Socialist Party USA nominates 2012 Alexander/Mendoza ticket

[Revy]

http://vote-socialist.org/pres2012/stewartalex2.jpg

http://vote-socialist.org/index.html#candidates

Stewart Alexander
for President of the United States

Alex Mendoza
for Vice President of the United States

I think this is going to definitely be an improvement over the disastrous nomination of Brian Moore in 2008.

Occupy Wall Street may just give the socialist parties a boost. And perhaps instead of getting a terribly low number of votes like usual, a socialist campaign might at least be a blip on the radar.

[Broletariat]

If shouting in the streets isn't doing anything, whispering in the voting booths sure as HELL isn't going to do anything.

Most people have already moved on and realised voting is pointless, socialists really should drop the campaigning tactics and catch up.

[graymouser]

If shouting in the streets isn't doing anything, whispering in the voting booths sure as HELL isn't going to do anything.

Most people have already moved on and realised voting is pointless, socialists really should drop the campaigning tactics and catch up.
Socialist election campaigns are always more about a propaganda effort to reach out to people who are dissatisfied with the two options of the capitalist parties than about allowing people to lodge a protest vote. It can be a useful propaganda tactic. And honestly saying "don't bother" in elections is ceding the ground to the bourgeoisie without a fight. I imagine Socialist Action will call for some kind of socialist vote in 2012.

[Broletariat]

Socialist election campaigns are always more about a propaganda effort to reach out to people who are dissatisfied with the two options of the capitalist parties than about allowing people to lodge a protest vote. It can be a useful propaganda tactic. And honestly saying "don't bother" in elections is ceding the ground to the bourgeoisie without a fight. I imagine Socialist Action will call for some kind of socialist vote in 2012.

I understand it's about spreading the message and not actually about the election. But do you really need to run a candidate? Why not just be like, hey guys I know you all already know it's bullshit, but here's why. Just seems like a massive waste of resources that could instead focus ENTIRELY upon a message rather than a message imbedded in a campaign.

[graymouser]

I understand it's about spreading the message and not actually about the election. But do you really need to run a candidate? Why not just be like, hey guys I know you all already know it's bullshit, but here's why. Just seems like a massive waste of resources that could instead focus ENTIRELY upon a message rather than a message imbedded in a campaign.
You run a campaign because it gives you more opportunities to spread the same message. People will give a hearing to a presidential candidate - you can get access to platforms that you otherwise would find closed to you. This is very much a question of how much effort is put out for how much reward. Done well and in the right circumstances it can be worthwhile. Eugene Debs in 1912 is the obvious standout in this regard, but a number of subsequent socialist and communist campaigns had positive impacts. The last really meaningful one was probably Peter Camejo running for the SWP in 1976, which marked the high point of the SWP's membership and influence.

Also, in terms of party-building, it can be a useful exercise in cohering the activists of a party around a common campaign. Of course, if it's a routinist thing or bureaucratically run it can go the other way. Again, I see this as a tactical thing and it can go either way in different circumstances.

[Broletariat]

You run a campaign because it gives you more opportunities to spread the same message. People will give a hearing to a presidential candidate - you can get access to platforms that you otherwise would find closed to you.

I just don't see why you can't do all the exact same things without running a candidate (This might be a nit-pick by now, I'm not sure the resources involved in running a candidate versus doing my suggestion). Plus the lack of a candidate gives it more of a leaderless feel.


This is very much a question of how much effort is put out for how much reward. Done well and in the right circumstances it can be worthwhile. Eugene Debs in 1912 is the obvious standout in this regard, but a number of subsequent socialist and communist campaigns had positive impacts. The last really meaningful one was probably Peter Camejo running for the SWP in 1976, which marked the high point of the SWP's membership and influence.I think these are simply historical cases, people these days basically realise that voting is pointless, hardly anyone votes anymore, trying to funnel them BACK into voting seems silly, why not try to get them to do something more productive?

Edit: comma splicing ftw

[KurtFF8]

It's not just about "spreading the message" either. It gives you more opportunities to engage with folks and build your own organization itself.

[wunderbar]

I just don't see why you can't do all the exact same things without running a candidate (This might be a nit-pick by now, I'm not sure the resources involved in running a candidate versus doing my suggestion). Plus the lack of a candidate gives it more of a leaderless feel.


Because the media doesn't give a shit about what small parties and organizations have to say if there's no candidate running for anything. When a candidate runs, they'll at least get an interview or two. Recall in 2008 when SPUSA candidate Brian Moore appeared on news programs and The Colbert Report.

[#FF0000]

It's not just about "spreading the message" either. It gives you more opportunities to engage with folks and build your own organization itself.

If there's ever a revolution, the SPUSA won't be leading it (nor will the WWP, the PSL, the RCP, the CPUSA, the IWW, the WPA, the ICC, the ICT, the CWI, the SWP, the...)

[graymouser]

I just don't see why you can't do all the exact same things without running a candidate (This might be a nit-pick by now, I'm not sure the resources involved in running a candidate versus doing my suggestion). Plus the lack of a candidate gives it more of a leaderless feel.
Like I said, it's a question of relative impact. If you can run a candidate there are forums and debates that you could not otherwise get into with an audience that is not necessarily self-selecting and political.

As for a "leaderless feel," I don't see why that would be a positive thing at all. I'm a firm believer in Jo Freeman's essay "The Tyranny of Structurelessness (http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm)" and think that not having formal leadership may be a positive "feel" for some people but in reality it means that a leadership exists but is not accessible nor accountable to democratic pressure. And I don't think it's particularly useful as an approach.


I think these are simply historical cases, people these days basically realise that voting is pointless, hardly anyone votes anymore, trying to funnel them BACK into voting seems silly, why not try to get them to do something more productive?
Because political apathy is not progressive? I don't know, saying "nobody votes anymore" seems, again, to simply cede the field to the class enemy needlessly.

[Mr. Natural]

I suppose I would find the Socialist Party USA to be impossibly liberal, although I was unable to readily find a statement of its principles. However, Broletariat's negative views on electoral politics in general, as expressed in his first post, is only accurate as a reflection of the current state of electoral affairs in the US/Europe. Radical electoral politics can be developed, and I believe this must be done.

Does anyone really think that a violent revolution is still possible in the advanced capitalist countries? These capitalist states will have a personal surveillance satellite channel and a predator drone assigned to such persons.

Leftists must deal with ugly realities, and the current reality is that capitalism has triumphed. We all now live and think within the belly of the beast, and now we must radically think and act our way out. Extinction or a New Stone Age on a devastated planet loom.

How might a socialist revolution happen in the advanced capitalist countries? Here is Marx in a speech delivered in Amsterdam in 1872 after a congress of the First International: "You know that the institutions, mores, and traditions of various countries must be taken into consideration, and we do not deny that there are countries--such as America, England, and if I were more familiar with your institutions, I would perhaps add Hollland--where the workers can attain their goal by peaceful means. This being the case, we must also recognize the fact that in most countries on the Continent the lever of our revolution must be force ..."

Note Marx's flexibility: he was not a dogmatist but a revolutionary eager to deal with the situation as it existed. And now capitalism's globalized institutions, values, practices and violence constitute the human ecosystem, and popular violence as a revolutionary tool has largely been eliminated.

The Marx-Engels Reader, page xxxvi, refers to a late-in-life essay by Engels in which "he allowed that classic street-fighting on the barricades had largely been rendered obsolete by technological improvements favoring the military, and hailed the German Social Democrats' two million voters as 'the decisive shock force of the international proletarian army.'"

