Base and Superstructure

Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology

Should the Left Organize Soldiers?

In a recent issue of Catalyst, William Avilés and Earlen Gutierrez take up a classic leftist topic. But it’s one that seems to have left the stage decades ago. In short, should the left organize soldiers?

The question left the stage, in part, because of a shift in the base and cultural politics of the left. As the socialist left turned away from organizing, it lost the connections with working class Americans it had built as recently as the 1950s and 1960s. And since the progressives were always grounded in a relatively wealthy and highly educated base, they never had much contact with the sorts of people who become soldiers.

So, the left removed itself from the stage. And the progressives moved in a different direction.

But let’s return to the question. I think it can bring a certain focus.

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Against Centralized Majoritarianism

A couple years ago, I listened to the Russian Revolution season of Mike Duncan’s podcast Revolutions. Readers might recall that I had a few things to say about the podcast when tsk-tsking Duncan about Marx on profit.

In fact, I think it’s overall a great podcast. And I listened to it again, this time hitting all seasons and not just the one on Russia.

As I listened to how the various revolutions strayed off course, I thought about how their leaders engaged with the population. That is to say, I thought about how the revolutionaries related to the average person in these societies. I especially thought about this in light of the French and Russian Revolutions, two revolutions that featured at least some conception of a society built in the interests of the people as a whole.

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When is it Time to Retire from Activism?

I never asked my friend Dick Leitsch when it was time to retire from activism. But he did tell me when he decided to retire.

Dick was 40 years old and the gay liberation movement had changed in ways he didn’t like. It went down a radical path to which Dick himself had opened the door, but didn’t want to pass through. By the time he turned 40, Dick felt that he was part of a different generation from the young activists who arose in the wake of Stonewall.

Generations theorists would agree with Dick. They’d call him a Silent Generation guy, while activist groups were led by young, upstart Boomers.

As for me, I recently turned 41. And I’m thinking through some of the same issues Dick worked through about a half century ago. When is it time to retire from activism? Is it time for me to do so? If so, what does that look like? Is there no place in activism for people over 40?

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The 2024 Election and U.S. Exceptionalism

In his account of the political rise of Benjamin Netanyahu, Guy Laron lays out a framework we could apply to the politics of many countries.

Laron describes how Netanyahu gradually fused together a coalition between business interests, religious fundamentalists, and disaffected working class people. He did so by using state power to tie these groups together under his leadership. For instance, he used the promise of housing and resources under a settler colonialist regime to tie ultra-Orthodox religious people to his political project.

Israel thereby stands out as but one example of a politics that has degenerated into a rivalry between technocratic liberalism (e.g., the Labor Party in Israel, Labour in the UK, the Socialists in France, and so on) on one hand and a xenophobic far right that occasionally represents the interests of a segment of the working class, on the other. We find many such examples.

But that’s not how things work in at least one country – the United States.

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