Pragmatic Leftist Theory

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The neolibs are too far right. The tankies are doing whatever that is. Where's the space for the people who want fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism, but realize that it's gonna take a while and there are lots of steps between now and then? Here. This is that space.

Here, people should endeavor to discuss and devise practical, actionable leftist action. Vote lesser evil while you build grassroots coalitions. Unionize your workplace. Participate in SRAs. Build cohesion your local community. Educate the proletariat.

This is a place for practical people to develop practical plans to implement stable, incremental improvement.

If you're dead-set on drumming up all 18,453 True Leftists® into spontaneous Revolution, go somewhere else. The grown ups are talking.

Rules:

-1. Don't be a dick. Racism, sexism, other assorted bigotries, you know the drill. At least try to default to mutually respectful discussion. We're all on the same side here, unless you aren't, in which case kindly leave.

-2. Don't be a tankie. Yes I'm sure you have an extensive knowledge of century-old theory. There's been a century of history since then. Things didn't shake out as expected, maybe consider the possibility that a different angle of attack might be more effective in light of new data.

-3. Be practical. No one on the left benefits from counterproductive actions. This is a space informed by, not enslaved to, ideology. Promoting actions that are fundamentally untenable in the system in question, because they fulfill a sense of ideological purity, is a bad look. Don't do that.

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agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works

Revolution (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works to c/PLT@sh.itjust.works

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Another rant, coming in hot.

I see a lot of people around saying we need a revolution. "Voting will never get us there, the working class can rise up and take power directly!"

And like, hypothetically, yeah. That's not fundamentally false. An organized and unified working class could certainly do something like that, and a big enough coalition could actually succeed.

But look around you. Do you see a unified, organized working class? Because I don't. Spontaneous revolution can work with high class consciousness, or at least an impoverished peasant class with nothing to lose.

Anything left of Reagan is heavily, and successfully, propagandized against in America. The average prole doesn't know the difference between Social Democracy and Anarcho-syndicalism, and calls "It" anything from "liberalism" to "communism". Class-consciousness isn't there yet.

Capitalism does nothing better than providing bread and circuses. I've worked with a lot of low income individuals, and most of them had enough disposable income for fast food and video games. Our peasant class is too fat and entertained to risk the biscuit for some nebulous "dignity".

What does revolution want anyway? A system of democratic representation with obstacles to autocracy? I think the founding fathers did a fairly decent job of constructing a system of checks and balances to represent the people and obstruct tyranny. Obviously that system has been compromised by decades of careful calculation from the right to impose tyranny upon it, but that still took decades, which is pretty resilient so far as governments go. How would an alternative be fundamentally different, besides undoing a lot of specific legislation?

Seriously, look at the structure of the US government and tell me what would be better. That's not a rhetorical question.

Talking about revolution scratches an idealistic itch, but it's just not achievable at this particular point in time. If the economy absolutely nosedives, or a lot of people get really savvy real quick, then sure. But barring that, we're going to have to figure out a less drastic path forward.

I think there are several, but we've gotta abandon this Leninist idealism. Lenin's revolution degraded into state capitalism in like half a century. And they didn't even have to overcome a 250 year old government, starting from scratch was easy.

I don't think starting from scratch is productive.

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[–] PugJesus@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

But look around you. Do you see a unified, organized working class? Because I don’t. Spontaneous revolution can work with high class consciousness, or at least an impoverished peasant class with nothing to lose.

The peasants are generally not revolutionary, even when desperate. Even in the Russian Civil War, peasants were as often with the counterrevolutionary Whites or the non-revolutionary Greens as they were with the revolutionary Reds or Blacks.

Capitalism does nothing better than providing bread and circuses. I’ve worked with a lot of low income individuals, and most of them had enough disposable income for fast food and video games. Our peasant class is too fat and entertained to risk the biscuit for some nebulous “dignity”.

Living standards aren't really relevant to a demographic's willingness to perform an uprising. All political issues are matters of perception - namely, the perception that the social contract is being upheld (and the perception that victory is possible against the government). So long as people believe that the government is, roughly, executing its duties and responsive to the pleas it should be responsive to according to that social contract, people remain generally passive.

The trick of revolution is not finding the people at a point when they aren't 'fat and entertained', but changing either the perception of the government's fulfillment of the social contract, or changing what a demographic sees as an appropriate social contract to begin with.

Seriously, look at the structure of the US government and tell me what would be better. That’s not a rhetorical question.

Proportional representation, ranked-choice voting, elimination of the Senate and reduction of the number of states, term limits for SCOTUS.

[–] agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 week ago

The trick of revolution is not finding the people at a point when they aren't 'fat and entertained', but changing either the perception of the government's fulfillment of the social contract, or changing what a demographic sees as an appropriate social contract to begin with.

Very true. Still, that's a process that will take time and effort. We should certainly push for it, but let's not pretend that's the story of change that's likely to happen quickly.

Proportional representation, ranked-choice voting, elimination of the Senate and reduction of the number of states, term limits for SCOTUS.

Totally agree, but I'm talking about the structure itself, not the particulars. Those are all fairly straightforward legislative reforms within the overarching structure of the government.