Wolff, laziness and proletarian babying in the contemporary neo-egalitarian shift

I'd like to open my concerns and critique (but mostly concerns) with a look at one of Wolff's recent showings.

The article in question will be this one: truth-out.org/news/item/31567-socialism-means-abolishing-the-distinction-between-bosses-and-employees ("Socialism Means Abolishing the Distinction Between Bosses and Employees").

The main featured gems I want to look at are, in order:
>When workers collectively and democratically produce, receive and distribute the profits their labor generates, the enterprise becomes socialist
>[T]hese new cooperative enterprises would seek to solve problems such as how to organize their interdependencies with one another and with the public, how to relate to private and public property
>Different forms of societal socialisms will emerge: some with markets, private property and large corporations

Now, let us first discard the internal debate of which notions of socialism we adhere to (although, to clarify for your knowledge, it's apparent I follow the Marxist/materialist one, which posits that we can only call socialism that which abolishes all private property-systemic mechanisms entirely) and observe the multi-definitional contradictions in his commentary, and why this is probIematic to anyone's cause, whether you're a Marxcom, anarcho- or marksoc (or any ugh combination).

A simple starting point could begin at Wolff's already contradictory use of a combination of terms we all (I am fairly sure, or at least hope so; I'm trying to level with you here) reject, such as "private" and "collective" in the same breat, or "large corporations" alongside any mention of "socialism", truly. This indicates not just Wolff's laziness(?) or babying of his audience(really, which of the two is it? I respect Wolff a whole lot but is he here purposely confusing us out of laziness or does he take the idea of simple pedagogy to ridiculous degrees, but also that the mentality of Wolff and those like him (advocates pushing for some kind of idea of change with anti-capitalist language) inherently bring forth: that of at once very explicit about both critiquing and especially offering an alternative, but seemingly at the cost of any kind of consistency or affiliation.

Where the dangers, at least for me? Perhaps most importantly in the continuity of any of his motivations and their consistency. Do we want to rebreed "socialism" as a vague term meaning "any instance in which explicit notions of economic fairness, democracy, participation, etc. are central" (like socdems do and have actively shaped most of the world's understanding of it to)? Do we want to, more than anything, incite a vague movement for fairness primarily but at the cost of any consistency? Do we categorically reject a few base points in general just for the sake of mass appeal and do we, consequently, wish for a kind of organic new movement to come into existence and will we, once again consequently, accept the way it came to this simply because it was born of some kind of genuine interest in alternative politics?

Are the Marxists among us prepared to let Wolff, self-described Marxian economist, espouse ideas under the brand of Marx or Marxism even when they blatantly "revise" (I hate this shitty Stalinist term, but fuck is it accurate here) the Marxist legacy's fundamental conclusions, let alone the entire materialist philosophy's fundamentals themselves?

What about the anarchists; would they abandon their consistent theoretical opposition to structures of power just to see something happen?

What of even the marksocs, who see Wolff at once push for primarily cooperatives but at the same time breaking their notion of cooperatives as public/collective/personal property while seeing Wolff raise the possibility and pacifist attitude towards alongside-existing literal private corporations?

I want to end my post by explicitly (re)iterating that I do not in any way oppose Wolff's efforts in form, nor have any disrespect for him intellectually, and that this thread is mostly to be taken as a big "what is to be done (with)?" in regards to the building neo-egalitarian/vaguely anticapitalist (entryist, some) movements.

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Socialism is already a term devoid of meaning. People here in Europe seem to think it means the government providing good public services whilst Americans seem to think it means Satan rising up from hell to destroy the Earth.

Excuse the bluntness, but all you've done here is more eloquently reiterate the established condition we try to mend.

So what are you suggesting; that appeal to popular ignorance needs to be ignored? Is a babying attitude towards popular anger the way to go according to you? Are you even suggesting anything at all?

