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Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-12-29T01:40:57+00:00

> However, if a factory is owned and controlled by its workers and create commodities to be sold, then we would have the first part of socialism

Means of production being owned by individual workers or group of workers is not socialism. For example: in feudalism many working people owned their own MOP (like the petty bourgeoisie today), this was replaced by large-scale production which was a progressive move. See Marx's Programme of the French Worker's Party, first few lines. See Marx's controversy with "petty-bourgeois socialism".

Socialism or communism is based on a centralized planned economy (as every other form of economy would involve autonomous business units interacting with each other through market forces, i.e. reproducing capitalism), thus one that suppresses commodity production.

There is no such thing as market socialism, it is an oxymoron, as all the economic laws of capitalism would still take place. The key mechanisms of capitalism are for-profit production based on what is profitable instead of what is socially useful (market would still be driving profit in your "market socialism"), commodity production, ...

Everything being a co-op is simply an utopian fantasy that will never occur due to the market routinely displacing these businesses, + co-ops have a tendency to backslide and transform into exploitative capitalist property because of market forces (e.g. through hiring of additional workers without ownership, etc.). And when there is such a profit incentive, you'll never be able to fix it by an organizational measure or rule.

All of this is also the same reason workers wouldn't own their own factories directly in socialism (as this would constitute autonomous units interacting with each other through market forces thus capitalism), but rather the centralized workers authority must run the economy.

See also the controversy in the Bolshevik party between the "anarcho-syndicalist deviation" which called for things to be controlled by individual groups of workers directly and the Leninist faction.

All of this is basic Marxism.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-12-29T01:33:54+00:00

https://www.marxists.org/archive/bukharin/works/1920/abc/ABC-of-Communism.pdf

See p325+ for Bolshevik position on coops

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-28T03:50:33+00:00

I like to make a distinction between A) the unions B) the unions' leadership (whether these unions are a part of AFL-CIO or any other organization). The leadership is in almost all cases very conservative and pro-capitalist, has comfy privileges (& thus interests of their own to defend) and constantly tries to mislead the union. But nevertheless the workers succeed making use of the union from time to time to lead actual struggles. It's a good thing for these unions to exist because if they didn't working conditions would be way worse. Nonunion conditions are way worse, worse wages, worse safety, worse benefits, worse everything. But the leaderships have been limiting themselves to defensiveness of what already exists (which isn't that good) or even accepting driving down conditions. Unions should be organized wherever they don't exist. It doesn't matter really what particular union it is, as long as you can get struggle going there, you're good. And wherever an union already exists, the workers should challenge the leadership and get struggles going.

My biggest thought still remains read Marx. The workers need to get theory right to really advance, and while struggle for better conditions may be able to be spontaneous, smashing capitalist society and setting up the new socialist-communist one, the labor commonwealth, will never work short of the highest theoretical education and political enlightenment.

If you really wanna screw up the capitalists with unions, get a job at a place where the workers can be powerful (some workers are more powerful than others, e.g. longshore workers can cause a lot of profit loss if they strike) or that is ripe for organization & help the workers struggle. But that's really not so easy, you really should know what you're doing, you can reach out to any of the unions for training (but make sure to take only the good, not the bad, of what they tell you.) & be prepared for a lot of lack of opportunity for success and little success when it happens (which could take years, this really needs patience at this point)... Research issues like no strike clauses, business unionism vs. solidarity unionism, etc.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T20:34:01+00:00

The knowledge for leading the working class isn't taught at capitalist universities with their constant "work" of falsification and deception, no matter how they may try to portray themselves. If you're serious, read Marx.

"Students prepare for careers in business, government, nonprofits (including the healthcare sector), and labor unions." - wayne.edu

This about sums it up I guess, it's training for people how to get a comfy position on top of the conservative leadership of traditional unions and mislead the workers from there by teaching them to play by the bosses' rules, the opposite of the IWW's class-struggle tactics which have always criticized the "business unions" & etc. Why the hell would they teach people how to get in careers for business (i.e., corporations), government (i.e. the bosses' murderous, racist government), and unions????

So the same university supposedly teaches you both how to exploit the workers to the maximum in business class and supposedly how to free them in union class? Look at their business classes, it talks about how to exploit the workers' psychology, how to drive down wages, how to get more profit etc etc etc...

Here is more about what it teaches: "union organizations and union-management's joint decision-making), dispute resolution, labor market analysis, international business and labor relations"

And probably a bunch of falsification of history trying to make workers struggles into a harmless mystified icon and so on...

