"I thing you got it backwards. It should read No political investment, no political profits.
It should be emphasized, however, that not all expenditures constitute investment. You can throw a lot of good capital (both social and financial) on ventures amounting to Disneyland rides. Dot.coms and third party efforts (except those that intended to be vote splitters) are cases in point."
Not to nit pick, but don't you think that dot.coms and third party efforts are like apples and oranges, and can't be used as equal illustrations of anything, except in some mechanical sense? The Dot.coms phenomenon was a normal capitalist activity that enriched many while it lasted, and therefore probably was a Disneyland ride if that means dramatic, exciting, and relatively short term, as applied to finance. Isn't every capitalist venture predictably short term, etc.?
Surely social and financial capital expenditures/investments in third parties are of a different order than in capital markets, and something that we can take principled positions on. There has been much discussion on this list on the Green Party, with occasional mention of the Labor Party. Both these parties, and others throughout U.S. history, may have short formal life spans, and it may be tough to measure their success. I can't apply the financial Disneyland imagery to them since I know that success indicators are vague and often hidden from view.
I also know from experience that social and money expenditures are required for any yield in left political activity, and often the yield is in the form of that vague thing called attitude change, with future social-political impact. Who knows how the briefly intense Labor Party activity at the end of the 20th Century, to which tens of thousands were exposed, with significant expenditure, will affect developments in the next period? Expanding this somewhat, surely anti-slavery, womens' rights, 8-hour day, civil rights, etc. movements started with very shaky and limited expenditures that looked at the time as Disneyland ventures. But they had to start somewhere with what they had.
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