I'm embarrassed that I don't have any intelligent to respond because I just joined [email protected]/* */ (wolffs organization)

I am a recently converted babby leftist. The way I see it, its for promoting workplace democracy and the only organization that denounces the Ussr and stuff and doesn't use 1940s soviet aesthetics. Also it is growing fast and people are generally supportive of it

We're all leftists here who understand contradictions of capitalism and want a wholly different system and are tired of social democratic reforms of capitalism
and even we can't agree how an alternative mode of production would be established and how it would work
I would vote for a cooperativist president or party if they had more traction than an outright communist or state-socialist party

and even reactionaries and propertarians have trouble opposing it
and socdems love it rather than saying "but you can't have total socialism, you gotta have some capitalism and some socialism" when you advocate socialism or communism

I'm saying your entire spiel of linking it to Wolff is random. The orthodox definition of socialism is already out of use and has been for many decades. Wolff's vagueness of terms is nothing notable or new, Social Democrats have been doing it for ages. Seeing as Wolff is just another reformist, I don't see why this is in any way notable at all.

OK, first off I appreciate the time you put into this.

Here's my suggestion: critique Wolff's presentations. Voice your concerns publicly where they will be seen. Comments are enabled on the youtube videos. They read emails sent to [email protected]/* */ Holla Forums has already sponsored an episode of Global Capitalism, so there's an unwritten expectation of reciprocity.

The Holla Forums-sponsored episode is for this month, btw. He's going to read to his audience that the episode was sponsored by Holla Forums.

>I'm embarrassed that I don't have any intelligent to respond because I just joined [email protected]/* */ (wolffs organization)
Don't be. You should only start being embarassed the second you decide to stop any further investigation into theory. Given that you are new, you may not even have a place to start, which is only understandable. Want a place to start?

An honorable objective, but its form is still vague and the content of the critique of the prevailing system still seems contradictory or seems to be formulated in a way that babies you, the intended partisan, in its deeper understanding. It is only because I care about everyone's input that I have qualms with this lazy content, and because I want as many minds as possible to be properly involved in the critical process of formulating any potential manifestation of (y)our potential destiny.

I think we can all agree that this is more than warranted, but a necessity for any movement that wants to even be taken seriously.

Is this an inherently good thing, not just for its own cause but in general?


Do we really? Once again, even if I fully abandon the Marxist theorization of what is and what is not socialism, do we truly understand the contradictions in the same way and do we share the same (un)accepting stance towards every element? Wolff himself, whether he realizes it or not, communicates obviously contradictory ideas when selling his ideal. What does this mean for not just our proper conception of this ideal, but of the logical consistency of the ideal's contenance (the theory it should be supported by)?

Again, agreed. But try to address the probIematic formulations therefor above.

This is a question in and of itself, but we are here at a point where the likes of Wolff clearly say: I have a more than basic idea of it.

Your vote shares mine here, no doubt.


I link it to Wolff only because Wolff is among the few whom are leading the increasingly more noisy neo-egalitarian and are actually gaining traction. You won't see me bother addressing the forever to be irrelevant post-leftist special snowflakes and their communicated inconsistencies. Wolff deserves our attention, while e.g. Stirnerite lifestylists deserve only a le upboat at best.

denk you very much.

>critique Wolff's presentations. Voice your concerns publicly where they will be seen. Comments are enabled on the youtube videos. They read emails sent to [email protected]/* */
I am already consistently active on those platforms, but my voice alone is obviously not enough. I need to find people who share my concerns so that we may have a stereophonic critique that truly drags to it some attention.

If not that, I need you nerds to think along with me and help me formulate better my precise problem, or even if there is one and if so what is to do be proverbially done. I could very well fire up OpenShot and start making some content and spread it around on jewtube, fedbook, etc., but I once again want your fucking opinion to make it worthwhile.

There is, but it needs to be properly fired up. We'll need to actually give some good reason for reciprocity and platform ourselves coherently and articulate ourselves properly.

Yes, and I personally can't wait to hear his thick New York accent say the promised "forward slash L-E-F-T-Y-P-O-L forward slash" before kicking off another roast of the dollar and its porcine vanguard. It will be well worth my 50 yurobucks contribution.

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I'm going to be off for a bit, and/but hope to see a lot of interesting replies here tomorrow. Peace.

OK. I'm a little fried right now because SNOWMAGEDDON and prepping for it. If I don't lose power tomorrow I will probably be able to add to the discussion.

