Socio-political Organizations

[Victus Mortuum]

Sociopolitical Organization:

The worker-class must create numerous sociopolitical organizations (food pantries, funerary services, community centers, workplace unions, existing worker cooperatives, student organizations, etc.) which uphold the above basic principles to create an alternative worker culture and inherently maintain active membership. Beyond the above described minimal requirements, each organization would have relative autonomy. Ideally, all of these organizations will operate according to the principles of Educate, Agitate, Organize! This would grow the number of class-conscious workers at an exponential rate, bringing true revolutionary change closer and closer
^
From my thread on the Worker-Class Party-Movement

I'm looking to start discussion about what particular types of sociopolitical organizations would be more and less effective to start. Also to generate a large list of types of sociopolitical organizations to start.

Thoughts?

[Die Neue Zeit]

All I can list are group types that should be crossed off:

1) Online board/forum or e-mail list
2) Newspaper- or magazine-centered group (Lenin stressed a newspaper, but it shouldn't be the primary activity)

[A singular online news service already goes beyond those two group types]

3) "Direct action" group - by this I don't mean terrorist groups, but certain front groups like those of the IWW:

Seattle Solidarity Network (http://www.seattlesolidarity.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10&Itemid=26)
Ottawa Panhandlers' Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Panhandlers'_Union)

4) Electoral alliance

[At a minimum, if you do have an "electoral alliance" that also does #1, 2, and goes beyond #3, that's a start - plus the food bank/pantry thing to distinguish from the Cliffite SWP / Student Left rot. However, these alone or paired are insufficient.]

[Victus Mortuum]

All I can list are group types that should be crossed off:

1) Online board/forum or e-mail list
2) Newspaper- or magazine-centered group (Lenin stressed a newspaper, but it shouldn't be the primary activity)

[A singular online news service already goes beyond those two group types]


Agreed. A single central, but non-centralized online 'social labor' party-news service is exactly what is needed. Not divided and disconnected party-news services.


3) "Direct action" group - by this I don't mean terrorist groups, but certain front groups like those of the IWW:

Seattle Solidarity Network (http://www.seattlesolidarity.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=10&Itemid=26)
Ottawa Panhandlers' Union (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottawa_Panhandlers'_Union)

With the first one are you getting at not having intimidation based groups? I'm not sure what you mean here.
On the second one, obviously the problem is that it is a "union" of life-beggars. They obviously aren't worker-class and wouldn't actually be able to join the organization.


4) Electoral alliance

What do you mean by this? A campaign to vote for a reform/social democratic candidate? Or an organization to get people out to vote in general?

[Die Neue Zeit]

With the first one are you getting at not having intimidation based groups? I'm not sure what you mean here.
On the second one, obviously the problem is that it is a "union" of life-beggars. They obviously aren't worker-class and wouldn't actually be able to join the organization.

The Seattle Solidarity Network gives the impression of being a group moving from one single-issue campaign to another. "Direct action" manifests itself from terrorism all the way to single-issue campaignism.

Re. electoral alliance: the former (including that horrible Working Families example in NY). An initial party-movement could organize spoilage campaigns *and* "get out the vote" for its own electoral candidates, if it chooses to have that latter option.

[Victus Mortuum]

Gotcha.

A brief list to start with is:
food pantries
funerary services
community centers
*existing worker cooperatives
workplace unions
student organizations

*of course, this could include vast arrays of things, such as small grocery stores, small urban vertical farms (if somehow the investment for this could be achieved - I've been thinking of a way to go about getting this), maybe apartment complexes if given enough time. also, the food pantries, funerary services, and community centers would technically fit this category.
Hm...what other economic organizations might be small enough to be started as social labor worker coops?

[The Idler]

Agreed. A single central, but non-centralized online 'social labor' party-news service is exactly what is needed. Not divided and disconnected party-news services.
What, like leftwigg.com (http://www.leftwigg.com)?

[Pawn Power]

Community-based organizations seem to be where some of the most effective organizing right not (in the US).

[Q]

What, like leftwigg.com (http://www.leftwigg.com)?

Chrome gives me a malware warning for leftwigg, could you fix that?

