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.
It’s an older term, but it checks out. ‘Slacktivists.’ Those of us who used the Internet in the 1990s know it as a term for the kids who signed online petitions and then…did nothing. That’s it. They didn’t follow up or take part in any other political actions.
And then along came social media. Maybe slacktivists still sign online petitions. I can’t tell. At least we know they went all-in on the Facebook likes and shares.
I live in Iowa City. Among other things, it’s (by far) the most liberal part of a purple state. Look, Iowa’s a lot more red than it used to be. But I grew up in Indiana. We’re still doing better here in Iowa than over there. And we’re doing better in Iowa City than anywhere else in Iowa.
Living in a liberal oasis of sorts affects our local politics. For one, the GOP is basically a non-entity. All serious politics at the city level takes place within a political space we might describe as ‘to the left of Joe Manchin.’ Within that broad space, we have all flavors of Democratic, leftist, independent, and even libertarian factions.
So, we know there’s a huge political space in the U.S. to the left of Joe Biden. Many of the groups in this space talk about how to build a political majority. Progressives talk about building a coalition majority. Leftists talk about building a working-class majority.
The DSA uses the term ‘multiracial working class’ to get at its target political group. But this term raises as many questions as it answers. Each DSA faction adopts it, and then uses it in varying ways.
Where does this leave us? We don’t know what a working-class majority looks like. At least, not in any settled way. Some leftists seem to think it’s already there for the taking. Others think we need to do far more work to form it. In this post, I’ll see what the data can tell us. Is there a working-class majority out there? What does a working-class majority look like?
So, back in 2019, I wrote a post on the different DSA caucuses. In that post, I looked only at caucus ideology as caucuses described it.
I thought about doing a similar task before the 2021 DSA Convention. But I decided against it. Why? For one, someone else already did a good job of it. Two, I thought readers might benefit from a fresh approach.
Let’s look at the DSA caucuses by how they react to problems. One specific problem, in fact. So, that’s what I’ll do in this post.
The business literature often tells us that most people don’t like their jobs. Business leaders take a mixed attitude toward this. But what they don’t like – and what the literature also shows – is workers who are actively disengaged from their work. Among other things, disengaged workers show less productivity.
This doesn’t interest me much. As a leftist, though, I’m a lot more interested in the kind of advice the literature provides. It usually recommends a kind of propaganda campaign aimed at workers. These campaigns try to tell workers they have good jobs. They try to get workers more excited and engaged.
Maybe. But, as we know, work won’t love you back. A recent book even tells us as much. Many of us – especially white-collar workers – might consider a different strategy. Why not work a merely tolerable job, complete it quickly and efficiently, and then organize in our own time?
I think lots of people run some version of this playbook. They work a regular job and then organize with the DSA, for example.
Any readers have luck with this strategy?
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