DSA: our brake light guy got arrested for beating his wife

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ChickenOfTomorrow: Nov 11, 2012; god damn it, you've got to be kind

the American Revolution was one set of bourgeois versus another, I'm interested to see what you can find about it that's socialist

# ? Feb 17, 2017 15:33

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# ? May 19, 2024 19:51

ChickenOfTomorrow: Nov 11, 2012; god damn it, you've got to be kind

thing

ChickenOfTomorrow has issued a correction as of 22:01 on Sep 28, 2021

# ? Feb 17, 2017 15:35

Crowsbeak: Oct 9, 2012; by Azathoth; Lipstick Apathy

ChickenOfTomorrow posted:

but let me be the first to say: more like SaDLoL

A good revolutionary always appropriates the past.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 15:36

ChickenOfTomorrow: Nov 11, 2012; god damn it, you've got to be kind

Crowsbeak posted:

A good revolutionary always appropriates the past.

then all my jokes are extremely revolutionary and good

# ? Feb 17, 2017 15:37

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

ChickenOfTomorrow posted:

the American Revolution was one set of bourgeois versus another, I'm interested to see what you can find about it that's socialist

In terms of the revolution, you're talking about people who were willing to fight and give their lives for the benefits of their neighbours; people who regularly set up the sort "alternative institutions" talked about in this thread to service those in need; people who set a model for successfully overthrowing an oppressive imperialist power.

I feel like if you can't spin that into something compatible with socialism, something that draws people in, you're not trying hard enough.

And any socialist movement that classifies the members of the petite bourgeoisie (the "bourgeoisie" of farmers, blacksmiths, bootmakers and carpenters largely responsible for sowing the seeds of the revolution) as intrinsically composed of enemies is worthless, imo - and it's especially funny when you consider that the DSA is dominated so heavily by those who come from such a background. Capitalism wishes to destroy and exploit them just as much as it does those who labour for wages - why hate those who have already achieved some measure of control over their own labour?

To quote the LCS on the nature and preconditions of socialism:

quote:

In the revolutionary overthrow of the social system based on wage labour, the working class plays a crucial role but the participation of many other sectors of the population is vital as well. Housewives, children, pensioners and non-working-class people such as farmers, students, professionals and other members of the petty-bourgeoisie have important roles to play as well. Revolution must be the work of all oppressed people, not the working class alone. This is especially true in countries where the working class does not comprise the majority of the population.

But in the end, maybe your right. It's experimental, an attempt to bring more people into solidarity. Even if it fails, I feel like things of value will be learned.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 16:14

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

Tell me more about this co op thing.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 17:40

Fiction: Apr 28, 2011

Azuth0667 posted:

Tell me more about this co op thing.

workers pool money to buy means of production and cut out the middleman by giving all profits back to the workers

# ? Feb 17, 2017 17:47

Azuth0667: Sep 20, 2011; By the word of Zoroaster, no business decision is poor when it involves Ahura Mazda.

What do you do if none of the workers who would join have any money to buy means?

# ? Feb 17, 2017 17:52

Baku: Aug 20, 2005; by Fluffdaddy

GlyphGryph posted:

And any socialist movement that classifies the members of the petite bourgeoisie (the "bourgeoisie" of farmers, blacksmiths, bootmakers and carpenters largely responsible for sowing the seeds of the revolution) as intrinsically composed of enemies is worthless, imo - and it's especially funny when you consider that the DSA is dominated so heavily by those who come from such a background. Capitalism wishes to destroy and exploit them just as much as it does those who labour for wages - why hate those who have already achieved some measure of control over their own labour?

Any leftist in the US already has their work cut out for them solely by focusing on the managerial and financial classes whose labor is exclusively the mental labor of figuring out how best to gently caress over poor people and further separate everyone else from the means of production to their personal benefit.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 17:59

Doorknob Slobber: Sep 10, 2006; by Fluffdaddy

Azuth0667 posted:

What do you do if none of the workers who would join have any money to buy means?

you seize them!

# ? Feb 17, 2017 19:40

ChickenOfTomorrow: Nov 11, 2012; god damn it, you've got to be kind

thing

ChickenOfTomorrow has issued a correction as of 22:01 on Sep 28, 2021

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:04

Top City Homo: Oct 15, 2014; Ramrod XTreme

Azuth0667 posted:

What do you do if none of the workers who would join have any money to buy means?

Get a grant from a community development institution partner with coop biz development advisors ( generally part of the same grant institution) and deduct new member equity stake from their patronage (that's another word for surplus) and wages over a long period of time.