Of course, quoting Marx and Engels on conditions and tactics obtaining from a century-and-a-half ago can be a refuge for sophists. Just the same, I cannot see a violent revolutionary process succeeding in the US or Europe, while I can definitely envision bottom-up, democratic, politically aware revolutionary practices developing through a radically sophisticated use of the electoral process. But first people must wake up and begin to recognize capitalism as their mortal enemy, and there appears to be little of this taking place at the various OWS protests.

I'm not a pacifist. I'm a Marxist revolutionary, and socialism-communism must be brought to life by the revolutionary means possible. The Russian Revolution could only take place after a long period of (mostly state) violence. In contrast, is a pacific but deeply radical revolutionary path now the only approach to revolution in the US, Europe, Australia, New Zealand?

I believe Marx and Engels recognized that bourgeois democracy--no matter how much of a sham it is as currently practiced--constitutes a potential Achilles heel for the capitalist state. And now it is time for us to develop electoral tactics and a strategy that will bring capitalism to Achilles heel.

[#FF0000]

Does anyone really think that a violent revolution is still possible in the advanced capitalist countries? These capitalist states will have a personal surveillance satellite channel and a predator drone assigned to such persons.

It is not "electoral politics vs. urban guerrilla tactics".

[Martin Blank]

If there's ever a revolution, the SPUSA won't be leading it (nor will the WWP, the PSL, the RCP, the CPUSA, the IWW, the WPA, the ICC, the ICT, the CWI, the SWP, the...)

True enough. But at least we're honest enough to say it ourselves.

[#FF0000]

True enough. But at least we're honest enough to say it ourselves.

Definitely have to give you guys that :lol:

[Lucretia]

Does anyone really think that a violent revolution is still possible in the advanced capitalist countries? These capitalist states will have a personal surveillance satellite channel and a predator drone assigned to such persons.

A revolution, not voting, is the only way capital and class society will be eliminated. Your comment here actually shows why this is so. The surveillance state already has indicated its willingness and ability to target people who are guilty of saying the wrong things (the US citizen in Yemen who was killed by the govt without due process). You think that firepower won't easily be turned on well-behaving socialists who are meekly going about advocating for socialist candidates -- when those candidates begin to win and take actions that destroy capital? You seem to be operating under the illusion that the state, with all its democratic trappings, is something other than a mechanism that in the last instance is the guarantor of class power.

[Broletariat]

Because the media doesn't give a shit about what small parties and organizations have to say if there's no candidate running for anything. When a candidate runs, they'll at least get an interview or two. Recall in 2008 when SPUSA candidate Brian Moore appeared on news programs and The Colbert Report.

Then I guess it's good to know you guys are harmless enough to be on mainstream media.

[Broletariat]

Like I said, it's a question of relative impact. If you can run a candidate there are forums and debates that you could not otherwise get into with an audience that is not necessarily self-selecting and political.

Yea but do you really WANT to get into debates with that kind of audience? That kind of audience tends to be a bunch of liberal assholes or conservatives. I sincerely doubt if your average worker is present at that sort of thing.



Because political apathy is not progressive? I don't know, saying "nobody votes anymore" seems, again, to simply cede the field to the class enemy needlessly.

It's not political apathy, its the recognisation that the rich run the rich win the poor get fucked again. You can't outvote a multi-million dollar campaign.

I'm perfectly fine with ceding the field of bourgeois politics to the bourgeois in the same way I'm not trying to get a Socialist into the board of trustees or the CEO or whatever of a corporation.

[eyeheartlenin]

If the internal configuration of the Socialist Party is anything like it was in 2000 when I joined to work on their presidential campaign, for the SP to run candidates for 2012 means that the people in the Party who would prefer supporting any Democrat for President, (those like McReynolds, who once publicly backed "radical Democrats" [what an oxymoron!]) have not yet taken over. In the SP in 2000 and 2001, there were a bunch of people who really, vigorously opposed the Party's running any candidates, even though the SP's election campaigns are one of the few things that Party does to make the public aware of its existence.

[Revy]

If the internal configuration of the Socialist Party is anything like it was in 2000 when I joined to work on their presidential campaign, for the SP to run candidates for 2012 means that the people in the Party who would prefer supporting any Democrat for President, (those like McReynolds, who once publicly backed "radical Democrats" [what an oxymoron!]) have not yet taken over. In the SP in 2000 and 2001, there were a bunch of people who really, vigorously opposed the Party's running any candidates, even though the SP's election campaigns are one of the few things that Party does to make the public aware of its existence.

Most of those people you refer to left the party in 2007....there was a split and the social democratic tendency within the party no longer exists.

[Thirsty Crow]

It's not political apathy, its the recognisation that the rich run the rich win the poor get fucked again.
Just this brief comment: I don't think it's productive to reduce this fairly complex issue to an either-or situation. Or in other words, I do think, based on my personal experience and communication with like-minded people on this topic, that political apathy is a real phenomenon, and a significant one at that, which is I believe a product of specific circumstances but also one common feature: decades and decades of bourgeois cultural hegemony, producing what we could call a privatization - the more or less total withdrawal of people's attention and actions from public life, an immersion into the private sphere.

Hope that makes sense (though it's all pretty much a speculation; but I think that there is enough of a real basis for it).

[Comrade Funk]

Anything is better than Brian Moore, who ran in a FL Democratic primary btw. :laugh:

Solid ballot I guess.

[The Douche]

Where do these guys lay in the spectrum of the SP? Are they closer to the revolutionaries or the social democrats? What tendencies (if any) have they been involved with/close to?

[Start a Fire]

So, instead of debating about whether voting is useful or not, does anybody actually have anything to say about the candidate? I would love to hear more specifics about his platform, his economic and social beliefs etc. I found a pretty hilarious anti-Stewart Alexander youtube video that features polar bears for some reason:
/watch?v=HIJbjKvSduU

due to my low post count I can't include the whole link; just type in the youtube url and then add what I just posted.
(mods, if you want me to remove the link please ask and I will)

Anyways, this will be the first election I will be old enough to vote in, and I'm sure not voting for Obama. I figure that voting is very easy and not very time consuming, so even if I make a very small impact on somebody's views by discussing my decision to vote, it's worth it. If not, at least I know I've tried.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I
Does anyone really think that a violent revolution is still possible in the advanced capitalist countries? These capitalist states will have a personal surveillance satellite channel and a predator drone assigned to such persons.

I've heard this talking point a lot on this site, and for the life of me I still don't understand it. The revolution we're talking about is not primarily a military question! It's a project of political power involving social and economic forces...the shooting, bombing and rioting is incidental to that.

Is the US military a monolithic force that's completely immune to social forces?

That doesn't mean, however, that the choice people face is, OK, what'll it be, voting or shooting?

[Belleraphone]

Third parties can still have some impact in US government policy. Remember Teddy's progressive party, the abolitionist party, the know-nothing party, ect.

[rundontwalk]

I'm kind of interested in volunteering to help these guys get ballot access here in Texas (tbh, I'm impressed that the VP candidate is from Fort Worth, didn't see that coming). The way I understand it, assuming you got enough signatures, they would be listed as independent candidates. The 80,778 signatures might be a bit tough, but it's certainly doable if you get people in the metro areas involved.

Any other Texans in the house?

[black magick hustla]

most american workers dont vote btw

[KurtFF8]

If there's ever a revolution, the SPUSA won't be leading it (nor will the WWP, the PSL, the RCP, the CPUSA, the IWW, the WPA, the ICC, the ICT, the CWI, the SWP, the...)

What does that have to do with what I said?

[socialistjustin]

Mendoza is a small business owner. Is he self employed or the boss of other workers? I hope we don't hear any love for small business because he's on the ballot.

