19 April 2006
Really Free Trade Comes To Newtown
On Monday, 1 May 2006 Wellington anarchists will celebrate May Day – International Worker’s Day - with a really really
free market in Newtown.
The really really free market is a market where everything is free, nothing is for sale. At this market there will be
lots of great FREE stuff, like clothes, household items, books and food as well as information stalls from groups
working on radical social, environmental and economic change.
The market will be held on the corner of Riddiford and Constable Streets in Newtown from 3:30-6:30pm. (In the case of
wet weather the market will be held in the Newtown Community Centre on the corner of Colombo and Rintoul Streets.)
Wellington anarchists are organising the really free market as a Mayday celebration to show the contrast between “Free
Trade” and genuinely free trade.
Said spokesperson Mark Rawnsley, “Free trade means that giant multinational corporations are able to freely move jobs to
places where wages are the lowest and where environmental protections and labour laws are non-existent. It is a
contradiction to call it 'free trade' because it is only money and goods that can move freely across the globe, while
people seeking to better their economic situation cannot escape national boundaries. Free trade works for corporations
not people.”
On the topic of genuinely free trade he explained, “Anarchists believe in genuinely free trade. We believe that this can
only be accomplished by erasing national boundaries and working towards a global society free of exploitative
capitalism. This society would be comprised of communities in free association with each other, producing what we need
and caring for our environment. Only then can free trade really be called free.”
“May Day was once a day when workers all over the world displayed their strength, proclaimed their ideals and celebrated
their successes. We need independent working class politics: not collaboration with government and bosses, real
solidarity with fellow workers in struggle. We still need a further reduction in working hours, without loss of pay, and
to value the unemployed,” he said.
“We need revolutionary politics - a real democracy where everyone affected by a decision will have the opportunity to
have a say in making that decision - a democracy of efficiently co-ordinated workplace and community councils, and a
society where production is to satisfy needs, not to make profits for a privileged few. This is anarchism,” he said.
ENDS