Basically if factory workers have the technical expertise to work a plant they will find the finance to buy it outright. The Ohio employee ownership center is s model for this stuff. But it requires a critical mass of infrastructure

Coops still need to develop an organized cluster of their own financial technical development and educational resources

Basically secondary stage coops that service entire sectors

And we need to reframe the conversation about coops. Coops espouse the American Revolutionary radical concept of liberty in the old republican tradition when most of the population worked for themselves ( except the slaves) before the corruption of the Guilded Age where all the monopolies appeared

Anyways the reason I'm linking it this way to a partially rosy American reading of history is because socialism is as American as apple pie and it needs to be seen so again. The first democratic socialist party in power in North America was the cooperative commonwealth federation and they were composed of emigrants from the USA.

People can transition from the rosy history to the fact that George Washington was a counter revolutionary coup plotter in cahoots with landlord, financial and slave interests against French radical republican supporters like Thomas Paine after they accept that socialism is the light.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:05

Top City Homo: Oct 15, 2014; Ramrod XTreme

ChickenOfTomorrow posted:

I am glad you have thought this over and have an answer.

Any concern about fostering diversity and inclusion of PoC given that the story of the American revolution that we're taught is very white?

Bacon's Rebellion

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:08

Man Musk: Jan 13, 2010

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:10

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

How do we get complacent liberal cowards to believe in true revolution again though.

They have no passion. No vision. No future.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:13

Unbelievably Fat Man: Jun 1, 2000; Innocent people. I could never hurt innocent people.

Take away their bread and Netflixes. Their complacency comes from the material comforts they enjoy. Only when they are under threat will they show willingness to upend the the applecart of capitalism.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:19

Doorknob Slobber: Sep 10, 2006; by Fluffdaddy

Phi230 posted:

How do we get complacent liberal cowards to believe in true revolution again though.

They have no passion. No vision. No future.

we don't, we just ignore them. A lot of them won't ever be swayed from doing the bare minimum of effort. Thats why its important to take over the Ds, those complacent liberal cowards will just keep voting D until the day they die.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:25

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

ChickenOfTomorrow posted:

I am glad you have thought this over and have an answer.

Any concern about fostering diversity and inclusion of PoC given that the story of the American revolution that we're taught is very white?

There are some. But then, we're targeting rural/semi-rural New England. There are limits to how much diversity in terms of ethnicity we can genuinely foster. It's not an easy problem, and it's one every local progressive group is looking at. I don't think there's much here to alienate them, either, at least, especially with the local focus and the elevation of Paine in our literature and the "gently caress the southern plantation owning slaver class for ruining our revolution by sprinkling tyranny on top!" stuff

Phi230 posted:

How do we get complacent liberal cowards to believe in true revolution again though.

They have no passion. No vision. No future.

Win over the ones you can win over by appealing to programs and ideas they already like. Be willing to nudge them through the conversion from progressive liberal to SocDem to proud waver of the red flag. The rest will have to be considered an obstacle.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:30

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

Phi230 posted:

How do we get complacent liberal cowards to believe in true revolution again though.

They have no passion. No vision. No future.

Socialism is diverse. DSA seems willing to embrace that diversity. Find the specific socialist subtypes and arguments that you think will resonate with them in particular and light the path for them to greater understanding.

Combine it with some kind of clear sign that their complacent life is in clear danger of being upturned, and them losing what they have gained, if they fail to take action.

Nothing motivates like feeling like you're losing what little you had thought secure.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:33

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

Doorknob Slobber posted:

we don't, we just ignore them. A lot of them won't ever be swayed from doing the bare minimum of effort. Thats why its important to take over the Ds, those complacent liberal cowards will just keep voting D until the day they die.

The DSA worries me in one regard. They claim, at least at my chapter, to not be a political party.

Some have taken this to mean a rejection of entryism or direct action.

I suggested organizing ourselves to go vote in members of our chapter into local positions. I was met with the mantra "we are not a political party"

What then is to be done? No change will occur unless we truly organize and mobilize.

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:33

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

Phi230 posted:

The DSA worries me in one regard. They claim, at least at my chapter, to not be a political party.

Some have taken this to mean a rejection of entryism or direct action.

I suggested organizing ourselves to go vote in members of our chapter into local positions. I was met with the mantra "we are not a political party"

What then is to be done? No change will occur unless we truly organize and mobilize.

What. The DSA is specifically a political organization, but specifically not a political party - in other words, that they do not organize and run campaigns under their own name, but instead encourage people and support people in running as Democrats. They are explicitly endorsing candidates on the nation level, like Ellison. They have active working groups to convince members to run as Democrats (or as SA where Socialist Alternative has a chance of gaining seats).

Like if they're trying to avoid politics, they are very much not living up to the point of the organization as I understand it.

