Re: How DSA fixes a political problem

I appreciate and share the commitment to the defence and extension of democratic rights of Tony, John, and others on the list  However, the conundrum the revolutionary left has historically faced in the developed Western capitalist societies since its inception is that the working class has generally been interested in democratic rights only insofar as it  has perceived these to have a direct bearing on its material conditions of existence - notably, the right to vote in the electoral realm and to organize unions and bargain collectively for improved wages and benefits in the workplace. There has been a direct relationship between the winning of these rights and the decline of working class militancy and its replacement by bread-and-butter trade unionism in the workplace and its mirror image in the political arena of the triumph of social democracy over Marxism.

I believe it will take a social collapse in which these electoral and bargaining safety valves of discontent disappear or no longer promise to protect the living conditions of the working class before workers again give primacy to the fight for fundamental democratic rights. These are mostly advanced today by students and intellectuals who are attracted to the left by ideas rather than lived experience. We are perhaps beginning to see the initial signs of a more broad-based awakening amidst fears of a collapse after so many false alarms, reflected in the growth of groups to the left and right of the established liberal and conservative parties. It is possible that in our lifetimes there will be a sharp intensification of class struggle if predictions of the dire effects of AI are borne out. In that case, the class struggle may express itself outside of hollowed-out workplaces in intensified demands in the streets for a universal income equivalent to the old demand for a “living wage” at the expense of the wealthy, with protestors again divided over whether this is to be won through the social democratic formula of higher taxes or the revolutionary socialist program of public ownership.

These few thoughts will put into broader context why I’m interested less in the issues of recall and salary caps as they affect the internal organization of left-wing groups like the DSA than I am of their potential mobilizing effects on workers across the political spectrum, although here too I believe they are of such an advanced nature as to require a significantly higher level of political consciousness than at present in order to take root.


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