But there’s potential utility in having a more radical caucus within a less radical organization. Used correctly it can act as the teeth or spearhead that utilizes the size of the org to achieve more radical ends than the org itself cares about.
I think this can be true, but it’s predicated on a radical caucus successfully using the resources of the broader org to deliver measurable material results that are greater than those that could be delivered on their own with the same time, effort, and resources. If they can’t show that, then they’re not using the org, the org is using them. DSA’s rule against democratic centralism was explicitly made to prevent that from happening.
At the national level, I can’t point to anything of significance that “radical caucuses” have achieved within national DSA apart from influencing certain Democrat primary endorsements in 2016 and 2020. Those endorsed Democrats have broadly continued to betray the people of Palestine, for the same reasons DSA has, at the first sign of conflict with the broader liberal democratic system they’re nominally trying to “move left”.
I guess I could see a local tactical argument for forming or co-opting a DSA local if national is handing you more money from all the liberal paper DSA members than your local org is putting into it, but the nature of DSA will still preclude you from putting that money toward revolutionary ends. Best case scenario you can shift the balance of that money more towards local charity and less toward Democrats, but it’s still not necessarily clear to me that would be more effective than just directly donating or volunteering at a liberal charity org. Neither is going to build revolutionary power, but at least the latter directly results in some material improvement in individual human lives.
I think this can be true, but it’s predicated on a radical caucus successfully using the resources of the broader org to deliver measurable material results that are greater than those that could be delivered on their own with the same time, effort, and resources. If they can’t show that, then they’re not using the org, the org is using them. DSA’s rule against democratic centralism was explicitly made to prevent that from happening.
At the national level, I can’t point to anything of significance that “radical caucuses” have achieved within national DSA apart from influencing certain Democrat primary endorsements in 2016 and 2020. Those endorsed Democrats have broadly continued to betray the people of Palestine, for the same reasons DSA has, at the first sign of conflict with the broader liberal democratic system they’re nominally trying to “move left”.
I guess I could see a local tactical argument for forming or co-opting a DSA local if national is handing you more money from all the liberal paper DSA members than your local org is putting into it, but the nature of DSA will still preclude you from putting that money toward revolutionary ends. Best case scenario you can shift the balance of that money more towards local charity and less toward Democrats, but it’s still not necessarily clear to me that would be more effective than just directly donating or volunteering at a liberal charity org. Neither is going to build revolutionary power, but at least the latter directly results in some material improvement in individual human lives.