[1][2][3] This sectarianism was especially troublesome to those who saw that sharing the goals of abolishing Capitalism, no matter whether in its private, corporate or state varieties, and the State along with it -as well as a rejection of the vitiating distraction of reformist politics – was vastly more important than what the project terms “intra-sector” quarrels, especially when faced with the more important struggle against all forms of class rule.

[3] The “sector” to which WiC’s statements frequently refer consists of what some have called the “Thin Red/Black Line”; a shorthand way of referring to the small but highly diverse sector of various non-market, anti-statist, libertarian socialists – whether organised or not – consisting of; e.g., syndicalists, anarcho-communists, libertarian municipalists, world socialists, socialist industrial unionists, council communists, autonomists, platformists, situationists, ultra-leftists, etc.

Previous efforts to bring these various elements together, and, to a greater or lesser extent, inspiring those who founded the World in Common project, were the Discussion Bulletin of Frank Girard, published from 1983 to July 2003, the year before Girard’s death; The “Imagine International” circular among these same groups in the late 1990s; The Red Menace, a Canadian publication of the 1970s; as well as the writings of such thinkers as Maximilien Rubel, John Crump, and not infrequent references to the commonalities in many of the classic anarchist and socialist thinkers.

[4] While explicitly not suggesting that all these “strands” of this sector submerge their differences and unite in some large organization, which is seen by WiC as both unrealistic and even undesirable, they do support an intermediate position between that extreme and the other, of exclusionist hostility.

Membership in the World in Common project is open to anti-capitalists, anti-statists, anti-reformists, anti-authoritarians, anti-vanguardists, anarchists, communists, socialists, syndicalists, anarcho-communists, libertarian municipalists, world socialists, socialist industrial unionists, council communists, and any who reject capitalism’s wage, market, and money system as well as capitalist politics and capitalist unionism and who recognise that the above are on the same relative side in the struggle against all of capitalism’s forces, including its statist left-wing of vanguardists and social democrats, and who seek ways to practically – in their local areas – assist this political sector to grow as a whole while engaging in comradely discussion at all levels, if in broad agreement with the Core Statement.