Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
These are posts on activism from the blog Base and Superstructure. This takes many forms. The focus here is on political activism, above all on activist organizing and base-building. One concern is how to build effective movements. There’s also a need to create solidarity with fellow members and build coalitions with other groups. The main aim of good movements is to work together to advance material interests. This section also includes critiques of electoral work, and discussion of how and when to use elections to advance activist goals. Navigating the balance between grassroots work and electoral work is difficult for everyone.
Every now and then, I blog about political and movement strategy. Those posts hit certain themes. I’ll hit those themes here, too. But I hope to do so in a fresh way. So, I’ll start with a claim: ‘Bark at the moon’ is a terrible political strategy. In fact, it’s not a political strategy at all.
It’s certainly not a strategy when it comes in the form of social media slacktivism. But it’s also a non-strategy in its more sophisticated forms.
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Readers hardly need an intro to V.I. Lenin. To this day, he’s still a hero to the Marxist-Leninist left. Why? He defeated Russian capitalism, founded the Soviet Union, and guided revolutionary movements around the globe. And to most anarchists, he’s still a villain. Why? He broke Russian anarchism and turned communism into an authoritarian ideology.
I’m not going to wade too heavily into that debate. I’ll take a more modest aim here. Recently I started reading the Essential Works of Lenin. From that collection, I’ll say a few things about Lenin’s short book ‘What Is to Be Done?‘
While much of the material looks at the specific situation in Russia, I think we can learn a few things from it. Even things we can apply in the 2020s. Lenin can teach us a number of things about both good activism and what to avoid.
As some readers might know, Jacobin ran a study of working-class voters. The study hits an unusual depth, and it provides lots of useful info.
In the past I’ve criticized many views on elections and politics expressed in Jacobin. As have many others on the left. But let’s not play up any ‘feud’ with Jacobin. I read the magazine, and I also read Jacobin’s more academic journal Catalyst. And I think they do some great things with this study. They point to some of their own errors, and they show an interest in doing real electoral work that doesn’t fall prey to the magical thinking that’s all too common on the left.
And so, let’s take a look at the Jacobin study. What can it teach us about working-class voters? And what can it teach us about building solid leftist electoral campaigns?
Within the Democratic Socialists of America – especially the very online parts of DSA – there’s been a hot debate lately over whether to expel Jamaal Bowman from the org. Bowman recently won an election to Congress, joined The Squad, and formed a big part of the DSA’s strategy of building membership through electoral engagement.
I won’t recap all the details. Readers can check out coverage from the DSA Observer. But the basic story: Bowman voted for Iron Dome funding for Israel. He took a lobbyist-paid trip to Israel and posed with Israel’s right-wing prime minister, among other things. In response to a rebuff from Bowman and his supporters, the DSA’s Palestine Solidarity Working Group called on him to fix these issues or face expulsion. Some on the online left sided with the WG, while other parts sided against expulsion.
But I think the whole expulsion question arrives far too late. The DSA should look into how it got into this mess in the first place.
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The trick to reading a Robert Caro biography? He writes about places more than people. And, above all, he writes about power. I pointed to this feature in a post on Caro’s book series The Years of Lyndon Johnson. But before Caro wrote about LBJ, he wrote about Robert Moses and New York. I’ll say a word here about The Power Broker: a book about how one builds (and then loses) power in a major US city.
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