[Comrade Funk]

Third parties can still have some impact in US government policy. Remember Teddy's progressive party, the abolitionist party, the know-nothing party, ect.Yes, third parties were impactful. In the early 20th century, you had the Populist Party, Progressive Party, and Socialist Party all impacting elections. That was then. The closest thing to that in recent memory was the Green Party in 2000.

[wunderbar]

Then I guess it's good to know you guys are harmless enough to be on mainstream media.

I'm not a SPUSA member. Nice try though.

[zimmerwald1915]

Yes, third parties were impactful. In the early 20th century, you had the Populist Party, Progressive Party, and Socialist Party all impacting elections. That was then. The closest thing to that in recent memory was the Green Party in 2000.
You mean the Green Party played any role in 2000 beyond giving the Democrats the excuse to play the left in opposition?

[Belleraphone]

Yes, third parties were impactful. In the early 20th century, you had the Populist Party, Progressive Party, and Socialist Party all impacting elections. That was then. The closest thing to that in recent memory was the Green Party in 2000.
Which is what I'm saying. Third parties like SPUSA can further our cause by causing the Democrats to appeal more to the progressive/revolutionary Left.

Zimmerwald, in 2000 the Green Party probably had an impact on making the Dems more pro-environment.

[Revy]

Apparently Mendoza was a "last minute recruit" for the VP slot. The VP candidate could have been Cindy Sheehan but that was blocked by the party leadership because she wasn't a dues-paying member.




Alejandro (Alex) Mendoza of Fort Worth, Texas, an ex-Marine and owner of a lawn care business, was named as Alexander’s vice-presidential running mate. The little-known Mendoza, 35, was a last-minute recruit for the party’s second slot.


An attempt earlier in the day to place Cindy Sheehan’s name in nomination for the vice presidency was blocked by national secretary Greg Pason and other party leaders on the grounds that the celebrated antiwar activist — a member of the California-based Peace & Freedom Party — isn’t currently a dues-paying member of the Socialist Party USA.

In rejecting her potential candidacy, the party expressed its gratitude and admiration for Sheehan’s tireless work in the antiwar movement and the struggle for economic justice.

http://www.uncoveredpolitics.com/2011/10/16/socialist-party-taps-stewart-alexander-for-president/

[Broletariat]

I'm not a SPUSA member. Nice try though.

Apologies, the point remains.

[Paulappaul]

owner of a lawn care business

... Is it just me or is that fucked?

[Sugarnotch]

What would you guys think of a standing socialist candidate running for, say, city council?

[CleverTitle]

... Is it just me or is that fucked?
My thoughts exactly. Seems totally crazy.

[AmericanCommie421]

Well, as of now when the U.S. has a two party political system in national, and especially presidential, campaigns the main motivation is obviously to get the message out about their party and also it gives voters another option on the ballot. But regardless of what you believe about the American electoral system, how a Socialism would come to the U.S., etc. There is a chance to get more Socialist candidates in office at least at local levels through the electoral system that benefits working people.

[rundontwalk]

What would you guys think of a standing socialist candidate running for, say, city council?
It's a great idea.

Once you build up enough local support you can start getting Socialist state legislators and what not.

[Dunk]

Great. A business owner socialist. I'm surprised his brain doesn't just fucking combust. This is the just the cherry on top after all the things I've been hearing from the party lately.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Why doesn't the party's left campaign to restrict membership to those in the workforce, purely domestic-labouring spouses of those in the workforce, and pensioners?

[Tablo]

Last minute VP? Surely they had plenty of other people that would have qualified better than a business owner. Then again, I don't know the politics going on within SPUSA.

[rundontwalk]

''Business owner'' could equal self-employed or family business, eh?

[Martin Blank]

Great. A business owner socialist. I'm surprised his brain doesn't just fucking combust. This is the just the cherry on top after all the things I've been hearing from the party lately.

It's not just Mendoza, though. According to his filings for the CA Lt. Governor race in 2006, Alexander is a cleaning company owner and an "automobile sales consultant". Both of the SP's top candidates are business owners.

[Revy]

It's not just Mendoza, though. According to his filings for the CA Lt. Governor race in 2006, Alexander is a cleaning company owner and an "automobile sales consultant". Both of the SP's top candidates are business owners.

Please cite your sources for this.

And automobile sales consultant doesn't sound to me like it is a business owner to me, he may sell cars but he may not own the business.

A search for Stewart Alexander cleaning company turned up nothing but blogs, for that matter, I wonder if Alex Mendoza is even a lawn care business owner, or if that is a mistake by the blog (there are many Alejandro Mendozas in the world). I'm not saying that I know it's not true, but there doesn't seem to be any real evidence that it's true , either.

The ONLY source for Alex Mendoza being a lawn care business owner is a blog called Uncovered Politics. I mean, if the person who wrote it went to the Convention, I will accept it as fact. I'd like to hear from people who were there at the Convention and may have heard him say he was a lawn care business owner.

edit:
I found this from 2006. It only says that Stewart Alexander is an Automobile Sales Consultant.
http://www.sbcounty.gov/rov/current_elections/110706/candidatelist/candidatefiling.html

Selling cars may not be a job glorified by proletarian fetishism (the factory or farm worker) but I think it falls under the category of worker. If he owned a car dealership, why would he be only referred to as Sales Consultant?

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ I think what comrade Miles is referring to are independent, highly paid consultants that sell cars on behalf of various car dealers. You're thinking about mere "sales associates" employed by a single car dealer.


I could see maybe self-employed artisans and artists being in the party, but anyone who owns a business and employs others - that really crosses a line....even if it is a " local, sustainable eco-friendly small business" , still a business....

It would depends on their music income being on the side vs. income derived from being in the workforce. Otherwise you'd have to have self-employed schmucks in other industries be eligible for membership.

[kid communist]

I hate to say it,but I got a feeling the Green Party is gonna have its big break in 2012,but I could always be wrong.Hey,at least one of those Tea Party fascists ain't gonna win,and if they do,I'm gonna kill myself.

[graymouser]

I think all this focus on class background is overlooking the question of program in favor of an extremely crude class determinism. The problem with the SPUSA is not that their presidential candidates don't wear hard hats, overalls and boots; there are plenty of workers with those qualifications whose politics are atrocious. The question is what class you represent in terms of demands, of program and of aims. The shortcomings of the SPUSA are in its program, which is limited to reforms under capitalism, and not in the class character of its political candidates.

[Martin Blank]

Please cite your sources for this.

http://2012.presidential-candidates.org/Alexander/


And automobile sales consultant doesn't sound to me like it is a business owner to me, he may sell cars but he may not own the business.

I wrote: "Alexander is a cleaning company owner and an 'automobile sales consultant'." Very convenient of you to skip the first half of the sentence.


A search for Stewart Alexander cleaning company turned up nothing but blogs, for that matter, I wonder if Alex Mendoza is even a lawn care business owner, or if that is a mistake by the blog (there are many Alejandro Mendozas in the world). I'm not saying that I know it's not true, but there doesn't seem to be any real evidence that it's true , either.

Well, ask them. They are in your party, after all. Better yet, start asking them before they become your locked-in candidates.


edit:
I found this from 2006. It only says that Stewart Alexander is an Automobile Sales Consultant.
http://www.sbcounty.gov/rov/current_elections/110706/candidatelist/candidatefiling.html

Selling cars may not be a job glorified by proletarian fetishism (the factory or farm worker) but I think it falls under the category of worker. If he owned a car dealership, why would he be only referred to as Sales Consultant?