[The Idler]

Chrome gives me a malware warning for leftwigg, could you fix that?
I'll look into it.
The OP might also be interested in;
Pioneer movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_movement)

[Victus Mortuum]

Leftwigg is only approximately what I am talking about. There are parts of its model that are positive, and others that are negative, but the party news is separate from what I'm getting at right now.

The pioneer movement looks more like the 'communist' version of a capitalist school indoctrination...but maybe I'm wrong.

I'm thinking, what sorts of organizations would have low initial capital investment values and preferably have communication with worker-class customers, thus making it possible for workers to come up with a model to start the business with the help of the party-movement and talk to other potential worker-class members?

I already mentioned a few, if you have any more suggestions?

Edit:

Perhaps sports leagues? Art (meaning paintings, music, sculpture, dance, poetry, etc.) festivals/organizations? Maybe other types of local community organizations...

[Paulappaul]

The Seattle Solidarity Network gives the impression of being a group moving from one single-issue campaign to another. "Direct action" manifests itself from terrorism all the way to single-issue campaignism.The Seattle Solidarity Network is right now one of the best models of organization in America.

Socialism isn't a friendly word to Americans right now on the behave of the decades of American propaganda. No longer does the traditional methods of organization of forming Unions or Parties successful in a country where the populace is in down right hatred for Electoral Politics and Leftism.

The reason the right wing is making such a big gain is because Leftists down appeal to their interests.

Thus the goal for revolutionaries right now to, revive the word of Socialism by actually participating in the lives of the working class. This is done by doing exactly by what SolFed is doing, that is, showing up in Solidarity with individuals who achieve a conciseness of the exploitative system they live in. That is, showing up solidarity with a Flying Picket.

Solfed extends beyond the workplace, to the unemployed and the retired. I revives peoples interest in Socialism by showing it is for oppressed peoples of the world in most of America.

So frankly, I don't care if it's "terrorism" or "Single Issue", for organization of it's size it's done more for the working class then the local branches of parties and revolutionary unions.

[Victus Mortuum]

Reading the current article in the Economics forum sparked an idea for another type of sociopolitical organization. After a number of the organizations have formed, the members could form a radical-democratic credit union...

[Die Neue Zeit]

Um, that's one form of organization I would avoid, actually, given its association with Proudhon.

[Victus Mortuum]

Why? Just because a particular organizational form is kinda associated with a given thinker doesn't in and of itself invalidate the organizational form. A party-movement credit union would be an incredible means of creating an alternative culture, of separating the worker-class from the institutions and rules of the state and bourgeois. It would demonstrate the class nature of traditional banks - with a single monopoly credit union being the model for a radical-democratic financial institution within the socioeconomic government...

*Edit:

Oh, and to expand on the earlier idea of student organizations on campus' and such. Perhaps over time moving toward establishing separate schools when the resources become available. Maybe free, democratic primary and secondary schools along the lines of the Sudbury school model (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_school), given that we need to break from institutionally training kids to be subject to authority and given that the schools primary function in capitalist society seems to be a sort of jail to keep kids stored in during the workday to prevent them from running amok on the streets.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Did you follow that thread on credit unions? On the "new theory of money"? On the question of nationalizing banks? :confused:

I believe there is a way of combining national-democratization a la Gosbank with credit-union-style service.

[ckaihatsu]

Thus the goal for revolutionaries right now to, revive the word of Socialism by actually participating in the lives of the working class. This is done by doing exactly by what SolFed is doing, that is, showing up in Solidarity with individuals who achieve a conciseness of the exploitative system they live in. That is, showing up solidarity with a Flying Picket.


Um, no one can argue with your program, but the marketer / brander side of me thinks that you should drop 'SolFed' -- it sounds like something from the time of 'JoStal' -- (heh)!

[Victus Mortuum]

Did you follow that thread on credit unions? On the "new theory of money"? On the question of nationalizing banks? :confused:

I believe there is a way of combining national-democratization a la Gosbank with credit-union-style service.

Okay so you're suggesting that members simply participate in a traditional bank until the day that programmatic demands are taken seriously? Shouldn't we aim for disconnecting ourselves from capitalist banks in the mean time?

