishment of the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI), which itself led a further series of general strikes that culminated in the Red Week. In Portugal, the repression that followed the 1910 Revolution, during which a syndicalist-led general strike had briefly brought Lisbon under workers' control, forced the socialists and anarchists to join together within the National Workers' Union (Portugal) (UON). In Germany, syndicalists established the Free Association of German Trade Unions (FVdG) outside the control of the Social Democratic Party (SDP). In Sweden, the defeat of a general strike accelerated the split of syndicalists from the social-democratic unions, with the formation of the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (SAC). Syndicalism also experienced a growth in Norway and Denmark, after the negotiated end to a series of lockouts by social-democratic union leadership pushed radicals to establish their own syndicalist unions.

In contrast to the spread of French-style syndicalism throughout Europe, the English-speaking world saw the development of a tendency known as industrial unionism, which upheld the concept of "One Big Union". This movement was led by the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which spread from the United States to Australia, the United Kingdom and South Africa. The only development of syndicalism in Anglophone countries was in Britain, where in 1910, the Industrial Syndicalist Education League (ISEL) was founded by Tom Mann and began to organise workers in the mining and transportation industries. The ISEL organised the 1911 Liverpool general transport strike, which managed to receive significant international support, and convinced the South Wales Miners' Federation to reorganise along syndicalist lines, before going on to participate in the 1912 United Kingdom national coal strike. By the 1910s, syndicalism had spread throughout every country in Europe and anarchist tendencies started to develop within the movement.

Development of anarchist syndicalism
Despite their shared commitment to trade union action, revolutionary syndicalists lacked a coherent ideology. The Dutch syndicalist Christiaan Cornelissen found that the movement was divided into three main groups: socialists, who saw syndicalism as a means to break away from parliamentary politics; trade unionists, who saw it as a distinct ideology of class conflict; and anarchists. In 1906, the CGT attempted to find a compromise between these different syndicalist tendencies by creating a unified declaration of syndicalist principles: the Charter of Amiens. The Charter declared that the CGT was to be a class-based organisation, not an ideological one, and would welcome workers of all political tendencies so long as they agreed with the abolition of wage labour and capitalism. It stated that the "dual purpose" of syndicalism was to work towards immediate improvements of working conditions, and to prepare for a general strike in which trade unions would take over production and distribution. Ideological convictions outside of these aims were requested to be left outside the union.

Although sympathetic to the revolutionary syndicalist program, many within the anarchist movement remained skeptical towards the syndicalist movement. When the International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam was convened by the anarcho-syndicalist Christiaan Cornelissen in 1907, a conflict between the two tendencies broke out. While the CGT's Pierre Monatte attempted to highlight the shared similarities between anarchism and syndicalism, he insisted that the latter was "self-sufficient". Monatte's claims were the target of vocal criticism from Errico Malatesta, who, although not denying trade unionism as a means of revolutionary struggle for workers' self-management, considered trade unions to exist primarily as way to protect workers' interests within the existing system. He also rejected the possibility that a general strike could replace insurrection as the principle means for a social revolution, although he believed it could serve as the igniting incident for one. He ended by calling on anarchists to transform trade unions into anarchist organisations; Amédée Dunois followed up by laying the groundwork for an anarchist syndicalism, calling for the replacement of abstract "pure anarchism" with a concrete "workers' anarchism." When the Congress created a bureau for an Anarchist International, it included syndicalists such as the Russian Alexander Schapiro, the English John Turner and the German Rudolf Rocker. However, the bureau was short-lived and had already dissolved by 1911.

In spite of the tensions between syndicalism and anarchism in Western Europe, the anarchist workers' movements in Spain and Latin America continued to be influenced by revolutionary syndicalism. In 1907, Spanish workers' organisations that had succeeded the FRE and FTRE once again came together into the federation Workers' Solidarity (SO), which aimed to replace capitalism with a socialist workers' economy. It soon grew highly influential in the industrial region of Catalonia, where in 1909, it organised a general strike against the Spanish invasion of Morocco, although it would be violently suppressed during the "Tragic Week". In 1910, workers' organisations throughout Spain united into the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), which was based on the syndicalist model of the French CGT. It adopted syndicalist aims for the eight-hour day, minimum wage and a revolutionary general strike, upheld the anarchist principle of rejecting political parties, and affirmed that syndicalism was a means by which workers could liberate themselves. Driven forward by this characteristically anarchist form of syndicalism, within a year, the CNT grew to count 30,000 members and organised large strikes in major cities throughout Spain. The organisation was banned in 1911, but continued its activities underground, organising several general strikes throughout the country until its public reemergence in 1914.

By this time, anarchist workers' movements had also risen to prominence throughout Latin America. In 1901, the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation (FORA) was established, and by 1905, it had adopted anarchist communism as its political philosophy, rejecting the political neutrality (or "self-sufficiency") of syndicalist trade unions. The FORA organised a series of general strikes in Rosario and Buenos Aires, often resulting in harsh police repression, but also winning material improvements in working conditions. Spanish anarchists reported that, during that period in Argentina, "almost all the workers are anarchists". Nevertheless, by 1916, the issue of "neutral syndicalism" would end up splitting the FORA into anarchist and moderate factions. The FORA would also provide the model for the establishment of other organisations, including: the Uruguayan Regional Workers' Federation (FORU), which organised a series of general strikes in various sectors of the Uruguayan economy, resulting in the achievement of the eight-hour day; and the Paraguayan Regional Workers' Federation (FORP). During the Mexican Revolution, anarchists collaborated in the overthrow of the Porfiriato and established the syndicalist union House of the World Worker (COM). The COM formed an alliance with the Constitutionalists against the revolutionary forces of Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, but by 1916, were themselves repressed by the constitutional government. Anarchist trade unionists also achieved significant levels of influence in Cuba and Brazil, where in the latter they established the Brazilian Workers' Confederation (COB). In Chile, anarchist Resistance Societies and "Mancomunales" organised a series of strikes, but were violently repressed by the government. In Peru, anarchist trade unions organised a number of general strikes which achieved the eight-hour day. Anarchist trade unions were also established in Bolivia, Ecuador and Panama, among other countries.