Most of the "sales consultants" are usually independent contractor types who work on commission, not hired wage-laborers. Again, you'll have to ask Alexander about exactly what kind of "consultant" he is.

[Ocean Seal]

If anything what voting allows us to do is to gauge how many socialists there actually are. If we ran on one united ticket we might even be able to accomplish a little propaganda wise. Also its not really that huge of a sacrifice to vote. Just bring your gameboy or something if you get bored on a Tuesday night. Its not going to make a difference, but at least it might help get the word out that socialists actually exist.

[Sensible Socialist]

The way I see it, running a Presidential candidate isn't an either/or scenario than activism on the ground. It's possible to do both, and running for an office (while perhaps giving a bit of legitimacy to the office) won't hurt. It anything, Alexander will be given a larger platform than if he wasn't running, and he could help spread the message of socialism to more people (although I would hope he takes a legitimate socialist line, instead of weak "soft socialism").

[Martin Blank]

I think all this focus on class background is overlooking the question of program in favor of an extremely crude class determinism.

Wow! A two-fer -- a false dichotomy and idealist nonsense in a single sentence!

It's composition and program together that determine whether an organization (or its candidate) is revolutionary proletarian (i.e., communist). When you have organizations that admit bourgeois and petty-bourgeois into membership, you should expect that not only will these elements rise into leading positions (a duplication of society's class-based division of labor) and become leading spokespersons (including electoral candidates), but that they will be attracted by both the contradictory and partial character of such an organization's program and the capacity to take those contradictions and move them in a reformist direction.

[black magick hustla]

to take those contradictions and move them in a reformist direction.

i think this is one of my issues with your politics and what i see a fundamental problem.

for one you think "working class" consciousness exists, in the sense that you can more or less gauge how "workers think" etc etc. i think such argument would have made more sense in 1919 when most workers where mass workers and were more or less subject to very similar working enviroment. today some workers are coffee shop hipsters that rail on about fuckin shitty folk rock and drink wine, and others are bostonite construction workers that wear crew cuts and drink budweiser. i think both groups of people under normal conditions would have a hard time socializing, etcetera. the working class has nothing in common except in revolutionary periods, where their fundamental relationship to the economy unites them in some way. I think this is not just your problem, but a fundamental problem in the left in general - that is why their language is off putting to a lot of people in my generation because they think it makes sense to lump everyone under "one consciousness".

second, the issue of class is much more complex than one's individual perspective. for one, working people form plenty of times reformist organizations, because again, their programmatic concerns are not tied to class unless there is some sort of social rupture. second, when there are many "petit bourgeois" or whatever people in organization, it is more of a symptom, rather than a cause.

third, class is a meaningless category if it is applied to an individual unless you are an oi skinhead. analysis based on class are only consequential when applied to statistically significant groups. its like people making threads about whether soccer players are working class or not. its a dumb mental excersize because soccer players are not politically significant as a segment of the population. similarly, when a group is so small and disconnected from class in general, i.e. SPUSA, or even the ICC, ICT, or WPA - because they are so small and insignificant they are not historically contingent to the class, their class composition will not change one bit a thing, and is certainly not reflective of society in general.

[Lucretia]

Another instance of siphoning potentially revolutionary support in a reformist, electoral direction. How exciting. All we need now is the CPUSA to endorse Obama again, and we have the total leftist package of stupidity.

[Mr. Natural]

#FFOOOO, Lucretia, and Explosive Situation highighted and took exception to my statement, "Does anyone think that violent revolution is still possible in the advanced capitalist countries? The capitalist state will have a personal surveillance satellite channel and a predator drone for such persons."

I stand by the content underlying my melodramatic prose, which pointed to our rapidly developing Orwellian (read 1984; it's happening) Western surveillance-security state nightmare. Capitalism has now enveloped us--our minds as well as our labors--and ELF arson and Black Bloc window-smashing only empower The State. There are many other more principled and intelligent forms of revolutionary violence, of course, but I cannot see them succeeding against capitalism's near-monopoly of violent means.

What my "violent revolution in the West has become impossible" post really stressed, though, was capitalism's systemic mental control of humanity. We all now think within a mental arena of capitalist institutions and practices. The capitalist system is now our mental ecosystem, and the SPUSA's politics are an example of this systemic mindfuck.

The left must become radically smart and active, but it is dumbing down and languishing. I'm not aware of a single left program that is getting any traction anywhere. If there is such a program(s), please enlighten me.

We are facing (but ignoring) the triumph of capitalism as a system--a system that is opposed to life and society. We have become mental and physical parts of the capitalist system's whole, and the inability of RevLefters and other leftists to organize or even think in new ways reflects this reality.

I can see opportunities to organize radically and birth a revolutionary process, though. The "electoral" process I briefly referenced in my original post is actually a grassroots movement of revolutionary community-creation. "Community" in its near-infinite forms is inherently opposed to a capitalist system that destroys social relations/community in its insatiable lust for profit. A living cell--the basis of life--is a community, as are organs and bodies; trees, forests and ecosystems; and families, neighborhoods, farmers' markets, and political parties. Life is created by and composed of self-organized communities, and humanity must learn to organize in community against capitalism.

So the "electoral" revolutionary process I'm pushing actually has to do with learning to organize from the bottom up into various forms of radically aware community. Once this process gets going, it will almost automatically coalesce into local, grassroots political parties, and these local political expressions will then ....

And yes, as Lucretia suggested, the capitalist state, if provoked, could employ predator drones against grassroots activists as well as guerrillas, but that's the situation in which we find ourselves. We must intelligently avoid instigating such reactions from the state, and I believe we can learn to develop radical, democratic forms of community within The System and take it from there. In any case, Marx noted after the defeat of the Paris Commune (or was it after the failure of the 1848 revolutions?), that the changed circumstances required revolutionaries to be "bold in matter, mild in manner."

The above remarks are sketchy, and there is much, much meat I can add to them. Do other RevLefters have alternative revolutionary scenarios?

My red-green best.

[graymouser]

Wow! A two-fer -- a false dichotomy and idealist nonsense in a single sentence!

It's composition and program together that determine whether an organization (or its candidate) is revolutionary proletarian (i.e., communist). When you have organizations that admit bourgeois and petty-bourgeois into membership, you should expect that not only will these elements rise into leading positions (a duplication of society's class-based division of labor) and become leading spokespersons (including electoral candidates), but that they will be attracted by both the contradictory and partial character of such an organization's program and the capacity to take those contradictions and move them in a reformist direction.
And this does nothing but reinforce the fact that your politics are hip-deep in crude economic determinism. Reformism does not primarily come from the petty bourgeoisie in workers' parties; for the most part it comes out of the leaders of the labor movement - the ones De Leon correctly called the "labor fakirs" - compromising programmatically with the class enemy. This is not a phenomenon that happens in the economic base but in the superstructure, in links between the labor bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie. You wind up papering over the entire complex linkage between reformists and the bourgeoisie by reducing the problem to a simple one of membership.

What is interesting is that you call the primacy of program "idealist." A program is revolutionary or not based on its class content - which class's interests does it move forward? Inherently, the class content is not determined by individuals but by relationship to the class struggle in the broad sense (that is, the overarching political struggle between classes). Therefore it is possible for a petty bourgeois or bourgeois to cast aside the program of their own class and take up that of the working class.