I understand that credit unions act simply as collective banks, and I see the problem with that (i.e. still being fractional reserve type systems and such). What alternative would be offered in the mean time? What system could be used as a "worker's bank", so to speak? Perhaps a centralized place to keep track of individual person-to-person debts (through the use of perhaps a new type of "credit card" with various credit sizes and pay-off times), rather than 'taking from peter to pay paul for patrick'? As well as providing pre-lending bank-type protection for deposits?

Just some thoughts to get some discussion on this concept

[Die Neue Zeit]

I don't like The Nation's credit card scheme one bit, by the way. ;)

There could be propaganda to educate workers into switching to credit unions or no-bricks-and-mortar banking (yes, banking, since few credit unions have this service), but really there's just too much overhead if you try to establish a brick-and-mortar presence.

[ckaihatsu]

I don't like The Nation's credit card scheme one bit, by the way. ;)

There could be propaganda to educate workers into switching to credit unions or no-bricks-and-mortar banking (yes, banking, since few credit unions have this service), but really there's just too much overhead if you try to establish a brick-and-mortar presence.


Um, because of the cost of *bricks* -- ???

What *I'd* want to know before I "get into business" as part of a credit union is where the market cap comes from -- !





Okay so you're suggesting that members simply participate in a traditional bank until the day that programmatic demands are taken seriously? Shouldn't we aim for disconnecting ourselves from capitalist banks in the mean time?


Ooooooo, *yeah* -- we could create macrame items for each other and pass around mud pies made from our own shit!! (Joy!)





I understand that credit unions act simply as collective banks, and I see the problem with that (i.e. still being fractional reserve type systems and such). What alternative would be offered in the mean time? What system could be used as a "worker's bank", so to speak? Perhaps a centralized place to keep track of individual person-to-person debts (through the use of perhaps a new type of "credit card" with various credit sizes and pay-off times), rather than 'taking from peter to pay paul for patrick'? As well as providing pre-lending bank-type protection for deposits?

Just some thoughts to get some discussion on this concept


Thanks for volunteering!

You'll find a blank spreadsheet over at Google Docs -- start making those phone calls!

[vader]

Chrome gives me a malware warning for leftwigg, could you fix that?
Firefox also gives me such warning and when I ignored it, it doesn't work properly - propably Pligg's template is crashed.

There are also groups like:

militant anti-fascist organizations
squatting groups and other forms of alternative housing

[Die Neue Zeit]

Comrade Zanthorus posted this in a Learning thread for another poster:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/your-opinion-wanted-t145525/index.html


But what they will be fighting to defend is a reformed version of capitalism, a social form which in no way does away with capitalism's basic antagonisms, but actually makes these antagonisms worse by transforming the workers into their own collective capitalist. If we want to convince people by making a real difference to their lives, there are plenty of other options besides forming co-operative enterprises, for example, participation in struggles for higher wages and better working conditions.

[...]

A similar platform was provided by the Workers' Educational Societies set up by the Communist League. The most prominent of these was the German Workers' Educational Society in London which was run by the head honcho's of the league, Schapper, Bauer and Moll. Marx and Engels were directly involved in the setting up of the Brussels society, which besides debates on political issues also offered "entertainment with singing, recitation, theatricals and the like." (Marx to Herwegh, 26th October 1847) After the failure of the 1848-50 European revolutionary wave Marx even taught various courses on the nature of Wage-Labour in the German Workers' Educational Society. These forms of alternative culture both provided a platform for Communists to agitate for their views among the working-class, a platform which could offer workers a tangible motivation to support Communists and show that the Communists were on their side and were working in their interests, and avoided the creation of any business type enterprise such as you are proposing.

[syndicat]

The Seattle Solidarity Network gives the impression of being a group moving from one single-issue campaign to another. "Direct action" manifests itself from terrorism all the way to single-issue campaignism.

more evidence that you're a crazoid sectarian. Seattle Solidarity Network is a member based workers center. There are currently over 200 worker centers in the U.S. Given the bureaucratic business unions and their craven subservience to the plutocratic Democratic Party, not to mention their disappearance, this fills in the gap and can be a stepping stone to rebuilding a grassroots labor movement.

