I think there was a point to it when manufacturing and dirty industries were the primary base of the left pre-globalisation. The IWW were a real force back in the day.
It is very hard to look at things since and attempt to justify it as a method that will somehow lead to revolution some day. They reorganised society and eliminated this tactic by exporting a lot of the jobs that were creating truly revolutionary people.
That's not to say that some of those jobs don't exist anymore. We see it in the trains, we see it in the dockworkers, and we see it a small amount in the remaining manufacturing. We've seen a sort of revival in the growth of Amazon warehouses too, which I think have conditions that are so bad that they are producing electrified workers susceptible to revolutionary rhetoric again.
But is it enough people for a revolution? I don't think it is. More are needed.
Proletarianization is coming for service workers just like everyone else. There is nothing more agitating about running a forklift vs. making coffee. The key is for workers to see that management doesn't think of them as people, is fucking them over personally, and that unified direct action can win against management.
We're seeing trends that increase all of this. The myth of the American Dream is laid bare, infinite land speculation for the majority is gone. Real wages deflating, workforce shrinking, no sense that hard work or following "the plan" will ensure healthcare, housing, and retirement. Vague anti-capitalism is trendy among younger people and as they age - and stall out - they start to take organizing seriously if you show them the blueprint.
If anything, I would say that the population, particularly people under 40, is ripe for radicalization but socialists are far too quiet and incompetent, unable to grow because they are not strategic or serious in their work. What we really need is people that seriously build socialist programs that can grow orgs without sacrificing quality of theory. Be among the people, agitate by identifying community needs and building to meet them, build lists, raise funds, recruit members into a training program, build connections with other orgs by being present at events and talking to them, etc etc. I am in awe of how many people in so many orgs just kinda fumble around without identifying goals or a strategy or even having a half-decent reading group. Luckily I think some of this is sorting itself out as the people who know how to organize get frustrated and join better orgs.
Having worked both environments I find it very difficult to say they are both the same. It might be possible to equally radicalise the store worker (we're certainly seeing success and growth in this where I am) but in terms of which one is easier? From experience it is massively easier to radicalise the workers on the manufacturing line or the workers doing heavier labour.
Understanding that one is easier than the other and acknowledging it plays a material role in what has happened in the material core as a result of exporting those jobs to the periphery is still important and valid.
Luckily I think some of this is sorting itself out as the people who know how to organize get frustrated and join better orgs.
My experience is not that people do not know how to organise but that it is a lot of work, and the reason so many of them are marxists is that they do too much work for capitalism and are so so tired as a result. The problem is that we need many more full-time organisers, or full-time revolutionaries as Lenin would have said. It takes a very unique kind of person to both work for capitalists and also entirely sacrifice the remainder of their time and energy for organising on top of their work for capitalists. In many cases this is a person that enjoys organising as well, which is a rare gem of a trait that exists in a very small number of people.
Gotta disagree on the differences in how easy it is to unionize or radicalize these different workplaces. It's not about a job simply being harder or easier, but about the forces that combat collective action, often intimidation but also mobility and power of capital vs. workers.
Example: organizing a restaurant can be difficult not because it's inherently harder for workers (front or back of house) to see class conflict, but because of the efficacy of the union busting playbook, intimidation of back of house that is often undocumented immigrants, and being forced to work directly alongside management 24/7. If that restaurant is a centrally-owned chain, even worse, as they'll just shut the whole thing down using some flimsy excuse. This can be harder to do for other industries that are less mobile and have fewer of these countervailing forces, e.g. longshoremen.
Example: unionizing Amazon is actually going very poorly. They have all of the hard labor things you might be thinking of and ALU sucks so they aren't getting anywhere. Amazon is, of course, in a very powerful monopoly position and gladly cycles through staff and does an effective job at union busting, but the issue here is poor organizing skills and a poor approach to the union overall. The Chris Smalls Show is fun to watch but terrible at actually doing the work.
In both cases, we need both things: a good understanding of workers' social relations to production (and therefore management) and competent and knowledgeable organizers that will run militant campaigns based on that understanding.
In my experience the vast majority of self-proclaimed socialists, including those interested in labor, don't have even basic organizing skills, let alone realistic strategy meetings or campaigns that are in any way serious. They have some enthusiasm and they like labor aesthetics. Some don't commit the effort or time, yes, but many actually throw themselves into it and get nothing done because they don't amplify their impact by doing the basics of organizing, choosing to take on activities that can be supported by 2 or 3 individuals that don't know what they're doing rather than 10 people ready to fight and distribute work. Or worse, just spend their time talking about what's happening and what take to publish about it in a newsletter.
I do see and know many folks like you're talking about. Borderline or actually burned out because when they try to organize, it ends up being a ton of work on them. While it's true that organizing does take a significant time commitment, it is also my experience that these are folks that failed to train anyone to be their comrades-in-arms, and thus still have some skills to learn. Or, very commonly, they're in an org that has a toxic culture where people don't really want to do organizing, they just want to play at it and pretend, so it feels like you've got no support.
When folks find an org where it's 100% experienced organizers, it's like a breath of fresh air where things happen rapidly and competently because they know the patterns and distribute the work. What I'm describing is basically the cadre model, though I usually avoid that term because it feels larpy.