Getting back to the topic at hand, and illustrating thereby: would the SPUSA campaign be any different if the party consisted only of wage workers? Not particularly. But would it be any different if the program of the SPUSA was one of revolutionary socialism? Well, yeah. There is nothing magical about working for a wage that makes someone realize their class interests more clearly. A change in program is a recognition of the scientific nature of socialism and the need to study the world as we find it and struggle to change it. If some of the allies we find are not simon pure workers, but are willing to take up a working class point of view, we should support them as long as they do so. This change of viewpoint is capable of actual transcendence of one's own class position. And just about every major socialist theoretician of almost any school of thought has provided ample proof of this.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Vice Presidential candidate looks kind of like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad... O.o

[eyeheartlenin]

So, if I read the posts in this thread correctly, the Socialist Party has just nominated, not one, but two capitalists, business owners, as its candidates for President and Vice President in the 2012 elections. This means that the SP is calling on workers, the exploited, and the poor, the oppressed, to vote for capitalists, which is the same thing the Democrats and Republicans are doing for 2012, which makes the SP no alternative for workers in the 2012 elections. The poor SP'ers, it's all just beyond them!

[Libertador]

Democracy* is not the road to Socialism. The Capitalists will never allow that.

*Democracy as in common parlance, not in actual theory.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

*Democracy as in common parlance, not in actual theory.
Very true. What we have in the west certainly is not democracy, which is why I don't support the otherwise sensical reformist socialism.

[Revy]

I asked people who were there.

Mendoza said he was the owner and only employee of the business. You can't consider him a capitalist or an exploiter.

[Martin Blank]

for one you think "working class" consciousness exists, in the sense that you can more or less gauge how "workers think" etc etc. i think such argument would have made more sense in 1919 when most workers where mass workers and were more or less subject to very similar working enviroment. today some workers are coffee shop hipsters that rail on about fuckin shitty folk rock and drink wine, and others are bostonite construction workers that wear crew cuts and drink budweiser. i think both groups of people under normal conditions would have a hard time socializing, etcetera. the working class has nothing in common except in revolutionary periods, where their fundamental relationship to the economy unites them in some way. I think this is not just your problem, but a fundamental problem in the left in general - that is why their language is off putting to a lot of people in my generation because they think it makes sense to lump everyone under "one consciousness".

The working class is not a singular monolithic bloc; there are broad divisions and levels of "consciousness" within the various strata of the class. At the same time, there is a common viewpoint that workers develop on the definite relations between workers and the rest of society: "My job sucks, my boss sucks, the world sucks,...". I tend to think it's fair to call this a rudimentary class consciousness -- it's visceral, amorphous, individualized and apolitical, but it exists across all strata of the working class. The fact that they don't always socialize (there are rare instances where it happens on an individual level, but, yes, outside of common struggle, it doesn't happen on a mass level) is not really material to the question, though. The fact is that, whether they are coffeehouse baristas or construction workers, they are part of the same class: in the broad sense, they have fundamentally similar relations to the means of production, and to other classes, within the same mode of production. This means there are shared perspectives when it comes to shared experiences. To say that "the working class has nothing in common except in revolutionary periods" is to turn Marx on his head; it turns class into a subjective and idealist category, completely divorced from material conditions and society itself.


second, the issue of class is much more complex than one's individual perspective. for one, working people form plenty of times reformist organizations, because again, their programmatic concerns are not tied to class unless there is some sort of social rupture. second, when there are many "petit bourgeois" or whatever people in organization, it is more of a symptom, rather than a cause.

"Working people form plenty of times reformist organizations". Point one out to me. Seriously.

Ninety-nine times out of 100, it is not workers themselves who are forming these "reformist organizations", but "friend-of-labor" elements from the petty bourgeoisie -- philanthropic "vanguard" elements, mid- and high-level union bureaucrats, aspiring politicians, meddlers and reformers, learned academics, etc. -- who drag sections of the working class behind them like a big bag of shit. Labor parties, labor unions (above the local level), most left groups and the like are usually creatures of one or another element of the "friend-of-labor" petty bourgeoisie (and bourgeoisie!), and are not "formed" -- i.e., conceived of, established and led -- by workers themselves.

This is why I disagree with your assessment that "when there are many 'petit bourgeois' or whatever people in organization, it is more of a symptom, rather than a cause". I have repeatedly pointed out that it is not an "either/or" proposition -- that it is not a one-way street. Indeed, the very post that prompted your reply was me saying that it is both a symptom and cause: it is a symptom in the sense that the contradictions in program lead to the development of a cross-class party; it is a cause in the sense that such a development means that contradiction can only be resolved in one of two ways -- either the non-proletarian elements are removed in order to preserve the integrity of the program, or the program is changed to suit the needs of the non-proletarians.

"The issue of class is much more complex than one's individual perspective". That's true, but you seem to forget that we are not mere individuals; we are a part of, and a product of, class society as a whole. That interrelationship between the individual and the social leads to your next set of comments....


third, class is a meaningless category if it is applied to an individual unless you are an oi skinhead. analysis based on class are only consequential when applied to statistically significant groups. its like people making threads about whether soccer players are working class or not. its a dumb mental excersize because soccer players are not politically significant as a segment of the population. similarly, when a group is so small and disconnected from class in general, i.e. SPUSA, or even the ICC, ICT, or WPA - because they are so small and insignificant they are not historically contingent to the class, their class composition will not change one bit a thing, and is certainly not reflective of society in general.

This is a false comparison, and indicative of how post-modernism is affecting your thinking. Again, you are looking at society as little more than a collection of atomized individuals -- indeed, as if there is no society itself, unless we are in a moment of revolutionary upheaval. Even though our organization is very small, we are still part of the working class, and we bring to the organization those collective experiences -- not just those we have personally experienced, but also those we've learned over the course of generations. Your argument boils down to a rejection of any kind of consciousness that doesn't arrive spontaneously at the moment of upheaval. That is a pessimistic and defeatist view that sees socially-progressive revolutionary change as physically impossible; it places the unconscious riot or rebellion at the pinnacle of collective human action and completely rejects the idea of organized struggle of any type -- political, economic, cultural or social.

In the final analysis, this viewpoint is thoroughly reformist, since it rejects revolutionary consciousness, revolutionary organization and revolutionary struggle as being beyond the bounds of human thought or action, leaving only the groveling for piecemeal reforms from the exploiting and oppressing classes. Now, if this is where you're at, then you really should say so. It might mean restriction to OI, but that's where reformists belong ... and you know that.


And this does nothing but reinforce the fact that your politics are hip-deep in crude economic determinism. Reformism does not primarily come from the petty bourgeoisie in workers' parties; for the most part it comes out of the leaders of the labor movement - the ones De Leon correctly called the "labor fakirs" - compromising programmatically with the class enemy. This is not a phenomenon that happens in the economic base but in the superstructure, in links between the labor bureaucracy and the bourgeoisie. You wind up papering over the entire complex linkage between reformists and the bourgeoisie by reducing the problem to a simple one of membership.

"Reformism does not primarily come from the petty bourgeoisie in workers' parties; for the most part it comes out of the leaders of the labor movement ... compromising programmatically with the class enemy". I honestly don't know whether to laugh or cry at this.

Who are these "leaders of the labor movement", in class terms? Are they workers? I think few would venture to classify the "loyal labor lieutenants of capital" (DeLeon's phrase) as such ... and they would nevertheless be wrong. No, these "leaders of the labor movement" are part of the petty bourgeoisie. They represent a fifth column in the labor movement because that is their job; they are organizers of exploitation at the point of production, working alongside management to maintain social peace for a given period of time (i.e., the lifespan of a union contract). They are a petty-bourgeois reaction to proletarian action -- a product of the class struggle meant to stifle the development of a genuine proletarian revolutionary movement.

