Modern Era
Rudolf Rocker
1873–1958 · Anarcho-syndicalism
Power is the ability to command, and it can be built from below.
A German printer who learned Yiddish in exile and became the beloved orator of London's Jewish anarchist movement, Rocker wrote Anarcho-Syndicalism as a systematic case for unions as the organizing frame of a free society. His Nationalism and Culture traced how the state and the nation were built together, and why both had to be resisted by federated voluntary association rather than replaced by a new administration.
Why it matters for freedom
He traced liberty to the voluntary federations of working people, the practical anarchism of the guild and the union.
Who they stood against
the state and the nationalism that made a homeland into an authority