The only way to guarantee working class dignity is through working class power.
All in organizing audience
The only way to guarantee working class dignity is through working class power.
Might be good to be aware of this when beginning mass line style organizing.
When we try to organize and grow capacity “in preparation for” a crisis, what this practically means is that we are organizing in response to smaller-level crises in ways that build our organizational capacity for larger crises.
thoughts on the important distinction between ‘material’ and ‘social’ properties and relations in Marxist analysis
In Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence, G.A. Cohen quotes Marx from his Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859) in one of the most useful epigraphs I’ve ever encountered. A full reproduction of the passage, and some small discussion.
Stray thoughts on the emphases I found helpful from anarchists and Marxist-Leninists—and why I am neither an anarchist nor a Marxist-Leninist.
I worry that many people on the left are too quick to leave democratic styles of organizing because they think it hasn’t been politically effective enough. Even if their experiences with ‘democratic’ organizations have been disappointing, I think we ought to be more rigorous and intentional about democracy before we compromise on it.
Some basic benefits and discussion around horizontal and democratic organizing structures.
An understanding of patterns of behaviors within institutions, taking notes from natural selection and the works of G.A. Cohen and Anwar Shaikh.
Common problems that can sink an organizing group: staying non-hierarchical for too long, and having too inflexible of a structure in response to changing circumstances.
Reflecting on what helps spontaneous movements successfully get over the initial hurdle of effort required to set up the structures and norms for effective organizing, my thoughts settled on three things…