What do they think the point of the Chapter is if Direct Action and Politics are both ruled out? I mean, maybe they have other stuff, useful stuff, they are doing instead and the chapter isn't large enough to support multiple working groups... but if it is, and you don't have one, you should totally start an electoral change working group yourself.

GlyphGryph has issued a correction as of 21:39 on Feb 17, 2017

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:37

Anime Schoolgirl: Nov 28, 2002

Phi230 posted:

The DSA worries me in one regard. They claim, at least at my chapter, to not be a political party.

Some have taken this to mean a rejection of entryism or direct action.

I suggested organizing ourselves to go vote in members of our chapter into local positions. I was met with the mantra "we are not a political party"

What then is to be done? No change will occur unless we truly organize and mobilize.

ask them if they are collaborators. then ask if they're french collaborators. then ask if they're french ww2 collaborators.

seriously

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:39

SomeMathGuy: Oct 4, 2014; The people were ASTONISHED at his doctrine.

Phi230 posted:

I suggested organizing ourselves to go vote in members of our chapter into local positions. I was met with the mantra "we are not a political party"

What then is to be done? No change will occur unless we truly organize and mobilize.

Remind them that there's a pretty significant distinction between running with the backing of the DSA and running as a DSA candidate. To me the not a political party position is an explicit rule against propping up our own spoiler candidates, not a rule against running with a D next to our name (if even applicable at the lower levels).

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:40

Ruzihm: Aug 11, 2010; Group up and push mid, proletariat!

Phi230 posted:

I suggested organizing ourselves to go vote in members of our chapter into local positions. I was met with the mantra "we are not a political party"

sorry about your dumb egoist chapter

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:46

Arcteryx Anarchist: Sep 15, 2007; Fun Shoe

GlyphGryph posted:

What do they think the point of the Chapter is if Direct Action and Politics are both ruled out? I mean, maybe they have other stuff, useful stuff, they are doing instead and the chapter isn't large enough to support multiple working groups... but if it is, and you don't have one, you should totally start an electoral change working group yourself.

Cathartic conversations with other leftists

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:54

Internet Explorer: Jun 1, 2005

If the DSA wasn't a political organization it would be a 501(c)(3) instead of a 501(c)(4) and would make things a whole lot easier. It is a 501(c)(4) and can therefore endorse candidates, making it a political organization.

[Edit: A charitable organization must stay out of political campaigns, while a social welfare organization can participate if campaigning is not the primary function.]

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:55

GlyphGryph: Jun 23, 2013; Down came the glitches and burned us in ditches and we slept after eating our dead.

lancemantis posted:

Cathartic conversations with other leftists

Catharthic conversations are an opiate that precludes change and weakens movements. If they're having conversations, they should be ones intended to disturb and destabilize feelings and so motivate to action, to to soothe them!

# ? Feb 17, 2017 21:59

Arcteryx Anarchist: Sep 15, 2007; Fun Shoe

http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2017/02/12/socialism-is-bad

quote:

Socialism Is Bad

I get a worrying sense that socialism is becoming cool again. You can see it all over social media where people brag about joining the Democratic Socialists of America, and in the popularity of the socialist magazine Jacobin. If Trump fails terribly, I worry that left populism will be what replaces it and the end result will be a more socialist U.S. That�s bad because socialism is bad. Given the growing popularity of socialism, I think it�s worth talking about why socialism is bad specifically.

Matt Bruenig has written a useful piece on socialism that I think is a jumping off point. As usual with Matt, it�s written with clarity and specificity that is appreciated. Unlike a lot o vague paeans to how socialism is good and we should have it, Matt offers specific plans for how we could get to government ownership of business.

The plan calls for the gradual socialization of existing companies, and Matt tells me on twitter that this would apply only to large firms. It may be appealing to think of a massive, centralized company like Apple and assume that it wouldn�t matter whether the government slowly became the sole shareholders. After all (ignoring the importance of options in executive compensation for the moment) the shareholders aren�t doing the innovating, the employees are. What does it matter who the dividend checks go to?

One issue is that the government would not just own but control companies, and this plan doesn�t tell us what they would do with that control. And yes, Matt does see this control as a benefit and not a cost to be avoided. Would Apple be free to innovate with the government controlling it? Or would they be forced to onshore all their production? It would be a lot easier for Trump to push Ivanka's clothing line if the government owned and controlled Nodstrom, Sears, and K-Mart. It is hard to both desire control presumably as a means to some unspecified end and also to assume this control won�t have negative consequences for productivity.

Second, even if we could easily socialize every large company in the U.S. without negatively affecting them, this does not tell us about the future large companies who don�t exist yet. If socialism was in place in 1995 would we have Google today? If we were socialist in 1975 would we have Apple today? Why would small business founders grow their businesses knowing that this would cause them to be socialized? This is especially true given that you can�t socialize the globe at once and companies on the cusp of growing large enough to be socialized would be free to locate in, say, New Zealand.