As the anarchist and syndicalist movements gained ground throughout the world, syndicalists that had participated in the 1907 Amsterdam Congress (led by Christiaan Cornelissen) established an International Syndicalist Bulletin, through which they aimed to form links between syndicalist organisations and further develop the movement. Revolutionary syndicalists in Western Europe called for the CGT to convoke an international trade union congress, which would also allow the participation of reformist unions, in order to promote working-class unity. The International Secretariat of National Trade Union Centres (ISNTUC) was established under the leadership of the German social democrats, who blocked resolutions for general strikes and anti-militarism from congress agendas. The CGT initially boycotted the conferences, but eventually decided to participate, despite its inability to further its goals within the organisation. Setting themselves apart from the ISNTUC, the British ISEL decided to take the initiative for holding an international syndicalist congress, which would invite any syndicalists that supported revolutionary class struggle and rejected political parties. In September 1913, the congress was convened at Holborn Town Hall in London, bringing together delegates of syndicalist organisations from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Cuba, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Sweden. With Christiaan Cornelissen as its secretary and Alexander Schapiro providing translation, the congress discussed a series of issues. Differences emerged between the supporters of revolutionary syndicalism, and those like Alceste De Ambris, who attempted to downplay anti-capitalist and anti-statist resolutions. The Congress ended up adopting a revolutionary syndicalist declaration of class struggle and direct action against capitalism and the state; it called for the formation of independent trade unions that could organise both for immediate improvements to working conditions and for the eventual overthrow of capitalism and the state, after which the unions would take over production and distribution. The Congress closed by establishing an International Syndicalist Information Bureau, which would coordinate the international syndicalist movement and organise future conferences. Despite protests from De Ambris, the Bureau came under the effective control of the Dutch NAS, with Gerrit van Erkel as its chair, and began its work on 1 January 1914. But the international unification of anarchists and syndicalists was brought to a halt that same year, with the outbreak of World War I.

International Workers' Association
From 1918 on, the CNT grew more substantial and had an outstanding role in the events of the La Canadiense general strike, which paralyzed 70% of the industry in Catalonia in 1919, that year the CNT reached a membership of 700,000. Around that time, panic spread among employers, giving rise to the practice of pistolerismo (employing thugs to intimidate active unionists), causing a spiral of violence that significantly affected the trade union. These pistoleros are credited with killing 21 union leaders in 48 hours.

In 1922, the International Workers' Association (IWA) was founded in Berlin, and the CNT joined immediately, but with the rise of Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship, the labour union was outlawed again the following year. However, with the workers' movement resurgent following the Russian Revolution, what was to become the modern IWA was formed, billing itself as the "true heir" of the original International. The successful Bolshevik-led revolution of 1917 in Russia was mirrored by a wave of syndicalist successes worldwide, including the struggle of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the United States alongside the creation of mass anarchist unions across Latin America and massive syndicalist-led strikes in Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy and France, where it was noted that "neutral (economic, but not political) syndicalism had been swept away". The final formation of this new international, then known as the International Workingmen's Association, took place at an illegal conference in Berlin in December 1922, marking an irrevocable break between the international syndicalist movement and the Bolsheviks. The IWA included the Italian Syndicalist Union (500,000 members), the Argentine Workers Regional Organisation (200,000 members), the General Confederation of Workers in Portugal (150,000 members), the Free Workers' Union of Germany (120,000 members), the Committee for the Defense of Revolutionary Syndicalism in France (100,000 members), the Federation du Combattant from Paris (32,000 members), the Central Organisation of the Workers of Sweden (32,000 members), the National Labor Secretariat of the Netherlands (22,500 members), the Industrial Workers of the World in Chile (20,000 members) and the Union for Syndicalist Propaganda in Denmark (600 members).

The first secretaries of the International included the famed writer and activist Rudolph Rocker, along with Augustin Souchy and Alexander Schapiro. Following the first congress, other groups from France, Austria, Denmark, Belgium, Switzerland, Bulgaria, Poland, and Romania were affiliated. Later, a bloc of unions in the United States, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Guatemala, Cuba, Costa Rica and El Salvador also shared the IWA's statutes. The IWW, biggest syndicalist union in the United States, considered joining but eventually ruled out affiliation in 1936 based on the IWA's religious and political affiliation policies. Although not anarcho-syndicalist, the IWW was informed by developments in the broader revolutionary syndicalist milieu at the turn of the 20th century. At its founding congress in 1905, influential members with strong anarchist or anarcho-syndicalist sympathies like Thomas J. Hagerty, William Trautmann and Lucy Parsons contributed to the union's overall revolutionary syndicalist orientation. Although the terms anarcho-syndicalism and revolutionary syndicalism are often used interchangeably, the anarcho-syndicalist label was not widely used until the early 1920s: "The term 'anarcho-syndicalist' only came into wide use in 1921–1922 when it was applied polemically as a pejorative term by communists to any syndicalists...who opposed increased control of syndicalism by the communist parties". Translations of the original statement of aims and principles of the IWA (drafted in 1922) refer not to anarcho-syndicalism but revolutionary syndicalism or revolutionary unionism.

The Biennio Rosso (English: "Red Biennium") was a two-year period between 1919 and 1920 of intense social conflict in Italy following World War I. The Biennio Rosso took place in a context of economic crisis at the war's end, with high unemployment and political instability. It was characterized by mass strikes, worker manifestations, and self-management experiments through land and factory occupations. In Turin and Milan, workers' councils were formed, and many factory occupations took place under the leadership of anarcho-syndicalists. The agitations also extended to the agricultural areas of the Padan plain and were accompanied by peasant strikes, rural unrest, and guerilla conflicts between left-wing and right-wing militias. According to libcom.org, the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI) "grew to 800,000 members and the influence of the Italian Anarchist Union (20,000 members plus Umanita Nova, its daily paper) grew accordingly [...] Anarchists were the first to suggest occupying workplaces".

Many of the most prominent members of the IWA were broken, driven underground or wiped out in the 1920s–1930s as fascists came to power in states across Europe, and workers switched away from anarchism towards the seeming success of the Bolshevik model of socialism. In Argentina, the FORA had already begun to decline by the time it joined the IWA, having split in 1915 into pro and anti-Bolshevik factions. From 1922, the anarchist movement there lost most of its membership, exacerbated by further splits, most notably around the Severino Di Giovanni affair. It was crushed by General Uriburu's military coup in 1930. Germany's FAUD struggled throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s as the Brownshirts took control of the streets. Its last national congress in Erfurt in March 1932 saw the union attempt to form an underground bureau to combat Adolf Hitler's fascists; a measure never implemented as mass arrests decimated the conspirators' ranks. The editor of the FAUD organ Der Syndikalist, Gerhard Wartenberg, was killed in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. Karl Windhoff, delegate to the IWA Madrid congress of 1931, was driven out of his mind and also died in a Nazi death camp. There were also mass trials of FAUD members held in Wuppertal and Rhenanie; many of these never survived the death camps. Italian IWA union USI, which had claimed a membership of up to 600,000 people in 1922, was waning due to murders and repression from Benito Mussolini's fascists. It had been driven underground by 1924, and although it could still lead significant strikes by miners, metalworkers and marble workers, Mussolini's ascent to power in 1925 sealed its fate. By 1927, its leading activists had been arrested or exiled.

