The absolute hit job that was carried out against Corbyn should inform the best path forward for leftists. Corbyn's big idea was to leverage the government to achieve parity between worker owned co-ops and corporations. The extreme way in which he was sidelined should be proof enough that this strategy terrifies capitalists. I know hexbear thinks Richard Wolff is a lib, but he makes some very good points wrt bottom up vs top down strategies.
The hit job on corbyn shows that they literally wouldve couped him, or purposefully tanked the economy, or gone to any lengths necessary to make sure he failed, even if he had managed to get elected
100% yes. A senior British Army officer literally said if Corbyn won an election he'd orchestrate a military coup and give the country directly over to the Monarchy until a new government could be formed - When I point this out to radlibs I get compared to Alex Jones which is very cool.
I'm sure someone like Paul Mason or Owen Jones would even write a Guardian Op-Ed, "Yes, there are Armoured Personel Carriers on every street corner and trade unionists are being detained in military camps, but that's actually good for socialism in Britain"
Paul Mason would be cheering, frothing from the mouth, as tanks fired on a "Stalinist" Parliament and Labour constituency offices full of pensioners asking to have their trees trimmed.
The man hates tankies unless it's literal tanks enforcing an American neo-con agenda.
Electoral failure -> the capitalists fear us and want to stop us -> electoral failure -> the capitalists fear us and want to stop us
Electoralism in the core ain’t gonna work and I’m tired of pretending it will
Bottom up organizing by forming worker owned co-ops is the exact opposite of electoralism. I'm not saying that leftists should try to find another Corbyn, I'm saying that we should abandon the thought that we can take over bourgeois state institutions. I think that bottom up vs top down is explicitly against electoralism and I really am not understanding how that could be interpreted any other way.
Unions are better than worker owned co-ops because they are directly antagonistic towards the class struggle.
Look, much love to like, teachers' and nurses' unions, but the SEIU local that represented me at Albertsons was not "directly antagonistic." Here's what they did: take union dues and use them to lobby the dems for free childcare. When I asked them to enforce chemical labeling rules the rep was suddenly out of the office. We don't just need unions, we need militant orgs within the unions.
I’m saying that we should abandon the thought that we can take over bourgeois state institutions.
By elections and reform sure, but when did communists pretend or believed otherwise?. This is a 100 year old realization. Its just that you think that the central focus of the approach onn grassroots organizating should be co-op based as an socio-economic and political unit which isnt a new thing either . It was just never was that and rejected theoreticaly and practicaly at every revolutionary turn. And for good reasons imo. It cant be
Can't wait for my technological western state with a fully armed police force to slide back into feudalism so I can follow the lead of Lenin and Mao to enact a successful revolution.
Thing is, Lenin and Mao agreed with you about the need and usefullness of pushing for and providing alternative economic and social organizational structures like co-ops as part of a revolutionary movement and building of socialism, or of just its foundations. They actualy did so in scales and revolutionary character not dreamed of even by the most ambitious demsoc. The point and their point would be that it can be a part of building socialism and historicaly has been so ONLY when persued and enacted by a well organized non reformist revolutionary movement . Co-ops are cool but to actualy be a part of a move towards socialism they must be part of a larger revolutionary project and connected with the work or actual revolutionary socialist orgs.
You think Mao aand even Lenin werent alive to see socdem/demsoc politicians with more radical agendas than corbyn and who campaigned on all shorts of co-op , nationalizing etc etc ? They saw them win and rule actualy, they had them in their own countries as well. They wouldnt tell you to not vote for Corbyn in todays context in the UK but they would laugh at the idea that the their agenda and party in power can catalyse any move towards socialism or spreading of class conciousness or that if their campaigns were shot down that meant that capital viewed them as a existential threat. And its not the specific policies of their agendas , like nationalizations or promotion of co-ops , that cant have that character and use, they CAN and Lenin and Mao used them more extensively than any politican in history lmao.
So yeah you do need to in some large degree follow the lead of Lenin and Mao and emulate the character of their movements in order to make those things and policies in Corbyns agenda be important revolutionary stepping stones to socialism and a threat to capital. Until then they arent and they never were despite dozens of chances that they had to prove otherwise . If a successfull non reformist revolutionary movement is impossible in America or the UK then its impossible for those policies to be a an actual threat to capital and to be the foundations of a socialist transformation
Dual power isn't really about electoral success.
The electoralism will always eventually fail, but in doing so it demonstrates what you are allowed to achieve without revolution.
I'm not advocating for electoralism, simply stating that forming worker owned businesses might be a good way to start organizing. It certainly has a bigger chance of making a substantial impact on the larger world than rage posting on a fringe website. But go off if it makes you feel better, I guess.