I see where you're coming from, but what you see as babying I see as necessary. If listening to Wolff required reading capital first, would he get anywhere near the support he is?

You've made a lot of tall claims but backed them up with very little substance OP. I read the article and I don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

The base contradiction of Wolff is that he claims to be a Marxist (or at least Marxian), yet he views socialism as simply the abolition of private property (a view shared by many non-Marxian socialists) rather than the elimination of the commodity-form and thus of production according to the law of value (the Marxian approach).
If he dropped the "Marx" affiliation, he would simply be a typical libertarian market socialist (like me).
However, he does occasionally critique markets directly, which does seem in line with Marxian socialism, so yes, I can only conclude that he views the establishment of market socialism I know you see that as a contradictory term, but anyone who isn't a Marxist won't see it that way, curb your autism as a necessary step toward a traditionally socialist planned economy. Since that seems to be the case, yes, I think he is, as you put it "babying," his audience–though I'd simply describe it as knowing his audience. If he were talking to a room full of well-read Marxists, he would probably describe the bigger picture in fuller detail.
Sometimes this leads to awkward situations. For example, there's a talk he gave (can't find it right now, will look later, sorry) where he's discussing Marx, and says that Marx advocated worker cooperatives. An audience member says (rightly) that Marx never advocated worker cooperatives, and Wolff basically brushes him off. It's clear that the guy who spoke up knew much more about the subject than the rest of the audience, and Wolff was tailoring his speech for an audience that's largely ignorant of leftist politics, theory, and history. To be fair, most of the people he talks to, in meetings and in the media, fall into that category.
So having to tailor your arguments for an ignorant audience comes at the price of detail and the bigger picture.
I hope this post makes sense, I'm very sleepy.

Also, when is the January edition of Global Capitalism coming out? I want to see Wolff say, "This is brought to you by Holla Forums. That's el ee eff tee why pee oh el."

That's wrong, read one of his books. His argument is that the most meaningful definition of socialism must be the elimination of the distinction between surplus value creators and surplus value appropriators/distributors. He writes that this could in theory exist in a variety of different manners including with private property intact. It might not necessarily remain politically stable in such a situation, however.

The term 'socialism' can't be saved, the term 'communism' resists hijacking.

Back.


Grab the fucking shovel, Shinji.


You can be coherent and comprehensive in your pedagogy without babying the proletariat or patronizing the notion that they are all uncritical baboons incapable of thought. Indeed, garnering support behind a thick three volume (and counting, because there is still translation done) series of books on capital is a recipe for failure, which is why the most successful historical (Marxists, anarchist or otherwise) movements of emancipation condensed their theory into comprehensive and bite-sized propaganda, and n.b. consistent with their own ideals.


Stop tunneling on this one article and realize that I am speaking in a broader sense of Wolff's vagueness and what feels like a very babying strategy.

Consult the thread and its replies might elucidate more meaning; you're among the only one to get my point (but not the only one to also disagree, which is fine). Otherwise, just ask me more.

Like I said in the OP, I can happily discard puritan definition to dialectical materialist (Marxist) conclusions of concepts, but I want a "revised" (ugh) Marxist-Wolffist idea that is actually consistent or at least a language that is not vague (babying is another story, but still).

Or, if consistency is to be discarded in exchange for the potential of subjective reactions to vagueness, let it be a more communicated feature of Marxist-Wolffism than it is a lazy consequence.

(end of the month)

Yeah… I've been working for a while and taking breaks to get some calories in me.
>tfw the snow sticks to the shovel and you have to knock the snow off after every shovel
I just need to summon my fighting spirit. My shovel is the shovel that will pierce the snow.

One thing that I will give to his particular branch of theory is that his focus is entirely 100% class-based. I cannot disagree loudly enough with his claim that private property can continue to exist in socialism, however. Private property is a mechanism by which individuals can achieve outsized economic control and thus undermine the democracy he intends to create.

Apparently, I should post something insightful, but I'm not sure if there is anything to add beyond the obvious: no, he is not babying anyone, nor is there some secret Socialist plan Wolff is going to reveal after masterminding it for over two (three?) decades.

And this, of course.