Portugal's CGT was driven underground after an unsuccessful attempt to break the newly installed dictatorship of Gomes da Costa with a general strike in 1927 that led to nearly 100 deaths. It survived underground with 15–20,000 members until January 1934, when it called a general revolutionary strike against plans to replace trade unions with fascist corporations, which failed. It continued in a much-reduced state until World War II but was effectively finished as a fighting union. Massive government repression repeated such defeats worldwide as anarcho-syndicalist unions were destroyed in Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Japan, Cuba, Bulgaria, Paraguay and Bolivia. By the end of the 1930s, legal anarcho-syndicalist trade unions existed only in Chile, Bolivia, Sweden and Uruguay. However, perhaps the most tremendous blow was struck in the Spanish Civil War, which saw the CNT, then claiming a membership of 1.58 million, driven underground with the defeat of the Spanish Republic by Francisco Franco. The sixth IWA congress took place in 1936, shortly after the Spanish Revolution had begun, but was unable to provide serious material support for the section. The IWA held its last pre-war congress in Paris in 1938; with months to go before the German invasion of Poland, it received an application from ZZZ, a syndicalist union in the country claiming up to 130,000 workers—ZZZ members went on to form a core part of the resistance against the Nazis and participated in the Warsaw uprising. However, the International was not to meet again until 1951, six years after World War II had ended. During the war, only one member of the IWA could continue to function as a revolutionary union, the SAC in Sweden. In 1927, with the "moderate" positioning of some cenetistas (CNT members), the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI), an association of anarchist affinity groups, was created in Valencia. The FAI would play an essential role during the following years through the so-called trabazón (connection) with the CNT; that is, the presence of FAI elements in the CNT, encouraging the labour union not to move away from its anarchist principles, an influence that continues today.

Post-war decline
Anarcho-syndicalism experienced a decline in the wake of World War II, as social corporatism took root in the Western Bloc and political repression increased in the Eastern Bloc, with the anarcho-syndicalist organisations in Bulgaria, East Germany, Poland and Hungary all being broken up. Anarcho-syndicalists faced fierce repression in Francoist Spain, with the CNT attempting to continue its anarcho-syndicalist activities underground. In 1946, the organisation experienced a split over whether or not to support a united front with other anti-fascist forces, in a schism that persisted until the CNT's reunification in 1960. Most of the CNT's work took place in exile in France, where they maintained at least 30,000 active members. The Portuguese CGT was likewise repressed by the Estado Novo, with its underground activity ceasing by the 1960s. Political repression also hit anarcho-syndicalists in Latin America. The Argentine FORA attempted to resist the government of Juan Perón through strikes and demonstrations, but by the 1950s, their independent trade unions and publications had been shut down and its membership declined. Anarcho-syndicalist federations in Uruguay, Chile and Bolivia also dissolved in the early 1950s, with many of them merging into mainstream trade union federations. Anarcho-syndicalists would continue to play leading roles within Latin American trade unions until the 1960s.

Although anarcho-syndicalists had space to pursue legal activity in Western Europe, no substantial revival of the movement took place. In France, the Confederation nationale du travail (CNT) managed to bring together tens of thousands of workers in major cities, but it lacked material and organisational strength, so its members soon left for more mainstream trade unions. The Italian USI was likewise reorganised, but failed to become a major force. In Sweden, the SAC managed to retain a relatively large membership, but also experienced a decline in numbers during the 1950s. Anarchists in France and Italy came to consider anarcho-syndicalism to be a divisive force in the workers movement, and instead began to favour small-scale activities within existing trade unions. According to historians Marcel van der Linden and Wayne Thorpe, changes within the western capitalist system, such as the exacerbation of the division of labour through an increasing rationalisation and automation of production, contributed to this decline in the anarcho-syndicalist movement and the wider radical workers' movement. Keynesian economics also drove an increase in state intervention in the economy, leading to the rise of welfare states, which improved the living conditions of workers and gave them a stake in the functioning of their economic systems. To van der Linden and Thorpe, these new material realities confronted the anarcho-syndicalist movement with three possibilities: to hold firm to its principles, at risk of marginalisation; to revise some of its principles, in order to adjust to the new material conditions; or to dissolve entirely and merge into the reformist trade union movement.

The first path was followed by the IWA, which in the 1950s adopted a series of resolutions to reaffirm its anarcho-syndicalist principles, rejecting collaboration with statist forces and renouncing its previously held position of "tactical autonomy". This caused a split in the IWA, with the Dutch and Swedish sections leaving the international in 1958. The second path was taken by the SAC, which decided to revise its principles in order to keep up with modernisation, while continuing to call itself anarcho-syndicalist. This revisionist tendency was influenced by the German syndicalist Helmut Rüdiger, who argued against the "orthodoxy" of anti-statism. Rüdiger posited that new social conditions meant that the abolition of the state would not only abolish the apparatus of oppression but also the new systems of welfare, the latter of which he believed workers would never consent to. He instead proposed that anarcho-syndicalists, rather than waiting for a future social revolution, ought to act within the existing system in order to reform it towards increased democratisation, which he felt justified working within united fronts and participating in local elections. With this new outlook, the SAC began to participate in the Swedish welfare state, taking a key role in the administration of unemployment insurance funds. In 1952, members of the SAC approved a declaration that its goal was to establish an industrial democracy by progressively transferring control over private and public enterprises from shareholders to workers. The organisation renounced what Evert Arvidsson described as the "magic wand of revolution", instead taking the role of the left-wing opposition within the Swedish welfare system. The SAC's establishment of unemployment insurance funds worked to bring more workers into its ranks, but also made it a target of criticism from the international anarcho-syndicalist movement, which denounced it for reformism and collaborationism.

By the 1960s, the IWA had declined to its lowest point, as anarcho-syndicalists became largely preoccupied with providing theoretical analyses of new developments in both capitalist and socialist states. It was only after the protests of 1968 and the Spanish transition to democracy that the anarcho-syndicalist movement began to experience a revival. The CNT once again rose to prominence in Spain, growing to represent 300,000 members by the end of the 1970s, but it ultimately failed to become a leading force in the post-Francoist period. Meanwhile, new anarcho-syndicalist organisations were established in countries throughout Europe. During the 1980s, globalisation and neoliberalism led to the dismantling of welfare states in the West, while the Eastern Bloc collapsed in the Revolutions of 1989. This caused a crisis in left-wing politics, as social-democratic parties adopted neoliberalism and mainstream trade unions were unable to prevent the worsening of living and working conditions, with many workers facing increased precarity. Anarcho-syndicalists considered this to be a moment that demonstrated the problems inherent to capitalism and the state, and once again began to present libertarian socialism as a necessary alternative to the existing system.

