Last weekend, I hit the road for a trip to Chicago. I was attending the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) Chicago preconvention meeting. Here are some thoughts on that.
The DSA recently endorsed Bernie Sanders for President. This garnered some controversy for a variety of reasons, though it’s worth noting that 76% of member votes were in favor of Bernie. Because of all this, I was worried the DSA event in Chicago would turn into either Bernie Fest 2019 or Criticize Bernie Fest 2019.
I didn’t have much interest in that. I wanted to meet with other Midwest socialists working on important things and ready to talk about that work. Luckily, that’s exactly what it was! Here are some of the things we discussed.
Housing
As I’ve written about previously, tenants union organizing is central to what DSA chapters in Iowa are doing. In addition to Iowa City, Ames and Dubuque are also working on this.
Some Midwest DSA groups are working on things like ending state bans on rent control, lobbying city councils on lead testing, or electing city council members on housing platforms. That’s good work. But I was also happy to see groups taking the sorts of grassroots, non-electoral approaches we’re taking in Iowa.
The Potential of Housing Work
There are a few reasons why I find housing uniquely promising as an issue in the US right now. One, we’re under a period of finance capitalism where productive labor isn’t as central to capitalist operations as it was a few decades ago. We have to pay close attention to other ways the capitalist system dispossesses people to generate wealth.
Two, housing is one of the largest forces of dispossession, and it’s one where capitalists draw upon their full range of tools (e.g., racism, sexism, misogyny). We know, for example, that black women face eviction far more often than other Iowans. We know that Latinx Iowans face severe home loan discrimination. Consequently, housing activism is very broad and effective at building working-class power.
Three, housing helps balance some of the historical shortcomings of labor union movements. Labor unions are often narrowly focused on the interests of higher-skilled workers or workers in specific shops or industries. Unions are fighting this by forming broader coalitions, and I think tenants unions play well with that.
And, four, housing organizing serves an educational role within leftist movements. Some leftist groups still maintain a narrow labor focus. I have an upcoming post on one example of this, namely Catalyst‘s The ABCs of Capitalism.
DSA Electoral Approach
The DSA’s electoral approach was one of the more pressing issues on the agenda. There are now quite a few DSA members who hold elected office, from city councils to state legislatures to Congress. Along with, of course, the endorsement of Sanders.
The end goal here is still unclear. I’ve claimed for a long time that electoral work shouldn’t be the primary site of activism, nor should lobbying elected officials. But that leaves us with the question: what is the role of elections and elected officials?
The quick answer is that electoral work gives us opportunities for socialist movement building. And that’s the answer the DSA officials gave in Chicago, which was encouraging. So far, so good. But that’s very schematic. How will electoral campaigns build socialism? How will even electoral victories build socialism? And how do we go beyond merely maintaining or adding to member numbers and get into building working-class power?
Those questions are answerable, but they’re not yet answered. There’s a lot more discussion to be done here.
DSA Chicago Meeting
It was a great meeting! And I think there should be lots of interesting ideas on the table at the 2019 DSA Convention in August. Midwest socialist groups are finding their way toward good work. The DSA has lots of challenges involved with a growing organization, and it has lots of potential ways of navigating those challenges.