On a good day (for workers, that is), they merely "compromis[e] programmatically with the class enemy". In this period, they do fundamentally more than "compromise", programmatically or otherwise; they work to increase the profits of the employing classes at the expense of the working class. They act as spies and police on the shopfloor, singling out and helping to isolate "troublemakers". As long as they keep getting their dues checkoff every week or two, the union officials are happy. (It was when this last thing was threatened by Walker in Wisconsin that the union officials suddenly discovered the need to fight.)

"You wind up papering over the entire complex linkage between reformists and the bourgeoisie by reducing the problem to a simple one of membership". Well, I know someone in this conversation is acting as a two-bit paperhanger, but it isn't me. I fully understand the relationship among classes, including that of the petty-bourgeois union officialdom and their bourgeois masters. I also understand the relationships within classes, such as that between those same union officials and management. All you're looking at are the forms and outward appearance, not the root content. This is where you (and oh-so-many others!) start your paperhanging. You ignore class questions and class relations -- the base social relations of capitalist class society. Material conditions have no bearing on how you see these questions. Case in point:...


What is interesting is that you call the primacy of program "idealist." A program is revolutionary or not based on its class content - which class's interests does it move forward? Inherently, the class content is not determined by individuals but by relationship to the class struggle in the broad sense (that is, the overarching political struggle between classes). Therefore it is possible for a petty bourgeois or bourgeois to cast aside the program of their own class and take up that of the working class.

"What is interesting is that you call the primacy of program 'idealist'." Let me clarify (and you can quote me on this): It is not only idealist, but also completely subjective. That is, program, as you appear to see it, is reduced to a matter of individual opinion and has no grounding in material reality. The RCP are masters at this concept; it is what fuels their cult of personality around Bob Avakian. It is why they see class politics as just another kind of "identity politics" -- the flip-side of the petty-bourgeois democratic "constitutency coalition" coin. They, too, think that "it is possible for a petty bourgeois or bourgeois [or lumpenized elements] to cast aside the program of their own class and take up that of the working class" without any change in their material conditions -- i.e., their social being.

Marx was fond of saying that social being determines consciousness. This concept was at the core of the entire communist understanding of classes, class antagonisms and class society. For him, and for us, the communist political program is partly a distillation of "the class struggle in the broad sense" -- "the overarching political struggle between classes" -- into principles and perspective. But a program is more than a sterile or academic analysis of the broad strokes of class society; program is also a guide to action for the working class. It goes from the general understanding of capitalist class society to the specific dynamics of the current time and place in which you operate, and back to the general, in the form of lessons learned, which are expressed as principles, strategy and tactics (the platform of action); it does not stop halfway.

This is why it is not possible "for a petty bourgeois or bourgeois to cast aside the program of their own class and take up that of the working class" without themselves joining the working class. At best, such elements can only produce an abstract and academic "program" that has no real relationship to the working class. That inherent contradiction within this kind of program is what allows bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology to alter it -- such ideology brought into an ostensible workers' organization by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements, who act as transmission belts.

Having this understanding, far from "papering over" class relationships, actually rips the papered-over facade off of these social relations and exposes them to the light.


Getting back to the topic at hand, and illustrating thereby: would the SPUSA campaign be any different if the party consisted only of wage workers? Not particularly. But would it be any different if the program of the SPUSA was one of revolutionary socialism? Well, yeah.

This doesn't even make sense. If the SPUSA was composed only of workers, then, yes, obviously, the campaign would be different. For starters, they wouldn't have two business owners as their lead candidates. That alone is a fundamental difference. An all-workers SPUSA, especially if it was starting from scratch, would likely be clearer in its principles and platform, and would not be hedging its bets between reform and revolution. But again, it's not an "either/or" proposition. It's both program and composition that matter -- as I have repeatedly said.

In fact, I've said it so many times in so many threads that I can only conclude that such comments as those made by graymouser are conscious distortions of our position and not a simple misunderstanding -- an attempt at inoculation against our political viewpoint.


There is nothing magical about working for a wage that makes someone realize their class interests more clearly. A change in program is a recognition of the scientific nature of socialism and the need to study the world as we find it and struggle to change it.

"There is nothing magical about working for a wage that makes someone realize their class interests more clearly". That whirring sound you hear in the background is Marx spinning in his grave like an electric lathe.

It's not magic we're talking about here; it's material conditions. It was not for nothing that Marx and Engels called the working class "the only really revolutionary class". They understood that workers' material conditions -- their social being -- shaped their consciousness in such a way that the class itself was revolutionary. They adamantly rejected any suggestion that other classes were really revolutionary, emphasizing that, at best, they can only be unstable and unreliable allies, in it for their own preservation and self-interest. Even when it came to individuals, Marx and Engels understood that behind them stood the whole of class society. This meant that even an individual worker, by dint of their relations in society (their material conditions and social being), could better understand and "realize their class interests more clearly". Again, social being determines consciousness.


If some of the allies we find are not simon pure workers, but are willing to take up a working class point of view, we should support them as long as they do so.

I don't disagree. But it's one thing to support and work with non-proletarian elements; we do that with our Supporters' Organization every day. It is another thing entirely to open the doors of membership to non-proletarians, especially when organizations are small and vulnerable to programmatic distortion by these elements.


This change of viewpoint is capable of actual transcendence of one's own class position.

And you accuse me of magic?! I've said it before and I'll say it again: Idealist nonsense!

But, y'know, I understand why such a view exists, and graymouser is not the only one who swallows this ideology whole. This is the whole basis for the bankrupt theory of "de-classed intellectuals" promoted by Karl Kautsky and Vladimir Lenin. Just as Stalin created the "theory" of a socialist mode of production that existed between capitalism and communism as a means of justifying the existence of the Soviet bureaucracy and state, so Kautsky and Lenin created and promoted this "theory" of de-classed intellectuals that can stand outside of their social being and aid the working class as a means of justifying their own presence within the workers' movement. It was a convenient "theory", that is certain. And there is little doubt in my mind that this "theory" is the basis for graymouser saying:


And just about every major socialist theoretician of almost any school of thought has provided ample proof of this.

Answering this comment is a thread all by itself. It's definitely something that can be disproven, but doing so would completely divert and derail this thread. So, I'll just end it here for now.

[Martin Blank]

Mendoza said he was the owner and only employee of the business. You can't consider him a capitalist or an exploiter.

He's a petty-bourgeois small business owner, like Alexander.

[graymouser]

Miles, I'm sorry and while this deserves a lengthier reply I do not have time today.

But you cannot sit here and use the work of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals who transcended their own class position exactly as I described - on a programmatic basis - to defend why bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals cannot do so! It makes no sense. By your own lights and your own method you should have thrown the petty bourgeois professor/journalist Marx and the bourgeois professor and actual capitalist Engels straight out the window, and you also should have nothing to do with the lights of a lawyer like De Leon (how different, honestly, from a lawyer like Lenin?). If people couldn't do exactly what you say they cannot, you wouldn't be able to put together your reasons why. "Being determines consciousness" is a general law, applicable at broad statistical levels, but it is obvious that it breaks down in difficult and often contradictory ways when you try to apply it at an individual level. Just as gravity which describes large bodies breaks down at the quantum level.

The other substantive point in Miles's post that needs to be dismissed entirely is his handwaving of program as somehow being "opinion." Program is something deeply related to the class struggle and the living situation - and in point of fact, the quasi-De Leonist viewpoint he is trying to revive (albeit with the addition of a crude proletarian fetishism) is much more programmatically disconnected than the Trotskyist tradition even in its worse incarnations.