Contemporary revival
By the turn of the 21st century, anarcho-syndicalism had experienced a revival, as anarcho-syndicalist organisations re-emerged throughout the globe. In Europe and the Americas, pre-existing and dormant organisations were revitalised, while entirely new organisations were established in Africa and Asia. The FORA was reestablished in Argentina, while the Spanish CNT, French CNT and Italian USI became more active. Anarcho-syndicalist groups were established in Indonesia, Nigeria and Syria, and a branch of the IWW was founded in Sierra Leone. This also coincided with the revival of the agrarian socialist movement, as organisations affiliated with the Via Campesina began coordinating indigenous and peasant resistance to neoliberalism and globalisation.

Although they remained relatively small, these organisations reoriented themselves towards radicalising existing initiatives of workers' self-management and self-organisation, rather than trying to take the leadership in the workers' movement. Anarcho-syndicalists became more present in social conflicts, with the Spanish CNT growing to count 10,000 members and participating in some of the country's most radical strike actions. In Puerto Real, workers' assemblies spearheaded by the CNT organised a mass strike and took forms of direct action against the closure of the local shipyard. Striking workers erected barricades throughout the city, clashed with the police in street battles and sabotaged infrastructure, eventually securing the maintenance of the port.

Into the 2000s, the CNT organised a series of mass strikes in cities throughout Spain, while the USI participated in a number of general strikes in Italy. In post-communist Russia, anarcho-syndicalism was revived by the Revolutionary Confederation of Anarcho-Syndicalists (KRAS), which has participated a series of strike actions, distributed anarchist propaganda and engaged in anti-militarist activism. By 2007, the IWA had grown to included 16 affiliate sections, representing organisations from throughout the world. That same year, a revolutionary syndicalist summit brought together 250 delegates from throughout the world, with African unions representing the largest delegation.

The contemporary anarcho-syndicalist revival also brought with it a new wave of splits, as new syndicates were formed with the intention of seeking a mass base, participating in works councils and achieving social reforms. These new organisations included the General Confederation of Labour (CGT), which broke off from the Spanish CNT in 1984; the CNT-F, which separated from the French CNT in 1995; and the Italian COBAS. Within decades, the CGT had grown to become Spain's third-largest union, representing over two million workers, while the COBAS counted hundreds of thousands of workers in its ranks. Together, these organisations founded a new international, the European Federation of Alternative Syndicalism, in 2003.

Theory and politics
Anarcho-syndicalists believe that direct action carried out by workers as opposed to indirect action, such as electing a representative to a government position, would allow workers to liberate themselves.

Anarcho-syndicalists believe that workers' organisations that oppose the wage system will eventually form the basis of a new society and should be self-managing. They should not have bosses or "business agents"; instead, the workers alone should decide on what affects them. Rudolf Rocker is one of the most influential figures in the anarcho-syndicalist movement.

Noam Chomsky, influenced by Rocker, wrote the introduction to a modern edition of Anarcho-syndicalism: Theory and Practice. A member of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Chomsky is a self-described anarcho-syndicalist, a position that he sees as the appropriate application of classical liberal political theory to contemporary industrial society:

title: Anarcho-syndicalism


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Aaron's rod

Aaron's rod refers to any of the walking sticks carried by Moses' brother, Aaron, in the Torah. The Bible tells how, along with Moses's rod, Aaron's rod was endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt that preceded the Exodus. Later, his rod miraculously sprouted blossoms and almonds to symbolize God's choice of Aaron and his tribe for holy service.

Biblical references
In Israelite culture, the rod (מַטֶּה maṭṭeh) was a natural symbol of authority, as the tool used by the shepherd to correct and guide his flock. Moses, in fact, initially carried his rod while tending his sheep, and later it became his symbol of authority over the Israelites.

The rods of both Moses and Aaron were endowed with miraculous power during the Plagues of Egypt. God commanded Moses to raise his rod over the Red Sea when it was to be split and in prayer over Israel in battle; at Meribah Moses brought forth water from a stone using his rod.

Aaron's rod – perhaps a different rod – reappears in. Here Korah's rebellion against Moses's proclamation of the tribe of Levi as the priesthood has been quashed and the entire congregation's ensuing rebellion has resulted in a plague, ended only by the intercession of Moses and Aaron. In order to "stop the complaints" of the Israelites, God commands that each of the Twelve Tribes provide a rod; and only that of the tribe chosen to become priests will miraculously sprout overnight. Aaron provides his rod to represent the tribe of Levi, and "it put forth buds, produced blossoms, and bore ripe almonds", as an evidence of the exclusive right to the priesthood of the tribe of Levi. In commemoration of this decision, it was commanded that the rod be stored "before the testimony".

Aaron's rod is cited as exhibiting miraculous power on its own, when not physically held by its owner. In, Aaron "cast down his rod" and it became a serpent. When he does so, the Pharaoh's sorcerers counter by similarly casting down their own rods, which also become serpents, but Aaron's rod swallowed them all. Similarly, in it sprouted blossoms when not being held.

In Rabbinical literature
Rabbinic midrash described attributes of Aaron's rod beyond those in the Biblical text.

It is reported that the rod was made of sapphire, weighed forty seahs (a seah = 10.70 pounds), and bore the inscription דצ״ך עד״ש באח״ב (the initials of the Hebrew names of the Ten Plagues).

God created it in the twilight of the sixth day of Creation, and delivered it to Adam when the latter was driven from paradise. After it had passed through the hands of Shem, Enoch, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob successively, it came into the possession of Joseph. On Joseph's death the Egyptian nobles stole some of his belongings, and, among them, Jethro appropriated the staff. Jethro planted the staff in his garden, when its marvelous virtue was revealed by the fact that nobody could withdraw it from the ground (compare "the sword in the stone"); even to touch it was fraught with danger to life. This was because the Ineffable Name of God was engraved upon it. When Moses entered Jethro's household he read the Name, and by means of it was able to draw up the rod, for which service Zipporah, Jethro's daughter, was given to him in marriage. Her father had sworn that she should become the wife of the man who should be able to master the miraculous rod and of no other.

Aaron's rod, together with its blossoms and fruit, was preserved in the Ark. King Josiah, who foresaw the impending national catastrophe, concealed the Ark and the objects stored with it (Aaron's rod, a vial of manna, and the holy anointing oil). Their whereabouts will remain unknown until, in the Messianic age, the prophet Elijah shall reveal them.

As discussed, the Bible ascribes similar miraculous powers to rods of Aaron and Moses. One midrash goes a step further, and identifies them as being the same rod: "The rod with which Jacob crossed the Jordan is the same rod which was in Judah's hand, which was in Moses's hand, which was in Aaron's hand , which was in David's hand . which was in the hand of each king until the destruction of the Temple, when it was hidden. When the Messiah comes it will be given to him for a scepter in token of his authority over the nations."

According to one midrash, Moses split a tree trunk into twelve portions, and gave one portion to each tribe. When the Rod of Aaron produced blossoms, the Israelites could not but acknowledge the significance of the token. This opinion seemingly assumes that the rod in Korach's rebellion was separate from the rod used for the plagues.