It's explicitly not about private property. Wolff's whole Rethinking Marxism gig is about ownership being unimportant. People keep missing this very important bit when they think "reactionaries and propertarians have trouble opposing" him (as user above posted).

It's not trouble. They have no reason to do it.


Is it time to troll people about deficit? Are the shelves empty already?

Giving my take on the article and OP:

From the sound of things, I didn't get a sense that he was babying anyone, but more trying to work through a general confusion of just what socialism entails and putting a little bit of his own opinion into things using the context of the troubles that socialist leaders have had in establishing the original idea of socialism. And he has a point, the idea of what socialism is has been warped and thrown into question time and time again as the actions of the socialist who get into power are often the ones defining socialism for their nation. When a nation sees state capitalism instead of socialism but hears it being called "socialist policy", then large numbers of people start calling it socialism in total ignorance for what the original idea of socialism really was.

The point I feel he's trying to drive home is that socialism needs a core, defining rule set and he offer's his own interpretation of what modern socialism should be described as. "An enterprise only qualifies as "socialist" once the distinction between employers and employees within it has been abolished."

It might also be that he is trying to appeal to a larger audience as well since most people outside of socialist/communist/anarchistic politics might not know there is a difference between private and personal property, may not understand how socialist organization works, and might even still think the US is a "democracy" rather than a republic and might attribute "democratic decision" to their experiences of that. (Confused outsiders saying things like "so… we elect our board members instead of the investors and that's a socialist business?")

What doesn't help is also a number of times where I've run into people thinking that democratic party policies are often socialist party policies (such as Obama's "everyone should buy health insurance or else we tax you more" making government medical insurances become flooded and private insurance companies jack up their prices because the government insurance didn't have the support it needed and otherwise people would be paying more in taxes anyway.)

Not quite. He's pretty explicit about the existence of private property ending up reverting to capitalism. It's just that his critique is that past attempts at socialism focused too much attention on "public" ownership (in the form of the government) and central planning, and not enough attention to arrangements in the workplace.

Except many people outside of far anti-capitalist political groups do not even know what "proletariat" means and we are most certainly not the majority after all the "communist dictatorships" that sprung up and became the symbol of greedy states commanding the poor masses to their abysmal lives in sweat shops and cramped cities. These are not communist or socialist in the least, but they are what the world knows as the faces of communism and socialism. Even Cuba has it's fair share of people looking at them as if they are still stuck in the 40s and 50s as ruled by a warlord because few bothered to mention that they have gradually gotten a bit better over the years.

That's not my impression.

His main work on USSR (Class Analysis) is absent any serious research on worker control or workplace democracy. The only thing that interests him is the existence of the managers (who gets labelled "surplus-appropriators") - which is proof enough to declare workplace democracy non-existent.

His articles similarly suggest using workplace democracy instead of proprietary rights.

"Nation" can't see anything. People can be told.

And people were told that there is some weird thing called State Capitalism (which IRL is a proper name for MarkSoc/NEP), and then people were lied to. Extensively.

But this "State Capitalism" or, to name properly, State Socialism, is the only possible solution given current circumstances. And using name Socialism is perfectly acceptable, even if it does not fully conform to the Utopian definition of Socialism, while delusions of Perfect Socialism lead nowhere - as Marx, Engels, and Lenin repeatedly warned people.

Yes. I completely agree.

Except Socialism already had much better core for 170 years.

Except if co-op enterprise has to cough up cash to bank - it is still being exploited.

Except if market economy is not abolished, co-op enterprises will still suffer from the law of value and Capitalist socio-economic relations will dominate.

That's two major flaws in his new interpretation that has been pointed out and fixed in 19th century. Something he cannot be unaware of. He is deliberately trying to substitute real - if somewhat forgotten by the masses - core of Socialism with a dud.

I feel wolf doesn't nessicarily know why the other leaders trying to make socialism failed. It was the attempts to make socialist policies with the current government system rather than using their power to set up a regime change and restructure the government to be owned by the people before ever going after the businesses. They need to do away with the senates, the parliments, and the ruling classes, temporary as they might be. Essentially using their power to give up their power and having the "faith" that the people will make the changes to socialism and communism themselves. What's more, now a days they need to do it without calling it socialism since the second you call it that, that's the second the hundreds of thousands of people will bring up the failures and exploitation of the past in which those who thrive in the current system will use this to ensure your failure as well by both providing their "reasonable and fair" alternative while sending controlled opposition into your party to corrupt it from the inside and make loud noises about it.