[black magick hustla]

ill reply with a lengthier reply but


In the final analysis, this viewpoint is thoroughly reformist, since it rejects revolutionary consciousness, revolutionary organization and revolutionary struggle as being beyond the bounds of human thought or action, leaving only the groveling for piecemeal reforms from the exploiting and oppressing classes. Now, if this is where you're at, then you really should say so. It might mean restriction to OI, but that's where reformists belong ... and you know that.


lol. this is all strawmen. i do think orgs have a place in this society, but

1) probably most of the left today will be swept away by new forms of organizations that have nothing to do with todays sects.

2) orgs size and strength, if they are truly tied to the historicicity of the class grow strong and big due to the ascendance of the class, not the other way around.

3) the whole issue about "program" is more complex than "piece meal demands" or whatever you are putting in my mouth. i think people will fight for communism when they are forced by circumstances to do so. this is why i think there is no point of diluting the "communist line" in non-revolutionary periods, because communist orgs should not be pedagogical organizations that necessarily deal with immediate demands, but they deal with the fight for communism. but evangelism is not what is going to lead to people fight for communism.

also "revolutionary periods" is too strong of a term, working class "consciousness" emerges in periods of heightened class struggle and social rupture.

[Lucretia]

I think people are still pissed about the last craptacular candidate that the SPUSA put forward. Between them, the CPUSA's capitulation to the democratic party, and now the largest Leninist party publishing explicitly reformist articles in its theoretical journal, it's very easy for a leftist to become cranky on web forums. The only decent, potentially revolutionary work being done is by young aspiring hippies "occupying urban centers" in the name of amorphous liberal goals, or Stalinist blowhards who mistake "dictatorship of the proletariat" with simple dictatorship. I'll leave it for you all to identify who the last two parties are.

[Martin Blank]

Miles, I'm sorry and while this deserves a lengthier reply I do not have time today.

I can understand and appreciate that. After all, it took me a couple days to respond to you and black magick hustla. Nevertheless, let me respond to a couple of points you raise here.


But you cannot sit here and use the work of bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals who transcended their own class position exactly as I described - on a programmatic basis - to defend why bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals cannot do so! It makes no sense. By your own lights and your own method you should have thrown the petty bourgeois professor/journalist Marx and the bourgeois professor and actual capitalist Engels straight out the window, and you also should have nothing to do with the lights of a lawyer like De Leon (how different, honestly, from a lawyer like Lenin?).

In our analysis of the development of class relations, which is the foundation for our proletarian separatist position, we acknowledge that there was a time when elements from other classes could become consistent, reliable allies of the working class. During the ascendancy and development of industrial capitalism, when all classes were still in the process of coalescing and being "perfected" for this mode of production, it certainly was possible for elements from the generation of Marx and Engels to become allies. However, this began to change as capitalism consolidated itself. Over succeeding generations, both bourgeois and petty-bourgeois elements ceased being relatively reliable allies and began to be a fetter on the development of the workers' movement. This is what prompted Marx and Engels to begin advocating the restriction of participation of non-proletarian elements in workers' organizations, such as the IWMA and the German Social-Democratic Workers' Party. (Both NHIA and I have posted numerous times the quotes by Marx and Engels on this issue, so there's no point in repeating them here.)

Two particular milestones marked a fundamental change in the development of the petty bourgeoisie: first, the introduction of Taylorism into the economy and, second, the rise of the social welfare state (the New Deal, Keynesianism, the "social-democratic consensus", etc.).

The introduction of Taylorism into the economy transformed the relationship between the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie at the point of production; "scientific management" of industry put the economy under the practical control of the petty bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie may have continued to own the capital, but the petty bourgeoisie made sure the capital continued to exist, grow and circulate. The bourgeois surrendered their day-to-day control over the economy to the petty bourgeois, allowing them the freedom to do what they wished; in return, the bourgeoisie agreed to give the petty bourgeoisie stabilization through a series of political and economic measures that guaranteed a steady stream of managers, technicians, independent professionals, bureaucrats and petty officials in future generations.

The rise of the social welfare state transformed the role of the capitalist political system in relation to society. Whether it was relatively limited (the New Deal) or comprehensive (the "social-democratic consensus"), it consolidated the establishment of the democratic republic. This was a case of the democratic petty bourgeoisie, following in the wake of the bourgeoisie, carrying the construction of bourgeois society to its logical conclusion. The implementation of progressive taxation (income tax, luxury tax, capital gains, etc.), the establishment of the FDIC and authorization of credit unions, restrictions on interest rates, the estate tax and probate-court oversight of inheritance, a minimum wage, legalization of unionization and collective bargaining, Social Security and pensions, Medicare and Medicaid, food stamps, public assistance, and so on and so on, were all products of this carrying of the construction of bourgeois society to its logical conclusion.

(For our intrepid SPUSA comrades reading this exchange, the above should be seen as food for thought, when it comes to their party's platform.)

While Marx and Engels could not foresee the development of Taylorism and its transformation of the social relations between the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie at the point of production, they did understand the implications of the petty-bourgeois democrats rising to power and carrying the construction of bourgeois society to its logical conclusion as a democratic republic. Engels' 1875 letter to Bebel (normally included as an appendix or prologue to Critique of the Gotha Programme) includes this kind of transformation in the very short list of conditions under which the Lassallean dictum -- "in relation to the working class all other classes are only one reactionary mass" -- would be true (the other would be "the case of a revolution by the proletariat, e.g. the Commune" -- again, food for thought).

Because of this understanding, we have no reason to feel conflicted over adhering to the communist methodology of Marx and Engels and, at the same time, being proletarian separatists. The time when class society could raise up a Marx or Engels has passed; the material conditions have changed qualitatively since the 19th century, and we recognize that fact.


If people couldn't do exactly what you say they cannot, you wouldn't be able to put together your reasons why. "Being determines consciousness" is a general law, applicable at broad statistical levels, but it is obvious that it breaks down in difficult and often contradictory ways when you try to apply it at an individual level. Just as gravity which describes large bodies breaks down at the quantum level.

Nice try, but much of this has already been answered, both in my comments above and in my last post (directed at black magick hustla). Individuals are not disconnected from class society.


The other substantive point in Miles's post that needs to be dismissed entirely is his handwaving of program as somehow being "opinion." Program is something deeply related to the class struggle and the living situation - and in point of fact, the quasi-De Leonist viewpoint he is trying to revive (albeit with the addition of a crude proletarian fetishism) is much more programmatically disconnected than the Trotskyist tradition even in its worse incarnations.

So, umm, workplace committees, revolutionary industrial unions and workers' councils are "programmatically disconnected" from the class struggle? Really?

And what is your alternative? If the history of the early USSR is any judge, it is one-person management, labor discipline and toothless labor organizations subordinated to the state. Well, I guess that, under the current conditions, you could call that alternative more "programmatically connected" to today's situation. But I sure as hell wouldn't be proud of that fact.

[Die Neue Zeit]

To say that "the working class has nothing in common except in revolutionary periods" is to turn Marx on his head; it turns class into a subjective and idealist category, completely divorced from material conditions and society itself.


This is a false comparison, and indicative of how post-modernism is affecting your thinking. Again, you are looking at society as little more than a collection of atomized individuals -- indeed, as if there is no society itself, unless we are in a moment of revolutionary upheaval. Even though our organization is very small, we are still part of the working class, and we bring to the organization those collective experiences -- not just those we have personally experienced, but also those we've learned over the course of generations. Your argument boils down to a rejection of any kind of consciousness that doesn't arrive spontaneously at the moment of upheaval. That is a pessimistic and defeatist view that sees socially-progressive revolutionary change as physically impossible; it places the unconscious riot or rebellion at the pinnacle of collective human action and completely rejects the idea of organized struggle of any type -- political, economic, cultural or social.