Seattle Solidarity Network is involved in fights around conflicts of workers with bosses and of tenants with landlords. they've won numerous small fights of this sort. to mention terrorism in the same breath is outrageous sectarianism. it's also inaccurate to describe a fight of a tenant to get his security deposit back a "one-issue campaign." is a union engaged in "one-issue campaigns" when they fight to get someone reinstated? you have a screw loose somewhere.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Don't rush to call me a sectarian. I am saying that there's no contradiction between a grassroots, worker-class movement and a genuine worker-class political party, both of which are identical.

[syndicat]

Don't rush to call me a sectarian. I am saying that there's no contradiction between a grassroots, worker-class movement and a genuine worker-class political party, both of which are identical.


what the fuck does this have to do with Seattle Solidarity Network?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Because it isn't aligned with a genuine worker-class political party, it gives the impression of being a group moving from one single-issue campaign to another.

[syndicat]

Because it isn't aligned with a genuine worker-class political party, it gives the impression of being a group moving from one single-issue campaign to another.

that's a completely crazy argument. was the CNT in Spain a "single-issue campaign organization"? is the IWW a single-issue campaign organization? Seattle Solidarity Network was originally founded by a group of IWW members, tho it is not "aligned" officially with IWW. Seattle Solidarity Network is a working class solidarity direct action struggle organization.

your partyism leads to nutty thinking.

mass organizations do not need to be, and in my opinion, should not be "aligned" with or controlled by political parties. the concept of a "mass party" has been proven not to work. all you have to do is look at the history of social-democracy to see that.

SeaSol could be regarded as what some libertarian socialists would call an "intermediate" organization, that is, a militant minority organization that isn't broad enough in its area of struggle to be a mass organization but is not so narrow in its principles of unity as to be a revolutionary political organization.

but a more typical intermediate organization would be a network of rank and file oppositional militants in a union, not controlled by a particular revolutionary group.

[Die Neue Zeit]

that's a completely crazy argument. was the CNT in Spain a "single-issue campaign organization"? is the IWW a single-issue campaign organization? Seattle Solidarity Network was originally founded by a group of IWW members, tho it is not "aligned" officially with IWW. Seattle Solidarity Network is a working class solidarity direct action struggle organization.

your partyism leads to nutty thinking.

mass organizations do not need to be, and in my opinion, should not be "aligned" with or controlled by political parties. the concept of a "mass party" has been proven not to work. all you have to do is look at the history of social-democracy to see that.

SeaSol could be regarded as what some libertarian socialists would call an "intermediate" organization, that is, a militant minority organization that isn't broad enough in its area of struggle to be a mass organization but is not so narrow in its principles of unity as to be a revolutionary political organization.

but a more typical intermediate organization would be a network of rank and file oppositional militants in a union, not controlled by a particular revolutionary group.

Thanks for giving me the right words to refine my thinking.

Seattle Solidarity Network is in the same modus operandi as ATTAC in Germany, but the latter is definitely a single-issue group (Tobin tax), despite adding a few welfare planks here and there.

Seattle Solidarity Network is probably on the lowest rung of an "intermediate organization," while something like the CNT and IWW would be on the highest rung.

BTW, I look precisely at pre-war German Social Democracy and inter-war Independent Social Democracy to see models that work.

[syndicat]

Seattle Solidarity Network is in the same modus operandi as ATTAC in Germany, but the latter is definitely a single-issue group (Tobin tax), despite adding a few welfare planks here and there.

you are a nut. there is no similarity whatever. SeaSol is an organization of working people that relies on direct action to take up conflicts/struggles of workers in workplaces and tenants against landlords. to get the organization to take up your fight, you have to join it.



Seattle Solidarity Network is probably on the lowest rung of an "intermediate organization," while something like the CNT and IWW would be on the highest rung.

again, you're a complete loon. CNT was obviously a mass organization. to take an example in 1936 90 percent of the workers of Barcelona Tramways, the city's transit system, were members of the CNT Transport Union. this is clearly a paradigm of a mass organization

the inter-war SPD is not exactly a model for anyone to recommend.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I said "inter-war Independent Social Democracy," which refers to the USPD.