Marxspeed you, nerd.


Yeah, but keep it congruent to the topic of whatever the praxis should look like, not necessarily whether or not the praxis is the way you want it to be. This is for another day.

Goddamnit.

Look, while I'm obviously much closer to your "version" of socialism (just the idea that there are "versions" of socialism grates me, but eh), although still far from it looking at your flag, I feel it's important that you grasp the point of this thread. That regardless of whether or not Wolff has any desire to do anything, any plans for anything, etc. that there is interest in guiding his current efforts towards success, if not simply so we can influence it and perhaps in the future get what we think a properly anti-capitalist movement should end up looking like. Comprende?


Incredibly simple concept to explain. One so simple that old-fashioned terms like "proletariat" can be substituted for terms we even shoddily use today semi-accurately, like "worker", "working class" or even "labor" if you're in the non-burger spaces of the Anglo world. Wolff successfully already communicates this properly conceptually, the problem is his inconsistent use of simple concepts for his ideas and analyses and his further pedagogic style.

If you've been paying attention, I've been really clear that any kind of appeal to anti-capitalism is to me already necessarily one that removes historical references as attractive, and if anything is a movement of "we're fucked, and we've absolutely fucked it up in the past, but it's no excuse to lay down and die without a bang". Wolff already does this too.

Defeatism is what I'm mostly seeing here, but know that an impressive amount of interest in alternatives to capitalism, vague as people's concept of capitalism may be, let alone its alternatives. Wolff, if anything, proves that the most wildfire attempts at working class appeal work to get at least a hundred thousand views on Youtube at a consistent rate on the topic of today's economic inertia as well as an alternative to it (vague, once more, but it's there!).

Please don't. I cringe whenever I see that.

All intended, lad.

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Holy shit, dude, it's Holla Forums, we're not a super-high-traffic board. There's no need to constantly bump your own thread.

I bump when the thread's a few pages away, which is quite rapidly because today is actually kinda active and there's loads of different threads people are participating in.

I think most people watch Wolff to get a economic-oriented left-wing take on the news. I think (or at least I would hope) that most people on here see the limits of worker cooperatives.

This board has quite a few market socialists, like me, who think that worker cooperatives are: 1) a good way of spreading class consciousness and reducing capitalism's grip on the world, and 2) an end goal in themselves, being the form of production that would naturally arise in a market economy without private property.
I don't think a planned economy is desirable until the production of basic necessities is fully (or nearly fully) automated.

I want to build fullcommunism asap, but I recognize the revolution isn't right around the corner. Co-ops are a useful way to prepare for it, like suggests.

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Market socialism is almost an inevitability in the short term. You can't overturn the reigning economic paradigm that is market exchange in a day, even with a global revolution.

That said, even though I think Wolff's ideology is more similar to De Leonism, he seems to hold this weird pseudo-Mutualist belief that cooperatives will simply take over without needing to directly seize the means of production and abolish private property and will form a planned system without intervention from a workers' state.

I don't know if this is because he's skittish about directly and openly calling for revolution or if he really is that naive.

I'm 90% sure it's because his target audience is normies and revolution with make them run the fuck away.

I'm so hyped for this month. Alpha Wolff is going to say "thanks to Holla Forums for sponsoring this video" and I'm going to cream my jeans.

At this point it's come both, and Wolff actively posits his own alternatives or at least suggests that there are viable alternatives. This is worth supporting or refining.


And many more than just this board.


The join us tonight.

end of the month? I thought it was coming out this Wednesday? did they change it?

The standard weekly econ. update comes out on wednesday; our monthly funded one near the end of the month as always.

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That's what happens when you spend 20 years denouncing everything as 'not real socialism'.

If you can't show people contemporary socialist movements and explain what it is that makes them socialist, then people are going to question whether it is anything more than a utopic fantasy.

I'd put more of the blame on the relentless anti-socialist propaganda of the Cold War.