Hey Holla Forums, I'm still relatively new to Marxism and have learned a lot lurking and reading...

Worker's co-ops are lifestylism. Real socialism means ending the historic cycle of capital.

was meant for

We do. The difference between co-ops and unions are that co-ops simply unify workers, unions unify workers against the boss. However, unions have been partially corrupted by making them a form of workplace social democracy that simply satisfies the workers rather than a revolutionary tool.

This is true and it seems to be happening right now as more people become class-conscious due to staggering levels of wealth inequality, but Porky makes sure to keep his guard dogs in the police and military well fed, and once he manages to automatize those too then a revolution becomes far more difficult when we've lost labor as a form of leverage and when we're up against Murdertron 5000. The only way I could see a revolution happening in the US is if the armed forces were on board to at least some degree, and I think its important that we try to raise class-consciousness among them.

You sound a lot like a Syndicalist.

I'd argue that the material conditions aren't good enough for revolution yet. We have enough welfare and programs to keep the workers slightly satisfied. Revolutions happen when workers need it. Look at the French Revolution and pretty much every other revolution in history. However, I do agree that the power of the police is too strong.

OP here, thanks for the recommendations, it appears to me the three branches I should read more on are anarcho syndicalism, leftcom, and communalism.

I understand the critiques against unionists. Especially since automation will soon make focusing on the workplace less relevant

However as long as workers are suffering under capitalism, I can still see how union organizing could be a productive reform tactic & opportunity to raise class consciousness

But then again there's the whole question of is reform & relieving class struggle worthwhile or even helpful, or is revolution the only thing worth focusing on.

On the other hand, co-ops can be co-opted (heh) by simply becoming a capitalist venture where employees are shareholders.

If you disagree with the concept of the vanguard then you probably don't understand the concept of the vanguard. Just sayin'.

Can I get a leftcom reading list?

Got you fam

edensauvage.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/reading-list-for-aspiring-ultra-lefts/P

This is correct to a certain degree. The thing is we will never see people going hungry in the West due to global capitalist outsourcing. Revolution will happen in the periphery, and leftcoms will immediately denounce it as the material conditions suited for socialism in these countries tend to be very low.

I won't denounce a revolution until opportunists ruin it. If a revolution happens it means the material conditions were right.

Not according to Marx who predicted a revolution in the most developed countries. You realize that what you call "opportunism" (state capitalism) is necessary to build up the material basis for socialism when revolution happens in a developing country? Everything else would be utopian.

Marx never said the progression of development for Western Europe was the immutable model for all societies. He actually thought the pre-capitalist relations present in Russia were a way to implement contemporary industrial technology in a communal fashion.

marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol08/no10/marx-zas.htm

I'll say that from what I've read so far I'm extremely sympathetic to left-communism. My main point of contention is a practical one, in that I'm not sure the material conditions will be right for revolution (at least in the post-industrial states) until the world has already been ecologically devastated. I mean, it's possible we may have passed that point already, but my thrust is that if we can only wait in the wings for the right time, it may be entirely too late. The stakes here aren't just "Oh we missed out chance, shit, guess we wait some more" or even "Oh, shit, we weren't properly organized and the revolution turned into fascism, damn." The stakes are "The conditions were never right and the world is a barren wasteland, humanity's time is through." For me, that's a really hard barrier to overcome, and it's why I can't consider myself a leftcom despite the fantastic critique it can offer.

I was talking about the probability of revolution not about the legitimacy of a socialist industrialization. I'm actually well aware of that text since it's a good argument against leftcoms

Oh, so he believed revolution would happen where the material conditions were right? Hmm…

And just to be clear, Marx believed that in the most developed capitalism that the wealth inequality would be at its largest, which would start a revolution.

Heil Hitler

How are you not a communalist? Worker co-ops are nice but aren't revolutionary. They don't raise class consciousness.

itt: leftcoms being fucking retarded

yep, being opposed to any part of the capitalist system and reflecting it in your daily operations, even when it directly helps to end the cycle of capital, is actually just lifestylism.

k

if revolutions only happen when people go extremely hungry, would a basic rent mean the end of every revolutionary hope?

No shit. This is literally in the Wikipedia article about Marx.

But guess what porky outsourced labor and productive forces, outsourced capital, engaged in warfare about resource accessibility and implemented the welfare state. Marx didn't foresee that. Ergo we get the leftist dilemma where the material conditions for a revolution exist in the areas where the material conditions for socialism don't exist. But this is old news, Lenin figured it out pretty much.

Except communalism doesn't even prioritize class

Anarcho-syndicatism.

Google Murray Bookchin

social ecology is the greatest corpus of revolutionary political theory since the second international

Great. Keep reading Marx, his contemporaries, and then take on the 20th century and all the resultant sectarian bullshit. Don't just pick an ideology as a meme, come to the conclusion that it's the logical solution by working through BOOKS.

Way to be disingenuous. Communalism prioritizes hierarchy and domination, and recognizes that class is the most preeminent system of hierarchy and domination. Rather then to say it doens't prioritize class, it merely sees that the revolutionary agent is not limited to your class relationship. As in, peasants and soldiers and lumpens have revolutionary potential as much as the proletariat does.

Co-ops don't help to end the cycle of capital.

I'm not saying we should just idle around, I'm just reminding you that activism is pointless. Worker's unions, when they don't become social democracy for the workplace, are good to have organized before the revolution.