Christian use
Hebrews 9:4 states that Aaron's rod was kept in the Ark of the Covenant.

The account of the blossoming of Aaron's rod contained in Clement's first letter to the Corinthians (ep. 43) is in haggadic-midrashic style, and may probably be ascribed to Jewish or, more strictly speaking, Jewish-Hellenistic sources. According to that account, Moses placed upon each of the twelve staffs the corresponding seal of the head of a tribe. The doors of the sanctuary were similarly sealed, to prevent anyone from having access to the rods at night.

The miraculous flowering of the rod was also considered a type of the Incarnation of Christ and his Virgin Birth, and appears in scenes of the Annunciation to Mary.

In the Ethiopian fourteenth-century text of the Kebra Nagast, Aaron's rod is broken in three and probably a symbol of the Trinity: "The rod of Aaron which sprouted after it had become withered though no one watered it with water, and one had broken it in two places, and it became three rods being [originally only] one rod."

Islamic literature
Accounts of Aaron's rod appear in Islamic literature. A depiction from al-Tha'labi's (d. 1035, AH 427) Stories of the Prophets depicts Harun (Aaron) leaning on his rod, while his brother Musa's (Moses) staff miraculously turned into a snake-dragon to defeat Pharaoh's magicians.

In modern literature
D. H. Lawrence entitled a novel Aaron's Rod in 1922. This book describes a flautist, Aaron Sissons, and his experiences as he journeys through a Europe exhausted by the First World War. The biblical eponymous reference, with the flute representing a magic rod, is intended to be ironic.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Aaron's rod


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Theurgy

Theurgy, also known as divine magic, is one of two major branches of the magical arts, the other being practical magic or thaumaturgy. Theurgy describes the ritual practices associated with the invocation or evocation of the presence of one or more deities, especially with the goal of achieving henosis (uniting with the divine) and perfecting oneself.

Definitions

 * Proclus (c. 480): theurgy is "a power higher than all human wisdom embracing the blessings of divination, the purifying powers of initiation and in a word all the operations of divine possession."
 * Keith Thomas: "Spiritual magic or theurgy was based on the idea that one could reach God in an ascent up the scale of creation made possible by a rigorous course of prayer, fasting and devotional preparation."
 * Pierre A. Riffard: "Theurgy is a type of magic. It consists of a set of magical practices performed to evoke beneficent spirits in order to see them or know them or in order to influence them, for instance by forcing them to animate a statue, to inhabit a human being (such as a medium), or to disclose mysteries.

Neoplatonism
Theurgy means "divine working". The first recorded use of the term is found in the mid-second-century neoplatonist work the Chaldean Oracles (Fragment 153 des Places (Paris, 1971): 'For the theourgoí do not fall under the fate-governed herd'). The source of Western theurgy can be found in the philosophy of late neoplatonists, especially Iamblichus. Although the neoplatonists are often considered pagan polytheists, they embraced a form of monism.

In late neoplatonism, the spiritual universe is regarded as a series of emanations from the One. From the One emanated the Divine Mind (Nous) and in turn from the Divine Mind emanated the World Soul (Psyche). Neoplatonists insisted that the One is absolutely transcendent and in the emanations nothing of the higher was lost or transmitted to the lower, which remained unchanged by the lower emanations.

For Plotinus and Porphyry the emanations are as follows:
 * To Hen (τό ἕν), The One: Deity without quality, sometimes called The Good.
 * Nous (Νοῦς), Mind: The Universal consciousness, from which proceeds
 * Psychē (Ψυχή), Soul: Including both individual and world soul, leading finally to
 * Physis (Φύσις), Nature.

Plotinus urged contemplations for those who wished to perform theurgy, the goal of which was to reunite with the Divine (called henosis). Therefore, his school resembles a school of meditation or contemplation.

Iamblichus
Iamblichus, a student of Anatolius and Porphyry (the latter himself was a student of Plotinus), taught a more ritualized method of theurgy that involved invocation and religious, as well as magical, ritual. Iamblichus believed theurgy was an imitation of the gods, and in his major work, On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians, he described theurgic observance as "ritualized cosmogony" that endowed embodied souls with the divine responsibility of creating and preserving the cosmos.

Iamblichus' analysis was that the transcendent cannot be grasped with mental contemplation because the transcendent is supra-rational. Theurgy is a series of rituals and operations aimed at recovering the transcendent essence by retracing the divine 'signatures' through the layers of being. Education is important for comprehending the scheme of things as presented by Aristotle, Plato, and Pythagoras. The theurgist works 'like with like': at the material level, with physical symbols; at the higher level, with mental and purely spiritual practices. Starting with correspondences of the divine in matter, the theurgist eventually reaches the level where the soul's inner divinity unites with the One.

Emperor Julian
The Emperor Julian (332-363) embraced neoplatonic philosophy and worked to replace Christianity with a version of neoplatonic paganism. Because of his untimely death and the hold mainstream Christianity had over the empire at the time, this was ultimately unsuccessful, but he did produce several works of philosophy and theology, including a popular hymn to the sun. In his theology, Helios, the sun, was the ideal example of the perfection of the gods and light, a symbol of divine emanation. He also held the mother goddess Cybele in high esteem.

Julian favored ritual theurgy, with an emphasis on sacrifice and prayer. He was heavily influenced by Iamblichus' ideas.

Esoteric Christianity
Esoteric Christianity accepts theurgy as a tradition that could greatly benefit a person. The main feat of Esoteric Christianity is to learn the mysteries of God (see Raziel) and to rise to higher consciousness in the understanding of God's relationship to individual consciousness. Theurgy, in the esoteric tradition, uses this knowledge to heighten one's own spiritual nature. Some branches of Esoteric Christianity hold that if an Esoteric Christian, Rosicrucian, or Theosopher practices it they could potentially rise to the degree of Magus or Adept after a certain level of spiritual attainment. In a traditional and magical sense, theurgy is seen as the opposite of Goetia, even though many argue that they overlap.

Radical orthodoxy
John Milbank, founder of radical orthodoxy, asserts that theology "encourages a theurgy which aims at a liberation of nature from terror and distress and at a fully harmonious and beautiful interaction between humans and the natural world". He continues by stating that theology equally "encourages a theurgy which is a social work of maximising democratic participation and socialist sharing".

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Some organizations, such as the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, teach a type of theurgy that would help one ascend spiritually as well as understand the true nature of the self and its relation to the Divine and the Universe. This tradition holds that theurgists are usually solitary practitioners who seek the divine light alone. Theurgy in this hermetic sense stresses the need for the individual to separate and analyze the individual components that constitute everyday consciousness and reunite them in a way that changes one's personal awareness into a state that understands and partakes in spiritual grace.

title: Theurgy


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William Vickrey

William Spencer Vickrey (21 June 1914 – 11 October 1996) was a Canadian-American professor of economics and Nobel Laureate. He was a lifelong faculty member at Columbia University. A theorist who worked on public economics and mechanism design, Vickrey primarily discussed public policy problems. He orginated the Vickrey auction, introduced the concept of congestion pricing in networks, formalized arguments for marginal cost pricing, and contributed to optimal income taxation. James Tobin described him as "an applied economist’s theorist, as well as a theorist’s applied economist.”

