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While I appreciate the effort, it's like a fundamental law of class warfare that a general strike is impossible without first having mass unionization. Here, let's try this scenario:
Workers: we're gonna do a general strike tomorrow!
Capital: anyone who doesn't show up tomorrow will be fired. Oh and then today will be the last day you have health insurance
Workers: oh shit, didn't think about that...
In normal times I'd say a consumption strike would be more effective, but we're basically all doing that now involuntarily anyway.
Edit: wanted to add that when folks online talk about a general strike I try and be encouraging while also realistic - I think their heart is in the right place and I don't want to squash any revolutionary spirit, even if it's a little misguided in my opinion.
I don't wholly disagree, but I do disagree a little.
Most of the general strikers in the Winnipeg General Strike were non-unionized workers, who organized in solidarity with the unions' calls to general strike.
Non-unionized workers can follow the wave created by unions, and turn regular strikes into general strikes :red-fist:
"Union membership had increased substantially during the spring of 1919, but most of the people who came out in support of the general strike were not union members. For instance, the first to leave work, at 7:00 a.m., were the telephone operators, the so-called "hello girls" at the city telephone exchanges, who were not at this time union members. Also on the first day of the strike, the major organizations of returned soldiers announced their support and were active throughout the six weeks of the strike."
Or vice versa, like in France where students and wildcatter drew unions into the may 68 strike
Yeah but Winnipeg... Socialized healthcare makes it easier to do that.
The Winnipeg General Strike was before canadians fought to create Universal Health Care ;)
The general strike was in 1919, it wasn't until 1966 that all provinces in Canada had universal health care :) the universalization of health care was a long, gradual process that took ~40 years, and frankly still continues. Next goals include universal pharmacare, dental, and getting racism out of the system.
Ah fuck me. Although the whole health insurance thing wasn't as much a factor then, in general strikes seemed to be easier then before the creation of insanely expensive medical care.
Ya I think people also just have changing standards. Like, life in the 1920's was nasty, brutish, and short hahaha they didn't have the health care to lose in the first place. Access to health care today is totally definitely a factor in calls for general strikes today, I don't wanna minimize that. But, it's not necessarily a hard limit on what's possible, either, imo :)
It's one of the paradoxes with making material conditions better for the populace, because it creates something of a gilded cage from them to escape from, and it becomes all the more difficult the better those conditions become.
There’s a sweet spot maybe haha; living in complete deprivation can beat the spirit out of you, until you have no will to fight back. But also, maybe having no material concerns makes you less likely to develop concern around inequities.
Probably the best position for inducing inaction is when you do have a fair bit, but your hold on it is extremely tenuous and insecure; it makes you unwilling to challenge anything. This is maybe the case with the american health care ‘system’, where most people do have insurance, but they could lose it at the drop of a hat and be completely screwed
We're being edged hard, and not only that but white supremacy is helping keep revolutionary will at bay.
Ya, I won’t lie, its easy to want to put revolution off for a while when the chuds have ten times as many people, and are ten times as organized haha
It’s not so much about generating rev rn imo, as it is generating the pre-conditions for rev. Which, like you pointed out, means things like universal health care etc., which give people a sturdier position from which to beging questioning and challenging capitalism
That's probably the biggest reason to fear universal healthcare in the US because it would absolutely be a massively galvanizing moment.
That's a good point I hadn't thought of. I usually just think of opposition to health care as evil, and impossible to understand, but that makes a lot of sense. Imagine american leftists winning such a big ask as universal health care, in 2020 no less. Shit would get reeeal wild, reaaal fast.
My big skeleton key to unlocking all the incomprehensible shit in the world has been to ask who benefits. The drug war? Cartels, ATF, political excuses to persecute opponents. And then a Nixon administration official admitted that's what they did it for. No health care? Hospitals, health insurance companies, both Democrats and Republicans, capitalism.
Yup. Housing, wages, it all becomes incredibly transparent when you just let yourself see the very obvious power dynamics.
To me it’s wild that, even when you have insurance in the u.s., doctors and hospitals are still operating on the profit motive. Like, I would never trust a doctor who’s operating on the profit motive haha I don’t even trust, like, someone selling sunglasses who’s operating on the profit motive. I really can’t believe that people believe in that shit, frankly. It’s incredibly naive.
You want to know something funny? Doctors absolutely operate on profit motive but they HATE when you treat them like a consumer product. I asked for a refund one time and they got really upset, and I told them they'd made me wait too long and I needed to go somewhere else. Infuriated them to no end. Reported another to their board for bad bedside manner and ruined his fucking month. I wish more of us did that, if we did they'd push for universal healthcare a lot faster.
Hahaha that's hilarious. A 'consumer rights movement' for 'conumers of health care' would be hilarious, and based. That's really funny hahaha
Oh and it absolutely pisses them off. There was already a bill passed where hospitals have to publish a schedule of charges and they're loath to do so because that means they essentially have to admit they have no standardized billing.
God, that's so scummy. I picture a used car salesperson just eyeing up the next mark, tryin' to figure how much they can squeeze out of them.
Except they're eyeing up how desperate you are to have functioning organs haha damn. Never have I been more in favour of incrementalism than on this, tbh. Every shitty little reform that protects my american comrade's even a little more is just fine with me
100%. And the worst of it is you really can't price shop because, y'know, you need fucking healthcare.
