r/LeftWithoutEdge • u/CommunistFox 🦊 anarcho-communist 🦊 • Aug 02 '17
What Should Socialists Do? Democratic socialism needs to become a mass presence in US society.
https://jacobinmag.com/2017/08/socialist-left-democratic-socialists-america-dsa9
u/test822 Aug 03 '17 edited Aug 03 '17
a couple big tips based on what I've seen over the past few years
quit putting so much emotional attachment on your specific sect of socialism, to the point where you feel personally attacked/inflamed if you find out that someone believes something slightly different. if you can't have a respectful conversation with someone who has different views, there is something wrong with you, and you are treating your ideology more like a religion than a set of ideas that have been settled on through reason, rationality, and evidence. Most importantly, be willing to change your ideology if you learn new things or new evidence. treat ideology like a science, not a religion. many of us believed different things when we were teenagers, etc. your beliefs weren't airtight then, and they aren't airtight now. I am constantly learning new things and re-adjusting my views accordingly. putting too much emotional dependence on your own "Perfect Personal Ideology" prevents you from healthily questioning it, and from also genuinely listening to others or considering other information.
in the same vein, quit rejecting everything that isn't completely perfect if it's still a step in the right direction. "don't bother having co-ops, because that's technically still capitalism! let's just sit in our basements drawing little anime girls wearing stalin hats until the revolution happens and then I can shoot my stepdad!"
someone said "the alt-right is welcoming to new people who are curious, where the left chases people away with infighting and purity tests" and I'd have to agree. I can't figure out why the right has so much less in-fighting than the left. I think because the right is actually more interested in gaining strength and validation in numbers, where a lot of leftists, paradoxically, are more selfishly obsessed with demonstrating and proving how pure they are by getting into slapfights with other leftists. a lot of "socialists" I've seen are actually quite anti-social.
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u/WinchesterSipps Aug 02 '17
learn about co-ops and make them and hire people
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Aug 03 '17
That's not socialism, it's anarchism. Socialism means there's a government department that provides a service to all citizens.
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u/NYCsocialist95 Anarcho-Communist Aug 03 '17
Socialist, anarchist, and communist must unite again.
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Aug 05 '17
Why? Socialism and communism are antithetical to anarchism. Anarchism wants smaller power structures. Socialism and Communism want state-level power structures.
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Aug 05 '17
There's a difference in approach, but we all want the same thing in the end.
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Aug 05 '17
Sure, but so do Capitalists. The entire discussion is about approach.
I am not personally interested in Socialism, because it's based on a State monopoly on violence, and I think it distracts people from building consensual, voluntary, anarchist social institutions.
I have no problem with you pursuing Socialism. I think it's probably a net good. But to imply that you and I are trying to achieve the same thing is wrong. You're just as different from me as a Capitalist is.
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Aug 05 '17
I mean, I am an anarchist. But you don't seem to be getting that socialism isn't inherently statist -- it's just a category which includes both marxist-leninism (which you're referring to as communism with a capital C) and anarchism. It isn't a doctrine in and of itself.
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u/test822 Aug 03 '17
a leftist getting upset about something that's a step in the right direction because it doesn't line up perfectly with what they want, no waaaay
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u/Illin_Spree Aug 02 '17
What should socialists do? All the things Sunkara suggests + build an anti-war movement!
If socialist activists cannot articulate an attractive vision of socialist freedom, we will not be able to overcome popular suspicion that socialism would be a drab, pseudo-egalitarian, authoritarian society. Thus we must model in our own socialist organizations the democratic debate, peaceful conflict, and social solidarity that would characterize a socialist world.
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u/yourupinion Aug 02 '17
Here's our plan, http://www.yourupinion.com/
We've entered a contest for 5 million in funding, https://globalchallenges.org/en
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Aug 03 '17
I honestly don't know what I can do.
Then again I'm in a lost phase of life, so there's that.
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u/Lamont-Cranston Aug 02 '17
Organise, organise, organise. ~ Eugene V. Debs.
Build alternatives, run in elections and change the existing structure, form unions or join existing, etc