Vickrey was awarded the 1996 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with James Mirrlees for their research into the economic theory of incentives under asymmetric information. Vickrey never personally received the Prize; it was announced just three days prior to his death.

Early years
Vickrey was born in Victoria, British Columbia to Charles Vernon Vickrey, a Congregationalist minister, and Ada Eliza Spencer. The family moved to New York City in William's childhood, where his father was General Secretary of the American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief, one of the nation's first humanitarian assistance organizations.

Vickrey attended high school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts. After obtaining his B.S. in Mathematics at Yale University in 1935, he went on to complete his M.A. at Columbia University in 1937. He stayed at Columbia for a PhD, which he completed 1948 with a 500-page dissertation entitle "An Agenda for Progressive Taxation." Vickrey's doctoral work was interrupted by World War II, when he was enlisted to work for the U.S. National Resources Planning Board and later the Treasury Department's Division of Tax Research.

Career
Vickrey remained at Columbia for his entire career. His students included the economists Jacques Drèze, Harvey J. Levin, and Lynn Turgeon.

Contributions
Vickrey was the first to use the tools of game theory to explain the dynamics of auctions. In his seminal paper, Vickrey derived several auction equilibria, and provided an early revenue-equivalence result. The revenue equivalence theorem remains the centrepiece of modern auction theory. The Vickrey auction is named after him.

Vickrey worked on congestion pricing, the notion that roads and other services should be priced so that users see the costs that arise from the service being fully used when there is still demand. Congestion pricing gives a signal to users to adjust their behavior or to investors to expand the service in order to remove the constraint. The theory was later partially put into action in London.

In public economics, Vickrey extended the marginal cost pricing approach of Harold Hotelling and showed how public goods should be provided at marginal cost. He contended that efficient funding for public utilities and transportation systems required short-run marginal pricing, or pricing responsive to current demand.

Alongside marginal cost pricing, Vickrey argued that the land value tax was necessary to efficiently fund city services. He wrote that replacing taxes on production and labor ("including property taxes on improvements") with fees for holding valuable land sites "would substantially improve the economic efficiency of the jurisdiction". Vickrey further argued that land value tax had no adverse effects and that replacing existing taxes in this way would increase local productivity enough that land prices would rise instead of fall. He also made an ethical argument for Georgist value capture, noting that owners of valuable locations still take (exclude others from) local public goods, even if they choose not to use them, so without land value tax, land users have to pay twice for those public services (once in tax to government and once in rent to holders of land title).

Vickrey's economic philosophy was influenced by John Maynard Keynes and Henry George. He was sharply critical of the Chicago school of economics and was vocal in opposing the political focus on achieving balanced budgets and fighting inflation, especially in times of high unemployment. Working under General MacArthur, Vickrey helped accomplish radical land reform in Japan.

Nobel Prize award and death
Vickrey's Nobel Prize in Economics was announced on October 8, 1996. He became the only Nobel laureate born in British Columbia.

Vickrey died three days later while traveling to a conference of Georgist academics that he helped found. His Columbia University economics department colleague C. Lowell Harriss accepted the posthumous prize on his behalf. There are only three other cases where a Nobel Prize has been presented posthumously: Erik Axel Karlfeldt (Literature 1931), Dag Hammarskjöld (Peace 1961) and Ralph Steinman (Physiology or Medicine 2011).

Personal life
Vickrey married Cecile Thompson in 1951. He was a Quaker and a member of Scarsdale Friends Meeting. He died in Harrison, New York in 1996 from heart failure.

Articles

 * The paper originated auction theory, a subfield of game theory.

title: William Vickrey


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Gododdin

The Gododdin were a Brittonic people of north-eastern Britannia, the area known as the Hen Ogledd or Old North (modern south-east Scotland and north-east England), in the sub-Roman period. Descendants of the Votadini, they are best known as the subject of the 6th-century Welsh poem Y Gododdin, which memorialises the Battle of Catraeth and is attributed to Aneirin.

The name Gododdin is the Modern Welsh form, but the name appeared in Old Welsh as Guotodin and derived from the tribal name Votadini recorded in Classical sources, such as in Greek texts from the Roman period.

Kingdom
It is not known exactly how far the kingdom of the Gododdin extended, possibly from the Stirling area to the kingdom of Bryneich (Bernicia), and including what are now the Lothian and Borders regions of eastern Scotland. It was bounded to the west by the Brittonic Kingdom of Strathclyde, and to the north by the Picts. Those living around Clackmannanshire were known as the Manaw Gododdin. According to tradition, local kings of this period lived at both Traprain Law and Din Eidyn (Edinburgh, whose English name is ultimately a calque, with the Old English -burh corresponding to the Welsh din; in Scottish Gaelic it is still known as Dùn Èideann), and probably also at Din Baer (Dunbar, Scottish Gaelic Dùn Bàrr). Gododdin included districts such as Manaw Gododdin and Eidyn south of the Firth of Forth.

Cunedda, legendary founder of the Kingdom of Gwynedd in north Wales, is supposed to have been a Manaw Gododdin warlord who migrated southwest during the 5th century.

Later history
In the 6th century, Bryneich was invaded by the Angles and became known as Bernicia. The Angles continued to press north. In around 600 the Gododdin raised a force of about 300 men to assault the Angle stronghold of Catraeth, perhaps Catterick, North Yorkshire. The battle, which ended disastrously for the Britons, was memorialised in the poem Y Gododdin.

In 638, Eidyn, modern Edinburgh, was under siege and fell to the Angles, for the Gododdin seem to have come under the rule of Bernicia around this time. To what extent the native population was replaced or assimilated is unknown. Bernicia became part of Northumbria. Shortly afterwards this came under a unified England, then in 1018 Malcolm II brought the region as far as the River Tweed under Scottish rule.

title: Gododdin


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Talk:Quantum entanglement

Standard error of sign regarding information and entropy.
Short before the sentences:

″The reversibility of a process is associated with the resulting entropy change, i.e., a process is reversible if, and only if, it leaves the entropy of the system invariant. Therefore, the march of the arrow of time towards thermodynamic equilibrium is simply the growing spread of quantum entanglement.[83] This provides a connection between quantum information theory and thermodynamics.″

... all entropy formulas, whether Shannon's or 'von Neumann' tell about possibilities and/or bandwidth. Real data transferred via classic or quantum methods show always the reverse sign, because a single of the many possibilities has been chosen for transfer. In the same way growing quantum entanglement does not increase but reduces entropy. For sure the internal order by entanglement is even the reverse of disorder maximization by thermodynamic equilibrium. If [83] is indirectly cited, it tells simply non-sense. Please drop the sentences above and the reference from the article. Many thanks!

