unfreeradical @ unfreeradical @lemmy.world

Posts

0

Comments

138

Joined

2 yr. ago

It is pessimistic to predict that worker advancement would reach some particular point at which the bosses could no further be forced into retreat.

Sure, but the post is simply asserting that any advances for workers would require force against bosses.

The way I understood the objection is that eliminating the bosses would never be achieved.

The objection that fairness for workers requires completely eliminating bosses is parsing the semantics, which is a confusing way to respond.

I'm not quite sure what it means for someone not to act as forced.

You seem to be negating the possibility of advancing beyond the status quo.

Ok doomer.

Of course it cannot be all genuine.

Biden's performances might help build sympathies for unions from among those who have been doubtful, for those who are on a journey away from neoliberal ideology, but the actual power of unions comes from within them and from their allies.

It is best to encourage everyone to continue fighting on the ground, and not to be distracted by elite pageantry.

The question feels less suited to a forum for socialism generally than for Soviet history.

Ultimately, the insurance may be organized by a company, a state, or a cooperative. Socialists of course are united in being most opposed to the first.

I am not understanding the question.

Is the premise that risk pooling among individuals, which is the basic scheme for all insurance, is in some sense dependent on private interests?

Every party is different, and every has a power structure that at various times will attract controversy and antagonism.

Most of the work in advancing workers interest and building socialist organization occurs on the ground through direct action.

You might consider participating in a mutual aid group or contributing to labor mobilization efforts operating near wherever you are located.

As you learn about various groups and their differences, you might find that you have a perspective more deeply compatible with some groups than with to others.

I am arguing that the security and value of the legislation is only assured by the power on the ground, by the organization of workers, to press for their enforcement and their preservation, in the same interests by which such legislation originally was demanded.

I specifically object to your earlier language, that the laws, or regulations, are "written in blood". I think the metaphor is misleading.

If the masses begin resting easy the moment legislation is enacted, then no real victory has been achieved.

The same power from the ground must be maintained, and if possible, expanded, in order for the working class to have meaningfully advanced

For example, I would rather have strong unions and no legal rights for workers, compared to the inverse scenario, because unions can assert power in an absence of legal rights for workers, but legal rights simply may be retracted or ignored the moment the working class loses real power.

I am not arguing necessarily that no one should push for legal rights, only to avoid making them the locus of emphasis, and to avoid ascribing to them some special status.

I think the point of disagreement is the actual meaning of legislation.

Laws create no magic force on anyone. They are rather merely occurrences within the same overall system in which we all interact. The resistance by the powerful for some law to be created derives from the same source that informs their behavior once its creation is completed.

Power from the masses is required to make a law meaningful, which to my mind, is good enough reason to consider laws almost meaningless.

I may have misunderstood your view. Mine is that legislation is mostly symbolic. The real work is on the ground.

I'm sorry if it seemed I was picking fights.

It has always been the same under representative democracy. Elite bodies serve elite interests.

The postwar period took its form due to strong labor, and the Bretton Woods system, arising in the aftermath of the Depression and amidst the Second World War. The period was the exception, not the rule, for capitalism under liberal democracy.

Laws are at best one tool of many, not the final objective, for labor.

Laws are made by the powerful few.

Power for the masses comes from the groundul up.

We organize to build our own power, toward our own interests, to challenge the systems that support the interests of elites.

regulations are written in blood

Well, they are ignored the moment labor loses the power to demand their enforcement.

I try not to emphasize regulations. Genuine power never comes from words.

Advances were made and sustained principally through labor organization, not government regulations.

Much of the manipulation in the presentation from PU is based on constructing a false dichotomy between organization through either private business versus central government.

A common tactic is to bait an antagonist into attacking private business, but then shifting from a defense of business to a criticism of government. It is employed by proponents of marketism, and commonly involves insertion into the discussion, often as a straw man, the Democratic Party or the Soviet Union.

Such proponents often respond poorly to suggestions about cooperative organization, or to reminders over the natural tendency of business to seek increasing protection from the state.

Not many would do well reading that script.

Most content from PU is rough to watch, but the one I gave can be used for comic relief.

You can see the Wilks's oily paw prints all over.

PU has already compiled the best ones.

The one mentioning the iPhone will long be a favorite.