Thoughts on production, alienation, and ideology
I’ve posted a few times on Jane McAlevey’s book No Shortcuts. Readers looking to catch up can read the most important of those posts here and here. But I find one other big lesson that McAlevey gives to us. That concerns the limit of mobilizing as a method and basis for an org.
Let’s explore that a bit.
Readers might have the idea that I started this post with a sarcastic or rhetorical question. And yet it’s not. I find the question a really difficult one to answer. Mulling over that very question is one reason it’s taken me four months to write a post on COVID after my January post on Omicron.
Plus, Omicron – or some version of it – remains with us.
Just about everyone involved in leftist organizing in the last 5 years knows about Jane McAlevey. No Shortcuts became the go-to book for it. There’s a broader debate out there on how well McAlevey’s methods do in the real world. But I want to hone in on one idea from her book – the notion of the ‘organic leader.’
McAlevey advocates for an organizing model whereby the organizer – union organizer for McAlevey, but we could apply the model well beyond unions – starts by identifying organic leaders among workers. From there, the organic leader takes the lead in building support for the org.
There’s a lot I like about McAlevey’s approach. But I also think there’s a lot riding on the very organic leaders she appeals to. If we find problems with the very idea of an organic leader, it could put the org in trouble right from the start. So, let’s talk about that.
So, I spent last weekend visiting my parents in Indiana. I often take a trip back to Indiana sometime in the spring or summer. But we had a special occasion for this one: my mom’s 65th birthday and retirement! I had a enjoyable visit, and posts should be back on the more regular schedule in coming days and weeks.
So, I’ve spent a lot of time thinking and writing about the far right in the US. I do so not because I read history (though I do read history). Rather, I think lots of other people use historical analogies that don’t quite work. I think far-right politics in the US look and feel much different than those in, e.g., 1930s Italy and Germany.
At times, this puts me at odds with progressive and even leftist circles. Progressive authors – like Jason Stanley – draw analogies between Trumpism and ‘classic’ fascism. They do so, in part, in order to show the warning signs. We even see things like this in ‘Antifa‘ circles. Those circles focus on small militant groups in their early stages.
I don’t object to any of that, as far as it goes. But progressive work like Stanley’s tends to leave us with a misleading picture in mind of what authoritarianism would look like in the US.
Let’s take up that topic.
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