Comment on You wouldn't even need to stop going to work!
Juice@midwest.social 4 days agoYou wont weaken the government by not paying biills. We don’t want a weaker state we want to smash the state and create a new one for and by workers not billionaires. How does weakening the government weaken their power? Right now the government is weaker than its been in 70 years and the billionaires are more powerful than ever.
I agree that a united, militant workers movement will weaken various structures that the rich use to reinforce their rule, including parts of the government but I think you need to develop your view of the state under capitalism because you still subscribe yo many false illusions. Its like people saying Luigi is going to tip the balance in class relations for the workers. Its just a kind of reformism or false.co sciousness that hopes that there is a step before what is necessary that would be good enough.
Like organize bill ass payment strikes, I think strategically, like in healthcare, a mass movement could shake some things up, but likely it would just result in increased violence against the movement. Individuals not paying bills will literally not do shit. Individual action is basically worthless. In order for it to reach a critical tipping point, where a quantity of individual action transforms into change in political or economic quality, will take a lot of organization. And more power to you! Organize it and I’ll likely join. I’ll throw you a bone, but you have to provide the meat. Personally it’s not what I think is going to lead to greater worker consciousness and emancipation, but I’m just some guy. Organize it and prove me wrong.
beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
I think we’re misaligned because my unstated goal is to reduce the risk to migrants and trans people from a tyrannical government. Reducing state power would greatly reduce their ability to round up immigrants and dick over the queer community. It would mean less money to pay police to be assholes at the very least.
It’s also a safe in-point for people wanting to take direct action but afraid of the legal consequences of more glamorous activities.
Buying nothing, buying less, buying used, buying local (in that order) is easy-ish for most people, saves them money, and breaks no laws or contracts. Not paying your bills is a dumb idea, but not buying shit you don’t need is a win win for individuals. It would take several years to build a critical mass and if people change their relationship to consumption it would be easier to sustain that pressure.
No temporary strike, protest, or other action will save us. We need long term personal change that will slowly starve out the billionaire class and their lackies.
I am trying to organize a national buy nothing campaign, but the only resources I have are grass roots tools, like rambling in internet comments and writing weird zines. I’d suggest trying to reduce your personal spending by 20% and encourage people you know personally to do the same, if everyone did that the powers that be will take notice and in 18 months we’d see change.
Juice@midwest.social 4 days ago
You had me till your last sentence which I think is reformist, but since you stated your position so well im sure we could (hypothetically) work together in coalition.
I think its clear that there is a great deal of consumerism that exists in excess of peoples needs, but without a means to replace it with anything, since the consumerism is an expression of people’s social alienation, then there’s no material incentive for people to make these changes. It seems like the thrust of your ideas would work well along side certain anarchist and social libertarian ideas of dual power, which I think is also worth of criticisms but also is a step closer theoretically to a correct formula for change.
Confusion about the government’s role in class oppression, unawareness of what money is and how it operates, these are big questions that took me a long time to find sufficient and satisfying answers for them. If your like to share your zones or writings I’d at least give them a look! I read and contribute political and economic articles to some zines too, and frankly I’m just a fan of the form. I’m a bit older and diy zines were the first polisci I ever encountered, and now I’m a smelly commie, on watchlists and everything
beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 days ago
I would say pragmatist, rather than a reformist. Reform makes the least mess to clean up after and leaves the smallest window for a hypothetical Joe the Billionaire from starting an actual monarchy after the overthrow of the system. If I had my way we’d replace the constitution with a new one that establishes a strong, expanded bill of right and the power to enforce it at a national level and all other decisions would be made at a city or county level, with state governments becoming caretakers and losing all legislative, executive, and judicial power beyond what’s needed to maintain the roads and grid(s).
Replacing consumerism as a means of validation and acceptance is easier than it looks. Alienation is a combination of disenfranchisement, social rejection, and a lack of agency. The “buy nothing, buy less, buy used, buy local” is part of the zine I’m currently writing. The idea is that you replace consumerism with community. Buy nothing groups, swap meets, farmer’s markets, flea markets, craigslist meets all provide real human interaction and social validation. Actively trying to avoid any money possible going to billionaires and corrupt state coffers means more time spent shopping, specifically in meatspace, rather than online (where huge chunks of your money go to billionaires).
I’ve actually been working on compiling all of the zine and essay content into a website, I will make a note and drop you a link when it goes live (months still, but this year). If I wasn’t already on a watch list (old crusty anarchist), I will absolutely be on one when that goes up, lol.
Juice@midwest.social 4 days ago
I mean I guess as a Marxist there are just some things we have fundamentally different understandings? The way you talk about consumerism and alienation, is fundamentally opposed to a Marxist’s definition. To a Marxist alienation isn’t subjective, it is material; a result of workers slavish relation to commodity production, as the relation that generates surplus value.
But I’m trying to back off of explicitly anarchist critiques, and kind of begrudgingly think about your basic conceptions. I’ve spent enough time around anarchists and Marxists to know that there’s something sort of broken there, broken by history. And I know enough about anarchists, who kind of effortlessly organize circles around us, and the history of anarchism as it relates to various socialist projects of the 20th century, than to do what many of my comrades do, and just like quote “On Authority” to y’all as if it has ever made a lick of difference. I guess to put it plainly: I can understand why an anarchist wouldn’t necessarily be all for a Marxist or Leninist conception of revolution, might advocate for a measure of caution and search for a “third way”. I won’t be convinced that money is anything other than a mechanism of class oppression, and the value form itself is actually a tremendous mind fuck, accounting for the alienation that workers experience.
What I think I really don’t understand, is the anarchist conception of the individual, like, in a scientific way. There’s something “in the sauce” that I can’t account for in our analysis, something that overlaps with a great deal of the working class. But if we are comrades in sharing and binding ourselves to the struggles of workers then that’s basically what’s most important. And demanding that you adhere to “correct” theoretical analysis when there is something I dont understand about like one of anarchism’s fundamental concepts, something that seems to be very “right” that comes from your tradition, something that I can’t just dismiss as “petty bourgeois” or liberal.
So more power to ya, friend. I’d love to read anything you come out with.