Yes it is a huge threat to the revolution

Communization, anarcho-communism, anarcho-syndicalism or free market anarchism. Ranked from utmost left to utmost right.

All of those are p good except market anarchism.

Co-ops are a better option for us burgers than unions because we are 1 federal rtw law away from having unions become completely univiable while co-ops will be protected by the same system in place to perpetuate the myth of the small business.

ok. what happens when union busting legislation + deindustrialization of the first world occurs?

We need to actively oppose this of course. Or idk, maybe it would aggrivate the workers enough for them to start a revolution.
not relevant

Sorry, shitposting flag

ohh…I see
so activism you fucking retard? And how is deindustrialization not relevant when the core of unions is industrial workers?

I'm in a similar position. I'm divided between Leftcoms and communalists, the former for theory, the latter for praxis. We shouldn't think im terms of "before/after the revolution", because people then just tend to project their wishes into the distant future.

Regarding co-ops, I belive they can be better, if they don't interact with society via the market but decentralized, computerized planning. This could also be started before a revolution, and it would plant the seeds for a new society.

Bordiga was pro-vanguard and autistically so

Bordiga isn't where left communism starts and ends. Honestly, I don't like Bordiga

bust the legislators

but you don't believe in doing anything until the revolution starts. so what do you do in the meantime? other guy said join labor unions, but how is that still viable when unions are becoming less and less politically relevant and haven't been revolutionary in decades? or is left communism about truly lying around doing absolutely nothing while the world descends into late capitalist chaos?

First thing first,
whip out Hegel

I thought activism is useless?

In the burger south unions are hated, outside of pig and firefag unions, because of a long term propaganda assault. I highly doubt that's gonna be what causes workers to revolt here.

Which brings us back to coops, which are going to be far easier to organize under than unions in an environment increasingly hostile to them and provide a decent example of workers being better off without a boss. Despite capital, wage labor, and the market still being in place.

Activism of raising class-consciousness is useless. It'll never start a revolution.

That's why I was unsure about whether getting rid of unions would help start a revolution or not. Probably not the more I think about it.

Coops can't compete with corporations. There's plenty of examples of well-off coops in America but they don't change anything at all. And, just as you mentioned:
These are the largest problems. Maybe if all the coops of different industry formed a decentralized planning organization things might work? The problem of course is getting enough coops in the right industries for it to work. But if this potential coop union with the decentralized planning organization provided housing, food, etc for their workers without getting involved in the market, it could be an actual threat to capitalism, so who knows? In its current state though, coops are simply lifestylism.

No, but you're not going to have a socialist revolution ever if, when the time for revolt comes, there are no organizations that were doing just that.

The point of the cooperative movement is not to have coops compete with corporations on their own, but to create a political movement that will cooperatize the economy. That said, they are perfectly capable of competing with capitalist organized firms, only incapable of replacing them on their on steam.

By far the biggest immediate problem is not capital, wage labor or the market, it's the domination of the capitalist class. You can deride those evils all you like, but unless the proletariat authentically have power over their society, nothing will change. The cooperative movement is at least one method of doing that.

No, but if you don't bother with that the revolution will likely be a lolbert one or a fascist one. If we're "lucky" we'll get USSR 2.0 at best. Because shockingly the ones who push their ideas are the ones with manpower, proles aren't going to gain an understanding of why capitalism is a shit system when they're being fed propaganda

Never said they do.

The point of a coop isn't to change the system, it's to provide a better situation to a few workers than they would get at a 9 to 5. A revolution isn't coming anytime soon so we might as well make ourselves comfy and try to get more time for useless activism or armchair navelgazing than we can working a shittier 9 to 5.

If something even half that size was reached it would be cracked down on, And depnding how much better coop workers were, would be more likely to start a revolt than if some useless union like the UAW collapsed.

In it's current state a revolution is unlikely to happen and I'd be better off working in a coop then my current job. If activism is useless, as you claim, why wouldn't I try to work in a more comfortable situation instead of accepting something worse?

Organizations are extremely important of course! Not vanguard parties, but definitely syndicalist unions or worker's councils. Forming worker's organizations is not activism. "Spreading class-consciousness" is.

The problem with coops as an organization is that they will not ever replace corporations and that they do not have the capacity to overthrow capitalism. The types of organizations I mentioned in the first paragraph are a far better way to both give the proletariat more power but also to end wage labor, capital and the market.

Activism is pointless but forming organizations aren't. See my above post.

Yep, they would crack down on it which is why I think if coops were ever to be a revolutionary tool that they should try forming a decentralized planning organization.

I have no problem with you joining a coop and working in one. They're far more comfy. My point is that we need to realize that they aren't going to change anything unless they do what I've described.

A self professed function of any such group would be spreading class-consciousness. this is no time to pretend we live in post-ideological times.

You can't possibly know that. It's just as likely as any of the things you mentioned.

Okay this might warrant its own thread but if labor unions, beneficial communes or what have you, get squashed politically and socially, yet corporate 'persons' which are international and not beholden to US law are the ones creating our legislation..

Isn't there a way to make unions.. Follow me, here.. Illegally? Just because they're good and right and necessary? Why are we all of a sudden afraid to do what's right when it's not in keeping with the legal status of our supposed territories? Isn't there a 'do it anyway' clause somewhere we can appeal to?