In the final analysis, this viewpoint is thoroughly reformist, since it rejects revolutionary consciousness, revolutionary organization and revolutionary struggle as being beyond the bounds of human thought or action, leaving only the groveling for piecemeal reforms from the exploiting and oppressing classes. Now, if this is where you're at, then you really should say so. It might mean restriction to OI, but that's where reformists belong ... and you know that.

Does this board have a policy towards nihilists of the political or anti-political sort now? That's what he has become, despite the words not being posted.

How slippery the slope from spontaneism to nihilism! I mean, whatever happened to the rejected but more "positive outlook" spontaneity of masses of workers spontaneously engaging in class-conscious political struggle before a politically revolutionary period?

[black magick hustla]

Does this board have a policy towards nihilists of the political or anti-political sort now? That's what he has become, despite the words not being posted.

How slippery the slope from spontaneism to nihilism! I mean, whatever happened to the rejected but more "positive outlook" spontaneity of masses of workers spontaneously engaging in class-conscious political struggle before a politically revolutionary period?

nihilist communist motherfuckers. rather throw my lot with criminals, "bakuninists", and hooligans than bureacrats, the ceasar, the kke, or whatever the fuck you rail on about

[black magick hustla]

only social midgets and cookie cutter doctrinaires like you would mistake my politics for nihilism

[Die Neue Zeit]

nihilist communist motherfuckers

I was asking him a rhetoric question. :glare: :rolleyes:

[Rocky Rococo]

Owner of a lawn care business could mean he's a guy with a truck and a lawnmower. Usually that IS the case.

[X5N]

If shouting in the streets isn't doing anything, whispering in the voting booths sure as HELL isn't going to do anything.

Most people have already moved on and realised voting is pointless, socialists really should drop the campaigning tactics and catch up.

I don't think that would be very beneficial.

The reason most of our politicians are old, distant capitalists is because most of the people who could bring real change are too apathetic to run for office, and the people who would support that candidate are too apathetic to vote.

However, I think running a socialist presidential campaign is pointless. The SPUSA, and other alternative parties in the U.S., should focus on local elections. Because...

1) Candidates of alternative parties have a better chance of winning. Despite the dismal performance of most candidates of the Green Party in most "important" elections, for example, there are 132 Greens in local office, as well as many more members of other third parties, and perhaps many more independents.

2) Local government probably has the most influence over people's daily lives.

3) It's easier to get elected to higher office when you have some prior experience in office.

[eyeheartlenin]

... most of the people who could bring real change are too apathetic to run for office ... The SPUSA, and other alternative parties in the U.S., should focus on local elections. Because...

1) Candidates of alternative parties have a better chance of winning. Despite the dismal performance of most candidates of the Green Party in most "important" elections, for example, there are 132 Greens in local office, as well as many more members of other third parties, and perhaps many more independents.

2) Local government probably has the most influence over people's daily lives.

3) It's easier to get elected to higher office when you have some prior experience in office.

In response to the post above, I just wanted to say that

(1) "real change" in a society comes about through class struggle, not elections. A "real change" would require the overthrow of the exploiting class and the destruction of its state, i.e., the defeat of the existing repressive forces. I do not think social progress is in the cards as long as the exploiters are in control. It seems to me that what we are witnessing is the galloping impoverishment of working people. If voting could change something like that, it would be illegal.

In addition, from what I've read, a lot of the "132 Greens in local office" ran as Democrats, and I would be willing to bet that "members of ... third parties" who win elections, count on the support of Democrats, which means those "third party" incumbents will have to govern like budget-cutting Democrats (Obama!), to stay in office.

(2) In the brutal cop attack on Occupiers in Oakland, one can see the effect of "local government" on "people's daily lives." "Local government" is part of what has to be smashed, the repressive state that serves the owning, employing class.

(3) I think revolutionary groups run in elections in order to talk to more workers, the one class with the power to effect real change. Power to change society is found in the streets; the ballot box is a distraction and a source of illusions about change, as the election of Obama showed.

[craigd89]

If shouting in the streets isn't doing anything, whispering in the voting booths sure as HELL isn't going to do anything.

Most people have already moved on and realised voting is pointless, socialists really should drop the campaigning tactics and catch up.
Catch up with what exactly?

[Sosa]

As for a "leaderless feel," I don't see why that would be a positive thing at all. I'm a firm believer in Jo Freeman's essay "The Tyranny of Structurelessness (http://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm)" and think that not having formal leadership may be a positive "feel" for some people but in reality it means that a leadership exists but is not accessible nor accountable to democratic pressure. And I don't think it's particularly useful as an approach.



Here's a good critique of that essay:

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=review-structurelessness

[graymouser]

Here's a good critique of that essay:

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=review-structurelessness
That is a rant, not a critique. It spends all of its time making attacks on the psychological state of Jo Freeman and anyone who approves of her essay, and fails to actually take apart the problems she raises, instead preferring to critique a few of the terms she uses (such as the "Star" system).

The Tyranny of Structurelessness was a serious critique aimed at getting a movement out of a dead end it found itself in. The anonymous author of your critique is interested in leading movements everywhere back into that dead end - and keeping them there. It uses invective, accusations and innuendo, and there is no substantive political core to even discuss. Why on earth would you post that as a "good" critique?

[Azraella]

There is a lot to chew on in this thread, but I'll give my opinions about voting:

It is vitally important that you vote. It will have very little effect on anything but it is the most fundamental act in any democratic community. As long as there is an election the candidate who wins the majority of the votes cast will win, no matter how small the turnout. Even if nobody voted there would still be a government. If nobody chooses who forms the government then somebody will simply seize power*. It is very unlikely that such a thing will ever happen in reality. Democratic capitalist societies do not spontaneously mutate into free societies without government or coercion, only in daydreams. The real world is one in which governments grow in power and influence unless checked by democratic pressures to resist such unplanned growth. Government will grow like a cancer if unchecked, it is therefore vitally important that people who care about how government should be checked get involved in the process. If you do not vote you do not deserve any say in what happens around you.

*I however think the only way out of this mess is through revolution. I'm not sure if we are ready for that step, but revolution will have to occur for communism to take root.

[Tim Finnegan]

i think this is one of my issues with your politics and what i see a fundamental problem.

for one you think "working class" consciousness exists, in the sense that you can more or less gauge how "workers think" etc etc. i think such argument would have made more sense in 1919 when most workers where mass workers and were more or less subject to very similar working enviroment. today some workers are coffee shop hipsters that rail on about fuckin shitty folk rock and drink wine, and others are bostonite construction workers that wear crew cuts and drink budweiser. i think both groups of people under normal conditions would have a hard time socializing, etcetera. the working class has nothing in common except in revolutionary periods, where their fundamental relationship to the economy unites them in some way. I think this is not just your problem, but a fundamental problem in the left in general - that is why their language is off putting to a lot of people in my generation because they think it makes sense to lump everyone under "one consciousness".
I'm not even sure if it's a particularly new problem. In most of the developed countries in that period, and certainly in the UK and US, there were always enough domestic, service and white collar workers around to stop blue collar workers being an overwhelming majority. The change doesn't seem to be that the working class as a whole has ceased to be homogenous, because it never really was, but that there aren't any sections of it which are sufficiently large and homogenous enough to attribute to it any role as the "core" of the working class, as was historically attributed to blue collar workers; nobody you can appoint as the "standard worker" and treat the rest as a derivative of. What implications that has, I'm not sure, although, as you say, these things tend to make themselves clearer when revolutionary situations actually emerge.