You should know I constantly advocate that Canada should abolish health cards, and we should supply health care to any comrade who happens to be here. If I could lend you my health card for medical purposes without doxing myself, I would o7
Excuse me doc, I know I will bleed out in two hours, but I really just need your rate so I can run across town and compare :angery:
Literally just had this talk with my husband this morning--if he or I get sick, we are crossing the border because even without the health card we can afford your ridiculously cheap healthcare more than we ever could in America.
Hahaha I forgot about that part altogether; even if you just buy healthcare here, it’s cheaper. Gotta love that single-payer negotiation with unions!
I understand that american health care is the most expensive in the world, and also doesn’t provide quite as good health outcomes as the rest of the ‘developed’ world.
Take it from me: you are both more than welcome to visit, any time, to buy cheap health care.
Did you know that Canada is Cuba’s biggest export partner? And guess what one of the main things we buy from them is. Yep, medicine haha :heart-sickle:
If we lived closer to Cuba we'd certainly just go there. I remember my friend broke his leg hiking in Canada and ended up paying $75 for all his healthcare. It would have been $15,000 in the US, and I am not kidding.
That price difference is just too much for me. It’s fucking baffling, and infuriating. That was an early part of my pilling from straight anarchist to non-denominational communist, was seeing Sicko. And the americans go to Cuba and get a 60 dollar puffer for 60 cents, and all this free care from the doctors.
Socialism is, just, so obviously superior aha it’s inarguable. $15,000 dollars for a 75$ procedure. 0.5% the price here for the same thing like ten feet over the border. Death to america, long live americans :heart-sickle:
:red-fist: one day there will be no border between us, only solidarity :red-fist:
And the lands our forefathers stole is returned to its rightful people!
I just relistened to the revolutions podcast and really paid attention to the 1905 general strike part. Was there more unionization in Tzarist Russia then now? That’s just kinda of crazy to think about how housebroken we are
That's a good question, I don't know. At this point I think private sector unionization is down well into the single digits. I just think it's naive that capital won't fight dirty against a general strike, they're not just gonna sit back and take it. Threatening peoples' jobs is a pretty effective tactic, though.
Motherfuckers needa read some Luxemburg and understand that you don't get to just call out "alright mass strike time baby, come on working class people join us".
But if you read that garbage and still can't start a strike then how does reading it actually help? You're being a liberal right now. Cucks like theory.
How can we actually start a general strike? Maybe try trying you pussy.
Dunno if you're being ironic, but the whole point of the works I reference (The Mass Strike and Theory & Practice) is that the Mass Strike can't be viewed as a singular isolated event sparked by a singular call to strike. That level of solidarity must be forged through smaller strikes and extended class struggle. The working class as a whole ain't going to just read a couple well worded polemics and collectively risk their jobs. No it needs to be shown how solidarity and strikes and resistance helps them and those around them. Then as more and more people get engaged, they can see (with the help of and united struggle with educated, dedicated comrades) how their economic interests align with others and how political goals are necessary. Even then the Mass Strike doesn't end up being a singular force with a singular goal; it has that big political goal, but constantly explodes in spontaneous regional outbursts over local issues. It is messy, chaotic, and it is historical. The 1905 Russian Revolution didn't start in 1904, it started in the the mid-1890's with the first smatterings of urban proletarian acts of resistance and solidarity - the socialist forces, which were not very strong beforehand, coming to prominence (after being primarily intellectuals for decades) over the next decade+ through escalating tensions, REPEATED struggles and attempts at spreading the Socialist message through the proles (and it was basically the same with a different timeline for SRs and the Peasants).
So no I don't just want to read books. People can call for a general strike all they want, but don't expect it to amount to anything other than weak agitation. Praxis and local struggles, like always, are the fucking key
I dont think anyone is against trying it, go for it if you want, its just that it will very likely not work, so using important resources on it is wasting these resources. Plus, every time it is tried and doesnt work, people grow less optimistic towards it.
"they should read more books" is a very liberal answer to dealing with oppressive capitalism and institutional rot. Try being less liberal. Try doing leftism instead of liberalism. Go on twitter and talk about a general strike more. You realize thats how social media works, right? Just fucking use their hashtag and talk about how powerful it'd be. Ya'll are just butthurt and scared that no one will retweet you so you stay here complaining. You're just liberals who liked emo instead of the grateful dead.
It's the classic wrecker strategy of taking a halfway-decent point and presenting it in the most divisive, destructive way possible.
lol ya the CIA cares about your posts. delusional liberal. If you want there to be a general strike then talk about it more. Talk to people who don't already agree. And talk to those people in a way they actually want to listen. Books about theory don't help a guy worker 70 hours a week and barely paying the rent. You. Are. Being. A. Liberal.
You think 100 year old fairy tales are the answer to twitter. You dumb. Way to liberal.
I think it was more about not wanting to have to type out the whole theory in a comment? And i dont use social media except chacha, i wont start because of that.
By the way, why are you so pissed? O_o Everything okay? Need to talk about something?
ya, real rigorous process you got. you literally read enough twitter to unlearn how it works. If enough people talk about it, it'll happen. Thats the entirety of the process. Talk about it more. Tell people to talk about it more. Ya'll are getting cucked by twitter so hard. #GeneralStrike
Gotta mix general strike with shitty consumerism.
Call in sick on a Wednesday and you get 1 month free Disney+ or some bullshit.
Call in sick for Weds and Thursday and you get a blue checkmark.
Say you’re doing a General strike and get a $100 onlyfans giftcard.