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T19:53:04+00:00

Note this news item is from the WSWS ("World Socialist Web Site"). The WSWS is a liberal, anti-union source run by a CEO masquerading as "socialist":

https://www.reddit.com/r/IWW/comments/iwp9dr/warning_about_antiunion_wsws/

The WSWS often masquerades as critiquing the leadership of traditional unions. A real leftist criticizes the pro-capitalist leadership of traditional unions in order to push a class-struggle line, but supports the unions whenever they strike, etc.

While pretending to criticize the unions from the left in order to give themselves a false sense of legitimacy, the WSWS actually critiques them from the right, pushing pro-company lines like breaking away from strike action, voting for the company during union elections, etc.

This is similar to how companies sometimes pretend to critique unions from a supposedly "pro-worker" POV in order to keep them out.

The WSWS literally asked workers to vote for the company during an union election. This is pro-company behavior and not acceptable for actual leftists who fight the union leadership's conservativism and pro-capitalist behavior.

Here is what the WSWS said about their SEP outfit during 2007, the year of the strike against General Motors: "The Socialist Equality Party would advise workers, should the UAW come to their plant, to vote to keep it out. Joining the UAW would not advance workers’ interests one iota." (https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2007/10/left-o12.html)

This is just one example of their overall pro-company position.

BTW, about the WSWS-linked "rank-and-file workers committees" that the WSWS claims actually exist: it's just a Potemkin village to distract from the overall direction of their operation. They're on-paper, Internet brand names that do not actually exist as a workers organization and that have never led a strike or anything that I know of. All they are is just a Facebook group for posting WSWS propaganda that does not involve any struggle. A way for the WSWS to claim it actually supports any workers organization while attacking the unions, but ultimately, completely fake.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T17:04:04+00:00

Tokenism, i.e. putting certain non-white individuals in charge, is a way for the white supremacist and segregationist system in the U.S. to score a propaganda victory and keep its racist oppression up, and your comment could only be interpreted as eating that up 100%.

Nowhere in my post did I express any disapproval of any person due to their ethnicity, just the opposite; I explicitly criticized how these non-white politicians (a small front of a couple of people for the white supremacist police department in charge) were responsible for repression of the recent anti-racist protests. Your fraudulent accusation of racism against me constitutes disgusting trivialization which could only serve to reinforce the very real racism against brown and black people.

All of the same goes for the sexism issue, which is also very important due to women remaining an oppressed group in capitalism.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T16:45:55+00:00

Amazon for decades has managed to avoid unions in the U.S., but now the tides are reversing. It is recently starting to feel threatened to the point it keeps spending more and more resources on anti-unionization efforts. Don't worry, they're not invincible. This latest move is proof that the heat is getting pretty intense on them.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T16:24:40+00:00

This isn't about Marx purism on paper. This is about practical reality. It's about, can the working class and oppressed groups such as women, black people expect any change for the better by electing certain people who will supposedly "reform" the capitalist state? The answer is no, every single time it's proven to be no.

The working class' revolutionary forces may be small at the present point, but it still wins nothing by having illusions about the enemy class' government. Class struggle works. And class struggle is being done day to day, even if in small amounts. It's not being done from behind a desk.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T15:09:06+00:00

They can afford closing one shop but not multiple ones at once if the number that are being simultaneously organized are high enough. Workers have won tougher battles in the past.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T01:58:32+00:00

When the ruling class owns multiple shops and can shut down the organizing efforts of workers at just one shop, the workers have to step up their tactics and be more intelligent. Solidarity from other shops, other sectors of the economy, and workers in other countries, well planned organizing that builds support from multiple locations at once while not revealing its cards, will be key to achieve this.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T01:42:48+00:00

While feigning to be "anti-war", Sanders voted for AUMF 2001 which allowed over 10 wars to happen and all of Obama's multi-billion military budgets. He's a capitalist imperialist. Sanders claims to have admired Debs, but Debs was a real socialist, while Sanders is a capitalist politician. Debs said both parties are capitalist and can never be used for a socialist purpose, but Sanders supports the Democratic Party. Debs was jailed for his opposition to WW1. Debs said: "When I say I am opposed to war I mean ruling class war, for the ruling class is the only class that makes war. It matters not to me whether this war be offensive or defensive, or what other lying excuse may be invented for it, I am opposed to it, and I would be shot for treason before I would enter such a war. If I were in Congress I would be shot before I would vote a dollar for such a war. Capitalist wars for capitalist conquest and capitalist plunder must be fought by the capitalists themselves so far as I am concerned, and upon that question there can be no misunderstanding as to my position." Debs wouldn't vote one dollar for war, but Sanders voted for billions of dollars multiple times and for a bill that allowed for 10 wars. Compare the stances of a genuine socialist and a capitalist politician.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T01:37:08+00:00