Fast growing, small companies are a very important source of new job creation and innovation. More productive firms are more likely to grow, and less productive ones more likely to exist. Telling firms to stay small or be socialized is going to give small, successful companies incentive to avoid the important growth dynamics that are essential to a productive economy. To take one recent example for how costly inefficiencies like this can be, Garicano, Lelarge, and Van Reenan examine laws in France that affect only firms with 50 or more workers. They find that this creates more small firms than would otherwise be the case, and the distortions lower GDP by 3.5% by increasing unemployment and keeping productive firms below their optimal size.

Indeed, a broad literature shows that the inability of small successful companies to grow is an important factor that holds back economic development. Hsieh and Klenow show that in the U.S., as manufacturing firms age they get bigger. The effect can be seen in the graph below, from Charles Jones �The Facts of Economic Growth�. Hsieh and Klenow estimate that if U.S. firms expanded as slowly as they do in India and Mexico, total factor productivity in the U.S. would be 25% lower.

Because he is Matt Bruenig, I know exactly how he will reply to this: if reducing firm size along some margin is bad, then making firms be bigger must be good so let�s just mandate all firms be large somehow. Of course this ignores the fact that it is not arbitrary size that is good, but a system that incentivizes the most productive firms to grow and the least productive to shrink or exist. It is the productivity increasing selection mechanism of capitalism that matters, and not just the mere outcome of firm size that should be mandated by politicians like some kind of dial to turn up or down.

Socialism is bad and it is bad that socialism is becoming cool again. Nevertheless I enjoy reading Matt Bruenig and other new socialists who clearly lay out their ideas for how it all would work. I think entrepreneurship, productivity, dynamism, and reallocation are first order factors for economic growth and socialists should address these issues. There are many other reasons why socialism is bad, but I think this is an important place to start.

A man that supposedly has a PhD wrote this; I mean I know its forbes but come on

# ? Feb 18, 2017 00:54

Tuxedo Catfish: Mar 17, 2007; You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

quote:

If we were socialist in 1975 would we have Apple today

Sounds like a pretty good argument for socialism to me!

# ? Feb 18, 2017 01:01

Phi230: Feb 2, 2016; by Fluffdaddy

Somebody bust out the guillotine

# ? Feb 18, 2017 01:06

bump_fn: Apr 12, 2004; _{two of them}

lancemantis posted:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2017/02/12/socialism-is-bad

A man that supposedly has a PhD wrote this; I mean I know its forbes but come on

yeah let em just read all these words .... not!

# ? Feb 18, 2017 01:07

SomeMathGuy: Oct 4, 2014; The people were ASTONISHED at his doctrine.

I'm trying to figure out if that's poorly written because the guy's a poo poo writer or if it's some misguided attempt to effectively communicate with "the kids" who may be interested in trying bad ol' socialism. I could see it going either way.

# ? Feb 18, 2017 01:07

Business Gorillas: Mar 11, 2009

lancemantis posted:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/modeledbehavior/2017/02/12/socialism-is-bad

A man that supposedly has a PhD wrote this; I mean I know its forbes but come on

I mean the only people that will read Forbes thinkpieces don't need any convincing that socialism is bad

# ? Feb 18, 2017 01:11

Arcteryx Anarchist: Sep 15, 2007; Fun Shoe

Yeah, it's one thing to try to get at some 8th grade level or whatever is required for people to understand you in the US, and then there's going full 3rd grader. One of my friends talked about reading some former classmates GRE/burnout school history textbook, and the chapter on WWII began with something like "WW2 was started by a man named Adolf Hitler, who was a very bad man"; this reminds me of that.

Also evidently the faceless shareholders and board of directors of corporations are the ones that do all the dynamism and innovation and not the actual operators of the companies themselves. I mean I guess the government could issue orders of "gently caress you, give me more money" just as well :shrug:

# ? Feb 18, 2017 01:14

Business Gorillas: Mar 11, 2009

SomeMathGuy posted:

I'm trying to figure out if that's poorly written because the guy's a poo poo writer or if it's some misguided attempt to effectively communicate with "the kids" who may be interested in trying bad ol' socialism. I could see it going either way.

Tbh I've been seeing more and more centrist thinkpieces and people freaking the gently caress out about the rapidly rising left (ex. That dem senator today that's worried about getting primaried and calling the dem base no better than the tea party)

There's a moderate chance this was written as a frantic response to some guy decking a Nazi or something. Liberals are rapidly realizing that the left is pissed and, more importantly, they aren't the answer anymore.

# ? Feb 18, 2017 01:14