[lbo-talk] Socialist modelling (Was: Louis Proyect...)

[Wojtek S]

[WS:] I was not thinking of "organizing" in a conventional sense, but
rather creating economic institutions, such as cooperatives of various
kinds geared toward serving the needs of the working people (I
deliberately avoid using the term working class in this context.)  If
I am not mistaken, this was an important element of Gompers thinking -
use economic institutions instead of political organizing to serve
labor interests, and this was in contrast to European labor  - at
least according to Robert Fitch.

As I see it, the current debate focuses almost exclusively on
political organizing while overlooking the fact that the left (however
defined) has a rather tiny material base that is shrinking.  This is
akin to rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic.  What is needed
in my opinion is the creation of the material / economic base (such as
a robust cooperative economy) geared toward serving interests of the
working people and commanding enough economic resources to support
political parties and movements representing the interests of the
base.

For example, instead of "organizing" workers in, say, private retail
business, a better strategy would be to use union resources (currently
being wasted on supporting Democrats) to establish cooperative retail
sector that is first of all economically viable (i.e. not supported by
contributions or other forms of charity) and also channeling some of
its revenue to political causes candidates representing labor.

Wojtek

On Mon, Dec 26, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Marv Gandall <marvgand at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 2011-12-25, at 10:35 AM, Wojtek S wrote:
>
>> But revisiting Gompers is probably more fruitful than reliving the
>> "glorious past" of the Bolshevik revolution.
>
> Why do you suppose Gompers would have more success than Trumka or other trade union leaders organizing workers in today's economy? Gompers belonged to an era when the US economy and corresponding demand for labour was expanding rapidly. His successes had little to do with his particular approach to trade unionism and politics, as the parallel growth of the IWW, led by radical trade unionists like Debs and Haywood - both later sympathetic to the Bolshevik revolution - demonstrated.
>
> You're making the identical error as those Marxists who imagine that a faulty understanding of the Leninist strategy of party-building is what has mainly blocked the many far left groups of varied persuasions from making political inroads in today's environment.
>
>
>
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