Base and Superstructure

Alienation, autonomy, and ideology

Page 58 of 116

Social Democracy or Socialist Democracy?

July 19, 2021 /

socialist democracy

Sometimes I’m a bit fixated on the distinction between social democracy and socialism (or socialist democracy). And I approach the topic from many angles. We might tell one from the other in terms of how they build programs, how (and whether) they oppose capitalism, who makes up their base, how (and whether) they engage in class struggle, and whether morality drives their politics. And we even find that language (and/or inflation thereof) plays a role.

Furthermore, this stands out as no mere academic debate. It drives movement and electoral strategy, as well as how leftist orgs grow.

A book I was just reading reminded me of another approach to it. That approach concerns creativity, democracy, and innovation. Let’s take a look.

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Two Narratives About Liberal White Women

July 12, 2021 /

liberal white women

In the last few years, ‘liberal white women’ emerged as a common point of departure for very different sorts of politics. Some of those politics connect to the far right. But I’ll set those politics aside. Here, in this post, I’m interested in two narratives about liberal white women that appear on the left and center-left.

I’ll argue these two narratives share more in common than many think.

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transparency

The Thing About Transparency

July 8, 2021 /

The business world loves talking about transparency. Leaders strive for it. Consultants tell them to create a ‘culture of transparency.’ Peddlers of business trends and fads trumpet it. All of them say it’ll open up leadership decisions to more worker input, ’empower’ staff, and so on.

Readers of this blog likely know I roll my eyes at all this stuff. It’s annoying, yes, but it’s also troubling in many (often unintentional) ways. Let’s take a quick look.

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project managers

Do Companies Need Project Managers?

July 5, 2021 /

I want to pick up a thread from three recent posts on the Agile business approach. This thread concerns the role of project management and project managers – two different roles, as we’ll see.

In those other posts, I pointed out – among other things – that Agile concerns product development, not product management. But I pointed out that – at a deeper level – project managers serve a role in the system of class struggle underneath Agile. Beyond that, they often serve in roles oddly parallel of those of middle managers.

Let’s ask another question along those lines: do companies really need project managers? At all? Even on their own terms (i.e., profit and loss)?

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