Molecular Quantum Entanglement
"Connor M. Holland et al., On-demand entanglement of molecules in a reconfigurable optical tweezer array.Science382,1143-1147(2023).DOI:10.1126/science.adf4272"

I also added to the Turkish Wikipedia that I had translated from English before.

would this be ok?

If you can please give a prompt answer, I will do both changes immediately

Uralunlucayakli (talk) 14:35, 13 December 2023 (UTC)

 * We should have a secondary source, that is still a primary source. MrOllie (talk) 16:36, 13 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Uralunlucayakli (talk) 02:25, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Press release churnalism, also unreliable. Please direct any followup to the article's associated talk page, other interested editors will not find this on my user talk. MrOllie (talk) 03:42, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Uralunlucayakli (talk) 02:25, 14 December 2023 (UTC)
 * Press release churnalism, also unreliable. Please direct any followup to the article's associated talk page, other interested editors will not find this on my user talk. MrOllie (talk) 03:42, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Uralunlucayakli (talk) 05:27, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

 * Noting here that the posts bearing my signature above were copy and pasted here by Uralunlucayakli and were originally made on my user talk page. MrOllie (talk) 14:17, 14 December 2023 (UTC)

Add a few sentances on the nobel prize of 2022 related to entanglement and bell tests
There were many experimental results between the work of Chien-Shiung Wu and the modern work in the early 2010s from Zeilinger's group and others. In particular, the Nobel Prize winning experiments of Aspect, Clauser are nowhere mentioned here. It feels that the Nobel prize related to quantum entanglement deserves mentioning in this section.

Perhaps it is enough that it is included in the Bell test page, but it feels like there should at least be a cross link to the Bell test page to highlight the results. 129.16.138.72 (talk) 10:21, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

 * Sorry meant to say that it is mentioned in the History, but not in the notable experimental results section. I think more that things should be shuffled around in the article page to keep it consistent. Either it is historically relevant or it is experimentally relevant. Perhaps both? 129.16.138.72 (talk) 10:25, 20 January 2024 (UTC)

At least 10,000 times faster than light
Wikipedia now says:

"communications at the speed of light would have taken longer—in one case, 10,000 times longer—than the interval between the measurements".

Is it the same thing as the this? :

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/150207-chinese-physicists-measure-speed-of-einsteins-spooky-action-at-a-distance-at-least-10000-times-faster-than-light

"Chinese physicists measure speed of Einstein's 'spooky action at a distance': At least 10,000 times faster than light. By Sebastian Anthony March 7, 2013"

If yes, could we make the wikipedia more understandable for an average human or even an average educated person reading wikipedia? Just say the speed is at lest 10^4 speed of light?

Has the speed not be estimated after year 2013, to verify results?

217.140.214.197 (talk) 11:05, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Quantum entanglement


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Bra (disambiguation)

A bra is a woman's undergarment designed to support the breasts.

Bra may also refer to:

Places

 * Bra, a district of Lierneux, Belgium
 * Bra, Piedmont, a comune in the Province of Cuneo, Piedmont, Italy
 * Piazza Bra, a piazza in Verona, Veneto, Italy

People

 * Lemuel de Bra (1884–1954), American short story writer

Other uses

 * Bra, part of bra–ket notation in quantum physics
 * Braj Bhasha a Western Hindi language by ISO 639-2 and ISO 639-3 code
 * Front-end bra, a cover over the front part of a vehicle
 * Male bra or compression bra, a brassiere for men
 * Bra (Dragon Ball), a character in the Dragon Ball manga
 * Brottsförebyggande rådet (Brå; the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention)

title: Bra (disambiguation)


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Prudence

Prudence (prudentia, contracted from providentia meaning "seeing ahead, sagacity") is the ability to govern and discipline oneself by the use of reason. It is classically considered to be a virtue, and in particular one of the four cardinal virtues (which are, with the three theological virtues, part of the seven virtues). Prudentia is an allegorical female personification of the virtue, whose attributes are a mirror and snake, and who is frequently depicted as a pair with Justitia, the Roman goddess of Justice.

The word derives from the 14th-century Old French word prudence, which, in turn, derives from the Latin prudentia meaning "foresight, sagacity". It is often associated with wisdom, insight, and knowledge. The virtue of prudence is the ability to judge between virtuous and vicious actions, not only in a general sense, but with regard to appropriate actions at a given time and place. Although prudence itself does not perform any actions, and is concerned solely with knowledge, all virtues are regulated by it. For example, distinguishing when acts are courageous, as opposed to reckless or cowardly, is an act of prudence.

In modern English, the word "prudence" has become closely associated with cautiousness. In this sense, prudence is a virtue that involves taking calculated risks, but excessive caution can become a vice of cowardice.

In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle gives a lengthy account of the virtue (ϕρόνησις)—traditionally translated as "prudence", although this has become problematic as the modern usage of that word has changed. More recently ϕρόνησις has been translated by such terms as "practical wisdom", "practical judgment", or "rational choice".

As the "mother" of all virtues

Prudence was considered by the ancient Greeks and later by Christian philosophers, most notably Thomas Aquinas, as the cause, measure, and form of all virtues. It is considered to be the auriga virtutum or the charioteer of the virtues. It is mentioned in the fifth of the Principal Doctrines of Epicurus, and in his Letter to Menoeceus, where he says: "Prudence is the foundation of all these things and is the greatest good. Thus it is more valuable than philosophy and is the source of every other excellence."

Prudence is foundational to virtues, which are understood to be perfected abilities of the human spirit. This perfection is achieved when virtues are founded on prudence, or the ability to make the right decisions. For instance, a person can live temperately when he has acquired the habit of deciding correctly the actions to take in response to his instinctual cravings.

Prudence provides guidance on the appropriate course of action in specific situations. It does not will the good that it discerns. Prudence has a directive capacity with regard to the other virtues. It lights the way and measures the arena for their exercise. Without prudence, bravery becomes foolhardiness, mercy sinks into weakness, free self-expression and kindness into censure, humility into degradation and arrogance, selflessness into corruption, and temperance into fanaticism. The purpose of prudence is to consider the circumstances of time, place, and manner that are relevant in any given situation, known as medium rationis in the Scholastic tradition. So while it qualifies the intellect and not the will, it is nevertheless a moral virtue.

Prudence provides a model of ethically good actions. "The work of art is true and real by its correspondence with the pattern of its prototype in the mind of the artist. In similar fashion, the free activity of man is good by its correspondence with the pattern of prudence." (Josef Pieper)

According to Greek and Scholastic philosophy, 'form' is the unique characteristic of a thing that makes it what it is. In this sense, prudence gives other virtues their specific character as virtues, by providing a standard against which they can be judged. For example, not all acts of telling the truth are considered virtuous, but those that are done with prudence would be considered expressions of the virtue of honesty.

