--- title: "Meaning & Key Takeaway of: By contrast, the traditional…" description: "\"“By contrast, the traditional revolutionary demand for council forms of organization (what Hannah Arendt describes as \"the revolutionary heritage\") doe..." image: "https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b09/murray-bookchin-2587_free-time_by-contrast-the-traditional-revolutionar_2355778.jpg" --- # By contrast, the traditional revolutionary demand for… ![“By contrast, the traditional revolutionary demand for council forms of organization (what Hannah Arendt describes as "the revolutionary heritage") does not break completely with the terrain of hierarchical society. Workers' councils originate as class councils. Unless one assumes that workers are…” quote by Murray Bookchin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b09/murray-bookchin-2587_free-time_by-contrast-the-traditional-revolutionar_2355778.jpg) [Download](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b09/murray-bookchin-2587_free-time_by-contrast-the-traditional-revolutionar_2355778.jpg) [Open image](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/i/b09/murray-bookchin-2587_free-time_by-contrast-the-traditional-revolutionar_2355778.jpg) > ““By contrast, the traditional revolutionary demand for council forms of organization (what Hannah Arendt describes as "the revolutionary heritage") does not break completely with the terrain of hierarchical society. Workers' councils originate as class councils. Unless one assumes that workers are driven by their interests as workers to revolutionary measures against hierarchical society (an assumption I flatly deny), then these councils can be used just as much to perpetuate class society as to destroy it. We shall see, in fact, that the council form contains many structural limitations which favor the development of hierarchy. For the present, it suffices to say that most advocates of workers' councils tend to conceive of people primarily as economic entities, either as workers or nonworkers. This conception leaves the onesidedness of the self completely intact. Man is viewed as a bifurcated being, the product of a social development that divides man from man and each man from himself. Nor is this one-sided view completely corrected by demands for workers' management of production and the shortening of the work week, for these demands leave the nature of the work process and the quality of the worker's free time completely untouched. If workers' councils and workers' management of production do not transform the work into a joyful activity, free time into a marvelous experience, and the workplace into a community, then they remain merely formal structures, in fact, class structures. They perpetuate the limitations of the proletariat as a product of bourgeois social conditions. Indeed, no movement that raises the demand for workers' councils can be regarded as revolutionary unless it tries to promote sweeping transformations in the environment of the work place.”” [Murray Bookchin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/murray-bookchin/) ## About This Quote This interpretation was drafted with AI assistance. It is one reading of the quote, not the author's own explanation. Workers' councils often reproduce hierarchy unless they transform work, leisure, and community fundamentally. **In simple terms:** Councils can keep class unless they change work and life. Key Takeaway Seek deep workplace transformation. Themes hierarchy work community revolution class transformation Mood critical analytical hopeful Type theoretical political philosophical When to use this quote - labor organizing - cooperative enterprises - union negotiations - community building Key Concepts anarchism social theory political economy Questions to Reflect On - How can councils foster genuine joy in work? - What changes are needed for free time to become meaningful? A Different Perspective If councils only adjust structures without changing underlying relations, they may reinforce existing power. ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet [Free time](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/free-time/) [Social development](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/social-development/) [Work place](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/work-place/) [Work week](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/about/work-week/) ## Related quotes > [ “\[The\] term 'libertarian' itself, to be sure, raises a problem, notably, the specious identification of an anti-authoritarian ideology with a straggling movement for 'pure… ](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/murray-bookchin/the-term-libertarian-itself-to-be-sure-raises-a-problem-notably-the/) [Murray Bookchin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/murray-bookchin/) > [Only under conditions of revolutionary crises do you have the highest level of self-organization; this is the Soviet type of organization, which is to…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/ernest-mandel/only-under-conditions-of-revolutionary-crises-do-you-have-the-highest/) [Ernest Mandel](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/ernest-mandel/) > [“I am a convinced advocate of economic and social equality because I know that, without it, liberty, justice, human dignity, morality, and the well-being…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/mikhail-bakunin/i-am-a-convinced-advocate-of-economic-and-social-equality-because-i/) [Mikhail Bakunin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/mikhail-bakunin/) > [“The anarchists cannot consider, like the collectivists, that a remuneration which would be proportionate to the hours of labour spent by each person in…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/pyotr-kropotkin/the-anarchists-cannot-consider-like-the-collectivists-that-a/) [Pyotr Kropotkin](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/pyotr-kropotkin/) > [“Meanwhile, two other great currents in political thought, had a decisive significance on the development of socialist ideas: Liberalism, which had powerfully stimulated advanced…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/rudolf-rocker/meanwhile-two-other-great-currents-in-political-thought-had-a/) [Rudolf Rocker](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/rudolf-rocker/) > [For if leisure and security were enjoyed by all alike, the great mass of human beings who are normally stupefied by poverty would become…](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/george-orwell/for-if-leisure-and-security-were-enjoyed-by-all-alike-the-great-mass-2/) [George Orwell](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/george-orwell/) > [But the problems of perpetuating a hierarchical society go deeper than this. 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Wilson](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/author/jared-c-wilson/) > [“Most families have increased the speed of their lives and the number of their activities gradually--even unconsciously--over time. 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