- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- politics@beehaw.org
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Last irl meeting I had with comrades we talked about how we need to have something like this, a basis for meeting up beyond volunteering-style political participation. Thankfully we all like each other on a personal level and take turns cooking each other food so that’s enough for us but for a broader-base movement you do need a hook to get people in that isn’t just politics.
As always the right have an advantage here because they have extensive funding and patronage networks with the rich. For obvious reasons leftists, in their diametric opposition to rich people as such, do not have this. There is that singular ML billionaire and that other hundred-millionaire leftist guy in the US southwest but that’s about it.
Leftist podcasters could do something. That’s a joke because most of them don’t care about doing anything other than saying “man we gotta organize”
As always the right have an advantage here because they have extensive funding and patronage networks with the rich.
They also have a willingness to start businesses, which is going to be a fact the left must reckon with in order to have any organisation like this.
Right now the only businesses the left is currently running and accepting the existence of are the propaganda ones, youtube, twitch, pods, etc. The left needs to broaden this view to more physical businesses as well, ones that exist in the community and not just in the digital space. If it doesn’t then it simply will never have anything like this.
Yeah anarcho-syndicalist businesses are basically bottlenecked by not being willing to raise capital by selling equity so you rely on people slowly accumulating savings through wage labor then putting that all at risk to start something. Which is fine, but it certainly is easier to start your business by giving some random rich person a 50%+ stake in exchange for a bunch of money. Same logic applies to business expansion. You permanently attach a parasite to yourself in order to supercharge business growth.
I’d like to see funding via comrades, i.e. selling shares or equity for micro grants. None of us are millionaires but there’s probably enough of us that can spare $100 to get something going.
Usually this is done by issuing memberships or selling debt to members.
I wasn’t necessarily saying that they should do that but I suppose it’s an option. I would have hesitations about that route though.
I just realized. You’re forgetting all the vegan and anarchist lifestyleist overpriced businesses.
Seriously though, maybe some of these people can be informed of an actually effective and systematic way of dealing with the crises they say they care about?Vegan businesses are absolutely a potential ally. Not sure what lifestyleist businesses you’re referring to. I think the biggest one to really figure out is businesses that people feel help them personally. This is why the far right are targeting self-improvement. They are tying people’s personal growth and genuinely felt changes in their material conditions to the fascist movement. The Vegan businesses have a potential role to play in that for the left, people that do make those transitions do genuinely feel a sense of personal accomplishment for having done so and find a sense of community in support and help that exists to make the transition.
I think a major aspect of this is that it’s sustainable radicalisation. Once you have a business embedded in a community doing this it really isn’t going anywhere if it’s making money. This is why pods and streams have been so beneficial too, but they only exist in the digital space there’s the physical community footholds to organise around have their own uses.
Not sure what lifestyleist businesses you’re referring to.
Really? I just went to an event with a ton of vegan stuff, largely overpriced and with clear petty bourgeois ideology. There’s a faux hippy aesthetic that a lot of people want to adopt, but I feel like the broader masses aren’t drawn to. Some people I’ve met actually think they’re doing what is needed for the planet by going on “eco friendly” trips by plane or something like that. Look at the messaging of companies like oatly and who gives a crap.
There’s a faux hippy aesthetic that a lot of people want to adopt, but I feel like the broader masses aren’t drawn to.
Ahh this group are the same group that bought into the Free Tibet and spiritualist mumbo. They’re ideologically closer to becoming the cryptocurrency libertarians coopting the word “anarchist” than to actual leftists. Burning man ideology. Steak served on a slate of wood instead of a plate ideology. Artisanal firewood ideology.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
more 👏leftist👏billionaires👏 /s Idk what kind of businesses you want people to start beside say, coops. Aren’t most reactionary businesses just the owner following their class interests or existing rich bozos propping up bs?
Anything that performs a genuinely useful social thing with members of the local community can play a role in spreading local class consciousness. Here in the UK back in the day these were working men’s clubs, which were both drinking venues and connected to various local sports activities.
The fightclubs that the fascists are constructing are modernising the format of working men’s clubs (I guarantee they’re 100% male) and embedding themselves in the local community. The role that these working men’s clubs can play in a community hasn’t changed, just the aesthetics of them hasn’t ever updated so they’ve declined. In particular it’s not really obvious why you should join one, whereas it is pretty obvious why you would join a gym for self improvement.
Some of them are chuddy merch grifts specifically intended for fundraising. Now, you could argue that printing shirts and stickers and posters and flags in a co-op is something leftists have done forver, and you’d be right about that, but when you start a store for thin blue line merch or an agitprop site selling reprints of public domain theory or a food supplement grift or whatever these bozos are doing, it makes a difference when you have the funding to start out with several full-time employees, can afford advertising to make yourself known, can data mine information on potential donors and get additional funds if it takes longer to get everything going. It’s much easier to scale this kind of stuff up when you go in with more capital than a used screen printer.
Can’t help but think “were fucked”.
nah, leftists have the benefit of not being absolutely repulsive to 50% of the population