Remember when all those NATO spook groups like the Integrity Initiative kept and the Institute for Statecraft that had their offices listed in an abandoned mill kept popping up to do disinfo and smear campaigns both online and by laundering stuff through a literal international network (Mockingbird style) of journalists? That got properly ignored and memory holed.
There was another one too that I can't remember the name of but was almost entirely funded by NATO, Facebook (who Corbyn wanted to tax and crack down on privacy violations) and a known CIA front. If anyone can remember what it was called let me know.
You overthinking it to interpret it as something the actual radical/revolutionary left should follow. The late capitalist system in the UK and US simply decided that it cant tolerate 20th century social democracy and welfare state politicians in leading roles. Simple as that. And they brought them down without monumental efforts i might say.
The system didnt judge it as a possible successfull strategy towards socialism and shot it down terrified, they just decided that they didnt have or didnt want to make the social democratic consessions they made during the last century and so treated Corbyn and Sanders in ways even more leftist demsocs in the 20th century werent treated. And thats another point, Governments and politicians with more "radical" demsoc, co-op ,socdem or whatever agendas rose into and held power in dozen western countries in the 20th century. But nothing of what you alude at happened. They never moved the needle even an inch closer to socialism and werent a real threat to capital. And the same would be true for Corbyn. Capitalism, liberalism and the psyche of it all has degraded and mutated and the USSR is no more. Socdem deals that were allowed in the last century simply arent a thing in our current climate and will be shot down with much more enemity compared to what 50 years ago . That doesnt mean that this rejection should make the revolutionary left think that the socdems are onto something
COrbyn running in th exact same platform in the 60s would have been allowed to win. Was capital dumb then and didnt recognize the co-op trojan horse . No , the answer is much simpler
I think it's terribly naive to think that you're going to obtain the critical mass for a revolution simply by organizing and educating. We love to say that a person's material conditions will dictate their political action. If you follow that line of thinking to its logical conclusion the best way to get people engaged in the fight to end capitalism is to show them what the alternative is. I spent my two years in nursing school carting around strangers doing uber. Most people agree that capitalism is not good. Do you think they'd rather hear they could defeat it by starting a brewery with their buddies or by engaging in a shooting war with the most terrifying armed forces the world has ever known. Now am I naive enough to think it isn't eventually going to come to that? Hell no. But you have a much better chance of getting people to engage when that comes if they have something tangible that they're putting their lives on the line for, rather than some 150 year old words on a page.
Now you kinda jump onto things i never said and rephrase your argument in more general terms that are indeed correct.
My disagreement was about your very specific interpretation of the Corbyn/Sanders campaigns being shot down as proof that their agenda and focus and their strategy was a threat to capital and was recognized as danger to move things towards socialism. Thats a very specific thing and i only explained my view of how thats not the case and ingterpretation we should have of the failures of these campaigns, looking at it historicaly too.
Its simple. Policies and structures that when enacted and pushed through social democratic governments and politicians are just concessions that dont actualy threaten capital and dont move us closer to socialism CAN BE A THREAT TO CAPITAL, have a revolutionary character and usefullness when used by revolutionary movements and parties and do move us towards socialism. Of course you should vote for the possibility of former case when you have the chance like with Corbyn but that doesnt mean that his campaign being shot down was cause capital was terrified that it would move the country towards socialism. More radical socdem/demsoc agentas have been implemented and ruled dozens western nations for a cumulative of hundreds of years but never moved a country an inch towards socialism and never catalysed an increase in class conciousness. They simply arent allowed any more because for various reasons including the fall of the USSR capitalists dont feel like allowing it anymore , despite not seeing them as a road to socialism. Why do you interpet this read and specific disagreement of mine as meaning we should just give people lenin books and that things like co-ops or alternative economic structures shouldent be persued by a socialist movement or cant be useful tools for organization under any contex. Co-ops are cool but to actualy be a part of a move towards socialism they must be part of a larger revolutionary project and connected with the work or actual socialist orgs.
Its literally the most obvious and basic thing that even the most hardcore leftcom or ML agrees with, written even in those 150 year old books. That engaging with, providing and promoting alternative forms of social/economic/political organization as part of a revolutionary movements organizing is a legit strategy and central tool. Literally what every successfull revolutionary movement or group engaged with . From the Bolsheviks, the PRC, Catalonia, Venezuela and even the Panthers. As with a lot of things , the revolutionary and class character of the movement or group engaging with this ,how it was planned ,directed and used and its interraction and prioritization with other strategies and tools was and is always the difference.
To be honest the only silver lining I can ever find in the whole shitshow is that it made more people than we think open their eyes to excatly how legitimate liberal democracy is.
Don't worry, it was apparently all just friendly banter:
