(instead of starting with the motivation behind this approach, or listing the problems with other approaches, I'll just launch right into it.)
We need an expanding network of co-ops, secretly coordinated, behind the scenes, by some kind of vanguard party.
The network attempts to assimilate local businesses and, eventually, entire local economies, and use the profits to buy out residential land from the banks and landlords. We lower rent (almost?) to nothing. We then cut the workweek and spread less work across more people.
With a much shorter workweek and higher net income, workers now have the time and morale to 1) volunteer in community life, 2) attend political meetings, and 3) develop a revolutionary consciousness, preferably without even realizing it.
To help that along, we assimilate (or displace and replace) local news outlets to reduce the impact of propaganda. We start removing billboards and advertisements from public spaces. We also organize our own on-call social services which essentially function like citizen police. These services gradually supplant the local police.
Throughout this process, we avoid using marxist language. We hide the communist character of the whole thing, even though we are literally doing communism. We gotta keep everything low-key as long as possible. Our goal is to grow this network as big as we can before capital gets wise.
When capital does get wise, we'll see 1) media attacks, and 2) maybe attempts to frame vanguard members for various crimes. These are under-the-radar attacks. Somehow we need to prepare defenses against these. We want to force capital to respond above-the-radar, in ways normal people will perceive as attacks, so that each response radicalizes more and more people.
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How we assimilate businesses and economies is its own conversation. I think there are numerous ways to do it, and the approach will depend on the situation. Personally I think we should couch this assimilation as a social movement, not just an economic process. But I don't want to distract from the main post.
Ok, tear my idea to shreds folks, let's hear it
Co-ops are potentially a good way to swell the numbers. People join for a paycheck and then they are immersed in a leftist internal culture at work.
But you need help from people who don't work at co-ops. The numbers have to be bigger than what exists inside the coops.
What we're essentially talking about is dual power. Sure you can have the co-ops of true believers. But people aren't stupid, they'll figure out what's happening. They're not going to just let you buy up businesses without a fight. So you need people in positions that help you but hurt them. Like city councils. Like county budget offices. Like law enforcement. Like courts. So you need the people inside the co-op and you need people in other places. To get people into those places you need electoralism. Which means you need broad support of the community, and to some extent, around the community. Otherwise you'll be a progressive city government surrounded by reactionary county governments and they will sabotage you. Then you need leftists to hold those seats of power while you expand further into the existing power structures. The businesses that don't cooperate and have more capital than you need to be unionized. To do that the workers have to be convinced despite not being immersed in a culture of leftism.
A lot of this is just trying to work around the problems of our movement without addressing them.
No, the co-ops would not consist of true believers. Most of the co-ops would consist of normal people who might have no idea what they are involved with. The first aim of the co-ops is to starve capital, gather money for buying residential land, and put a network of communication in place for later use.
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Co-ops already exist in real life that do not have this problem.