I think there was a point to it when manufacturing and dirty industries were the primary base of the left pre-globalisation. The IWW were a real force back in the day.
It is very hard to look at things since and attempt to justify it as a method that will somehow lead to revolution some day. They reorganised society and eliminated this tactic by exporting a lot of the jobs that were creating truly revolutionary people.
That's not to say that some of those jobs don't exist anymore. We see it in the trains, we see it in the dockworkers, and we see it a small amount in the remaining manufacturing. We've seen a sort of revival in the growth of Amazon warehouses too, which I think have conditions that are so bad that they are producing electrified workers susceptible to revolutionary rhetoric again.
But is it enough people for a revolution? I don't think it is. More are needed.
Proletarianization is coming for service workers just like everyone else. There is nothing more agitating about running a forklift vs. making coffee. The key is for workers to see that management doesn't think of them as people, is fucking them over personally, and that unified direct action can win against management.
We're seeing trends that increase all of this. The myth of the American Dream is laid bare, infinite land speculation for the majority is gone. Real wages deflating, workforce shrinking, no sense that hard work or following "the plan" will ensure healthcare, housing, and retirement. Vague anti-capitalism is trendy among younger people and as they age - and stall out - they start to take organizing seriously if you show them the blueprint.
If anything, I would say that the population, particularly people under 40, is ripe for radicalization but socialists are far too quiet and incompetent, unable to grow because they are not strategic or serious in their work. What we really need is people that seriously build socialist programs that can grow orgs without sacrificing quality of theory. Be among the people, agitate by identifying community needs and building to meet them, build lists, raise funds, recruit members into a training program, build connections with other orgs by being present at events and talking to them, etc etc. I am in awe of how many people in so many orgs just kinda fumble around without identifying goals or a strategy or even having a half-decent reading group. Luckily I think some of this is sorting itself out as the people who know how to organize get frustrated and join better orgs.
Having worked both environments I find it very difficult to say they are both the same. It might be possible to equally radicalise the store worker (we're certainly seeing success and growth in this where I am) but in terms of which one is easier? From experience it is massively easier to radicalise the workers on the manufacturing line or the workers doing heavier labour.
Understanding that one is easier than the other and acknowledging it plays a material role in what has happened in the material core as a result of exporting those jobs to the periphery is still important and valid.
My experience is not that people do not know how to organise but that it is a lot of work, and the reason so many of them are marxists is that they do too much work for capitalism and are so so tired as a result. The problem is that we need many more full-time organisers, or full-time revolutionaries as Lenin would have said. It takes a very unique kind of person to both work for capitalists and also entirely sacrifice the remainder of their time and energy for organising on top of their work for capitalists. In many cases this is a person that enjoys organising as well, which is a rare gem of a trait that exists in a very small number of people.
Gotta disagree on the differences in how easy it is to unionize or radicalize these different workplaces. It's not about a job simply being harder or easier, but about the forces that combat collective action, often intimidation but also mobility and power of capital vs. workers.
Example: organizing a restaurant can be difficult not because it's inherently harder for workers (front or back of house) to see class conflict, but because of the efficacy of the union busting playbook, intimidation of back of house that is often undocumented immigrants, and being forced to work directly alongside management 24/7. If that restaurant is a centrally-owned chain, even worse, as they'll just shut the whole thing down using some flimsy excuse. This can be harder to do for other industries that are less mobile and have fewer of these countervailing forces, e.g. longshoremen.
Example: unionizing Amazon is actually going very poorly. They have all of the hard labor things you might be thinking of and ALU sucks so they aren't getting anywhere. Amazon is, of course, in a very powerful monopoly position and gladly cycles through staff and does an effective job at union busting, but the issue here is poor organizing skills and a poor approach to the union overall. The Chris Smalls Show is fun to watch but terrible at actually doing the work.
In both cases, we need both things: a good understanding of workers' social relations to production (and therefore management) and competent and knowledgeable organizers that will run militant campaigns based on that understanding.
In my experience the vast majority of self-proclaimed socialists, including those interested in labor, don't have even basic organizing skills, let alone realistic strategy meetings or campaigns that are in any way serious. They have some enthusiasm and they like labor aesthetics. Some don't commit the effort or time, yes, but many actually throw themselves into it and get nothing done because they don't amplify their impact by doing the basics of organizing, choosing to take on activities that can be supported by 2 or 3 individuals that don't know what they're doing rather than 10 people ready to fight and distribute work. Or worse, just spend their time talking about what's happening and what take to publish about it in a newsletter.
I do see and know many folks like you're talking about. Borderline or actually burned out because when they try to organize, it ends up being a ton of work on them. While it's true that organizing does take a significant time commitment, it is also my experience that these are folks that failed to train anyone to be their comrades-in-arms, and thus still have some skills to learn. Or, very commonly, they're in an org that has a toxic culture where people don't really want to do organizing, they just want to play at it and pretend, so it feels like you've got no support.
When folks find an org where it's 100% experienced organizers, it's like a breath of fresh air where things happen rapidly and competently because they know the patterns and distribute the work. What I'm describing is basically the cadre model, though I usually avoid that term because it feels larpy.
omg i made the wrong reply again ignore this