Versus imprudence, cunning and false prudence
In Christian understanding, the difference between prudence and cunning lies in the intent with which a decision to act is made. The Christian understanding of the world includes the existence of God, the natural law, and moral implications of human actions. In this context, prudence is different from cunning in that it takes into account the supernatural good. For instance, the decision of persecuted Christians to be martyred rather than deny their faith is considered prudent.

According to Thomas Aquinas, judgments that take a reasonable form, but are aimed at evil ends or that use evil means, are considered to be examples of "cunning" and "false prudence".

The Ancient Greek term for prudence is synonymous with "forethought". People, the Ancient Greeks believed, must have enough prudence to prepare for worshiping the Olympian gods.

Integral parts
Prudence is the application of universal principles to particular situations. "Integral parts" of virtues, in Scholastic philosophy, are the elements that must be present for any complete or perfect act of the virtue. The following are the integral parts of prudence:
 * memoria : accurate memory; that is, memory that is true to reality; an ability to learn from experience
 * docilitas : an open-mindedness that recognizes variety and is able to seek and make use of the experience and authority of others
 * intelligentia : the understanding of first principles
 * sollertia : shrewdness or quick-wittedness, the ability to evaluate a situation quickly
 * ratio : discursive reasoning and the ability to research and compare alternatives
 * providentia : foresight—the capacity to estimate whether particular actions can realize goals
 * circumspection : the ability to take all relevant circumstances into account
 * caution : the ability to mitigate risk

Prudential judgment

In ethics, a "prudential judgment" is one where the circumstances must be weighed to determine the correct action. This applies to situations in which two people could weigh the circumstances differently and ethically come to different conclusions.

For instance, in the theory of just war, the government of a nation must weigh whether the harms they suffer are more than the harms that would be produced by their going to war against another nation that is harming them; the decision whether to go to war is therefore a prudential judgment.

As another example, a patient with a terminal illness may hear of an experimental treatment with no conventional alternatives. They would have to weigh, on the one hand, the cost, time commitment, potential lack of benefit, and possible pain, disability, and hastened death, and on the other hand, the potential benefit and the benefits to others that could be gained from what could be learned from their case.

In rhetoric
, or practical wisdom, holds an important place in rhetorical theory as a central aspect of judgment and practice. Aristotle's notion of fits with his treatise on rhetoric because neither, in his estimation, could be reduced to an  or a, and both deal with the ability to deliberate about contingent, variable, or indeterminate matters.

Cicero defined prudentia as a rhetorical norm in De Oratore, De officiis, De Inventione, and De re publica. He contrasts the term with imprudens, young men failing to consider the consequences before they act. The prudens, or those who had prudence, knew when to speak and when to stay silent. Cicero maintained that prudence was gained only through experience, and while it was applied in everyday conversation, in public discourse it was subordinated to the broader term for wisdom, sapientia.

In the modern era, rhetorical scholars have tried to recover a robust meaning for the term. They have maintained consistency with the ancient orators, contending that prudence is an embodied persuasive resource. Although sets of principles or rules can be constructed in a particular culture, prudence cannot be derived from a set of timeless principles. Instead, through gauging the situation and through reasoned deliberation, a speaker should determine the set of values and morals by which to base his or her actions. The capacity to take into account the particularities of the situation is vital to prudential practice. For example, as rhetorical scholar Lois Self explains, "both rhetoric and are normative processes in that they involve rational principles of choice-making; both have general applicability but always require careful analysis of particulars in determining the best response to each specific situation; both ideally take into account the wholeness of human nature; and finally, both have social utility and responsibility in that both treat matter of the public good". Robert Hariman, in his examination of Malcolm X, adds that "aesthetic sensibility, imitation of a performative ideal, and improvisation upon conventions of presentation" are also components of practical reasoning.

Rhetorical scholars differ on definitions of the term and methods of analysis. Hans-Georg Gadamer asserted that prudence materializes through the application of principles and can be evaluated accordingly. Jasinski argues that Andrew Cuomo's speech to the Catholic Church of Notre Dame cannot be judged solely on the basis of its consequences, since prudence is not reducible to episteme (knowledge or understanding) or techne (technique or art). Rather, he contends, it should be judged based on its embodied rhetorical performance — that is, how it is perceived by those who experience it. So, for example, one might evaluate the speech based on how persuasive it was, how emotionally moving it was, or how well it captured the audience's attention. Thus, while Gadamer judges prudence based on a set of principles, Jasinski emphasizes the artistry of communication and its reception by its audience. For Jasinski, communication should balance compromise and courage, rather than merely achieving a specific result.

In his study of Machiavelli, examining the relationship between prudence and moderation, rhetorician Eugene Garver holds that there is a middle ground between "an ethics of principles, in which those principles univocally dictate action" and "an ethics of consequences, in which the successful result is all". His premise stems from Aristotle's theory of virtue as an "intermediate", in which moderation and compromise embody prudence. Yet, because elevating moderation is not an active response, prudence entails the "transformation of moderation" into a fitting response, making it a flexible situational norm. Garver also asserts that prudential reasoning differs from "algorithmic" and "heuristic" reasoning because it is rooted in a political community, the context in which common problems regarding stability and innovation arise and call for prudential reasoning.

In economics
Economists describe a consumer as "prudent" if he or she saves more when faced with riskier future income. This additional saving is called precautionary saving.

If a risk-averse consumer has a utility function $$u(x)$$ over consumption $$x$$, and if $$u(x)$$ is differentiable, then the consumer is not prudent unless the third derivative of utility is positive, that is, $$ u'''\left(x\right)>0 $$.

The strength of the precautionary saving motive can be measured by absolute prudence, which is defined as $$ -\frac{u'\left(x\right)}{u\left(x\right)} $$. Similarly, relative prudence is defined as absolute prudence, multiplied by the level of consumption. These measures are closely related to the concepts of absolute and relative risk aversion developed by Kenneth Arrow and John W. Pratt.

In accounting
In accounting, prudence was historically regarded as a fundamental principle for determining the appropriate timing of revenue recognition. The rule of prudence means that gains should not be anticipated unless their realisation was highly probable. However, recent developments in Generally Accepted Accounting Principles have led academic critics to accuse the International Standard-Setting Body, IASB, of abandoning prudence. In the British reporting standard FRS 18, prudence, along with consistency, was relegated to a "desirable" quality of financial information rather than fundamental concept. Prudence was rejected for IFRS because it was seen as compromising accounts' neutrality.

In a 2011 report on the financial crisis of 2007–08, the British House of Lords bemoaned the demotion of prudence as a governing principle of accounting and audit. However, their comments were disputed by prominent practitioners.

title: Prudence