While there are plenty of spaces for debate, news commentary, “political internet culture”, memes, and so on, I still haven’t found a single community dedicated to any form of collective action, either IRL or in digital spaces. There are some communities dedicated to unions, but it seems mostly news commentary and very little action, educational material, events, or projects to plug yourself into.
I understand that the core user base of lemmy might not be the most prone to collective action, but I’m still surprised there’s nothing even on the most political communities.
Any suggestion?
Indeed, but these seem to be mostly focused on political topics, rather than organizing per se. I’ve rarely seen content about organization design, facilitation, effective communication, process design or other similar topics. It’s usually sociology/economy/political theory stuff for what I’ve found.
The lemmy users have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it.
There’s a good deal on org theory as well, such as theory on Democratic Centralism, the Mass Line, how to conduct yourself within orgs such as Liu Shaoqi’s How to be a Good Communist (on my reading list, in fact), and more. If you have specific questions, there are also comms for asking those as well.
I was thinking more about practical knowledge to employ today, rather than political speculation on hypothetical societal/political structure. I need people to get better at facilitating meetings, tracking tasks, and writing notes. Until then, discussing democratic centralism is sterile escapism.
I think you’re a bit confused here, Democratic Centralism and the Mass Line are organizational principles. They are primarily for party structure, not only mass societal structure, and Liu Shaoqi’s work is on behavior within orgs. Any union, political party, etc. can and would benefit from learning these and discussing them.
Is there something specific you are asking about? Like, how to file for specific legal status or something?
I don’t think they are.
They aren’t looking to take a class on theory. They want a set of resources and knowledge base to discuss how to build labor organizations and discuss issues with the actual building of these organizations.
You’ll see some discussions on theory on Lemmy, but I’ve never seen discussions on actually building a union, co-op, or other collectivist organization.
I mean, that falls under the subset of theory, though, and concrete discussion of local org building should be done in private among those actually involved for OPSEC reasons.
Not really. Building an organization is not a theoretical exercise, but a practical application that involves dealing with people. It is like saying that getting a degree in political science makes you qualified to be a politician. There is a lot in the application of politics that doesn’t perfectly align with theory.
And the person isn’t talking about setting up the organizational building online, but to know where there are resources to discuss how. There are basic strategies that are effective in building unions and union busters already know them.
Building an org is a practical application of theoretical principles, you don’t form an org by praying it into existence but by studying proper org mechanics and building them, adjusting as you go and figure out what does and does not work. Any actual discussion on the particulars of org building should be done within the org being built, by the organizers of the org.
Having seen organizations get built and operate, it is far more than just an application of theoretical principles. There are a lot of soft skills that the leaders need to develop and there may be other types of knowledge that are needed as well; for instance forming a union is probably going to require a basic understanding of labor law in the area they are in.
Fair enough, but I don’t believe mass parties can be built anymore without a mass society, so it’s stuff I don’t really read about because again, it’s not really actual or usable.
In other spaces like the ones I would like to find on lemmy, the areas that get discussed are stuff like organization design, process design, software and software practices, facilitation, mediation, consensus building, effective communication and so on and so forth. You know, the stuff you need to build an organization that is effective in the world.
I don’t know what you mean by a “mass society,” these principles and methods are practical even in starting small orgs in existing Capitalist society. You’ll have to be more clear on why you think they aren’t.
Secondly, the theoretical principles and works I listed are absolutely in line with what you describe, particularly the subjects of Mediation, Organization Design, Effective Communication, Facilitation, and Process Design. I struggle to see why you think what I already listed doesn’t fulfill those.