Céline Marty
Céline Marty: Université de Franche-Comté, Université de Créteil (celine. marty@univ-fcomte.fr ; ORCID: 0009-0007-0136-5166).
André Gorz, passing on the texts of the Italian workers’ movement from 1960 to 1980: from the critique of alienation to the critique of workers’ institutions
Abstract: This article elucidates the connections between André Gorz and the Italian left – both within parliamentary, trade unionist, and extra-parliamentary contexts – spanning the years from 1960 to 1980. The Italian trade union CGIL was committed to combating workplace alienation, not merely exploitation. Their approach centred on workers’ control and local trade union autonomy vis-à-vis the management. However, the events of 1968-1969 demonstrated that the grassroots masses were eager to circumvent the political and trade union leaderships, who were attempting to co-opt their efforts. Autonomous movements critical of established institutions and insurrectionary movements began to surface. André Gorz published their writings in Les Temps Modernes and covered their struggles in Le Nouvel Observateur. These interactions played a pivotal role in the development of his own theory on self-management within the realm of work, through the trade union, and subsequently, in his critique of all institutions that sought to reinvigorate the emancipation project beyond the confines of work and the factory. We posit that the evolution of Gorz’s ideas should be understood in light of these Italian exchanges.
Keywords: Marxism; Institution; Union; Self-management; Self-government.