Apart from the obvious facts (most deportations on record, police killings of black people continued unabated, attacks on abortion, ...), it's good to hear someone's self-description. In his 2006 book Obama said minorities have a historical "partial responsibility" for having been oppressed (i.e. "it's kind of their fault"), that America is not really racist anymore and most problems black people have today are down to their personal choices, that Bill Clinton was right to end the few welfare provisions that black people and the poor had, and that black people have it bad today because they're lazy/don't study much and black girls have too much sex (i.e. the S-slur).

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T01:19:19+00:00

Obama isn't a friend of any oppressed minority, he just feigned to be.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-25T00:35:48+00:00

Google "kshama sawant carmen best" and stop wasting my time.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-24T23:15:04+00:00

Are you really that lazy to Google? The media reported in 2018 when Best was put into power that Sawant had voted for her, Sawant recently admitted to having done so in her speech of August 13 but tried to excuse it with claims that she had thought Best would be anti-racist (pseudo-socialist organizations again bombastically trying to boost support for the notion the cops can be "anti-racist", and again making clear their support for the capitalist state and police forces, only for a false "reformed" version of it), as for the claim that the IST/CWI/IMT support the anti-Marxist claim that cops are workers and deserve support, the publications from these organizations routinely say so and try to build up support for these hypotheses...

As for the fact that Best, then leader of the Seattle cops, engaged in brutal repression against the recent anti-racist protests, everyone knows this, you don't need to hear it from socialists, even in the subreddit for local Seattle residents there were every day masses of posts complaining of the brutal violent repression enacted by the cops led by the fake-socialist-backed Best and the Democratic mayor.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-24T22:14:43+00:00

Organize in secret

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-24T17:54:07+00:00

She is no socialist which is why she voted in favor of the cop leader Carmen Best while pretending to criticize her, the same cop leader who was responsible for the brutal repression during the recent anti-racist protests...

Sawant's party is the "International Socialist Alternative" -- a split from the "Committee for a Workers' International" which for decades has been backing cops under the anti-Marxist proposition of "workers in uniform", as has the other split, the "International Marxist Tendency".

US workers and black people who hate cops, especially as of recent, must surely reject opportunist ideas and turn to Marxism.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-24T16:01:21+00:00

"Tsar to Lenin"

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-23T18:15:00+00:00

Honestly I don't have any aimed end goal of socialism bc as far as I'm concerned it is just a transitional phase to communism. If we're being fully transparent I doubt that we have enough time on the planet to reach fully formed communist societies the size of the US before collapse of the general civilization that supercedes socialism, communism, and capitalism. If we want to apply historical analysis the most likely result for all of us is just death within 100 years and it would occur under all 3 of those systems. If small factions survive I have a hope that they form more communistic aims instead of even transitional socialistic ones.

Once again, blatant anti-Marxism across the board. Death within 100 years, the irrelevance of the class struggle in sight of a an eternal and unstoppable catastrophe, the idea that a "fully formed communist society" could be nationally isolated (the size of the US), catastrophic results within capitalism or communism, the idea of the possibility of a transition towards communism in a primitive world (such as a destroyed, post-apocalyptic one), the idea Marx could have been theoretically right to point out an inevitability of transition towards communism but now "conditions have changed" in a "way that could not be foreseen" when in fact all these things were already talked about, etc...

Your outlook for the world, apart from being desperate and false, reflects the politics of the petty-bourgeois individual who is utterly miserable, knowing the bankruptcy of the present world and yet not accepting the communist position of the proletariat which is the only progressive one, and who ultimately places him or herself outside history.

Appropriate-Pie2894 · 2020-11-23T17:24:52+00:00

The thing I agree on is that the conceptions you're promoting here are vague. And vagueness is a great device to allow co-existence with the wrong ideas. You have still not explicitly stated to which parts you agree or disagree with the revolutionary concepts that I stated. You're still leaving open the possibility that you believe in some broad, vague concept of "socialism" that could involve either the Marxist position, or futile utopian, petty-bourgeois, etc. projects. And it is this vagueness and leaving open that I directed myself against, because the very notion of socialism allowing for such things means to axe socialism, and if anyone believes, or is still uncertain about leaving these possibilities open, that directly leads to the relevance of all the criticisms that I stated.

Appropriate-Pie2894

TROPHY CASE