Many ways, but a good way to start is joining an org near you, like PSL or FRSO, or even the DSA with the intention of joining with Red Star Caucus (all US based orgs). Unionizing can be great as well, as long as you combine it with reading theory (I have an Introductory Marxist Reading List if you want somewhere to start).
Studying the history of worker organization and revolution helps teach us what we need to do, and can help guide us in analyzing how our conditions are similar and different to find a correct strategy.
You can’t organize the working class with a “Marxist” reading list, maga was already told they don’t like that word. Speak the ideology of unionization while avoiding the things that can be associated with Marxism, communism, socialism, while remembering they don’t understand those things, they just have a trigger words they know to hate.
As an aside when speaking to maga, don’t let the conversation ever be Dem vs GOP, always frame is as workers vs elites. In the former we are divided, in the later we have solidarity.
Edit: My response to many responses, I just said dont say marxism or communism because a huge percent of the population are literal sheep who have already been told thats bad, just make a new label, or better yet, just avoid giving it a label, keep it down to “we need to stop the elites/ruling class”. Regardless, if you get a bunch of people to fall in line with this ideologically they can label it whatever they want at that point, sheep don’t change their minds, so when they villanize the new label, or assign it to a preexisting label, you would hopefully already have enough on board outside of modern left/right bubbles that it can spread through traditional grass roots methods.
You can’t organize the working class with a “Marxist” reading list
If you don’t read theory, you’re going to have a hard time with praxis.
I just said dont say marxism or communism because a huge percent of the population are literal sheep who have already been told thats bad
I tend to find that labeling things is a lot of wasted effort, but shrugging and owning the label other people give you is a powerful method of reclaiming the language.
If you’re an affable, compassionate, well-organized, and appealing organizer, and someone comes around calling you a Far-Left Sicko Commie, then that’s actually pretty great for Far-Left Sicko Commies everywhere.
The struggle I see, more often than not, is with individuals who come into an organization dogmatically adhering to a party line that lacks a party. The dogmatism in the name of Marxist Theory (or Anarchist Theory or Liberal Theory or whatever personal staunchly held belief you’ve decided to cling to) is what ends up wrecking an organization. Theories can only inform your actions, but at the end of the day you need to tackle your problems practically and make your case materially.
People bickering over the ideological underpinnings of the Spanish Civil War, then spiraling into calling one another Tankies and Scratched Liberals and such… not terribly helpful in the long run.
I don’t understand how saying we should avoid labels and stick to ideologies is a bad thing. I just don’t see a route for people to organize working class folks under a banner when all the banners have already been tarnished for 60-70% of the people, it seems that route is a more uphill battle with no determinable advantage to just organizing under the idea that we the working class are being robbed endlessly by the elite ruling class and it has to change.
As to your point about theory only going so far, yes I 100% agree. But i was speaking about our current state, specifically because this is the first time in recent history that division among left/right working class folks has ever traveled closer to each other, if only a little bit.
Am i using the word ideology wrong maybe? Because it seems a few people are at issue with what im saying, while saying the same thing rephrased. There might be some sort of nuance to the word I’m missing. I mean ideology as purely just theory and reasoning on why a thing is or isn’t; in this circumstance as a stand-in for something loosely close to “We the people are no longer represented by government, and billionaires run the country”. Id worry if you expand it beyond that you lose a lot of support. But you obviously should go beyond that at some point, and you have to have a gameplan, but as mentioned before that feels like a conversation for down the road.
I just don’t see a route for people to organize working class folks under a banner when all the banners have already been tarnished for 60-70% of the people
I don’t see the problem of banners being tarnished nearly so much as the Right Wing Wurlitzer media blinding and defeaning its audience at a scale no small community outreach organization can compete with. It’s less that anyone has an entrenched view of <insert ideology> as dirty and more that - at any moment - a talk radio host can unload a shotgun full of sloppy diarrhea in any direction.
we the working class are being robbed endlessly by the elite ruling class and it has to change
At some point, people do need to understand that they control the means of production in a very literal sense. Their hands are on the rudder and it is their collective effort that moves the ship. But building that class consciousness is hard. At some level, you aren’t trying to build a giant ideological social movement. What you’re trying to build is a network of people around you who like and trust one another.
That’s significantly more impervious to shotgun blasts of feces from a national media organ, because its no longer a contest between Army of Loud Mouths and Guy You’ve Never Heard Of.
Id worry if you expand it beyond that you lose a lot of support.
I think you have a large deficit of trust, generally speaking. There is no Perfect Messaging Strategy you can use to shape discourse. There is only the sheer volume of discourse blasted out over a wide audience. YouTube filling up with random right-wing hacks doesn’t happen because the hacks are incredibly good at their job. It entirely because the billionaire donor class is willing to spend enormous amounts of money to spew this message everywhere.
You, personally, can’t do anything about that. But you can build up a local group of friends and neighbors who like one another. Having a community around you who like and trust one another is the best defense against this kind of aimless hate. Sticking up for one another at every opportunity builds trust and confidence. Finding new opportunities to make new friends and expand your circle is all you can really do.
I don’t see the problem of banners being tarnished nearly so much as the Right Wing…
I did not mean actually tarnished, I mean figuratively tarnished in the minds of a large group of people that are required to affect change.
At some point, people do need to understand that they control the means of production in a very literal sense.
Agreed, but I dont think you can begin to teach that lesson until the working class has solidified more, or you risk breaking momentum when one of them goes “Boy i swear i heard this from the radio man i let control my opinions as something i dont like”
I think you have a large deficit of trust
100% true. I’ve seen a majority of the country get swayed by the literal lowest common denominator of conman ive ever seen. I know the reason for this is because of the influence of the media and their own personal bubbles, but it does prove that they are incapable of forming their own opinions.
You, personally, can’t do anything about that
Yeah i know, so i just try to speak about the path forward that makes sense to me and hope it resonates with people.
Historically, such a strategy doesn’t actually work. Sooner or later, you get accused of being a godless commie or a tankie anyways. You can either stand firm in your beliefs and attempt to sweep away the dirt of the Red Scare to accurately contextualize Socialism and AES states, or fail to support them at all, leading to issues like Trotskyism (poor understanding of theory and a lack of support for AES) or PatSocs (Nationalist Socialists in the Imperialist countries).
What you’re saying is exactly the discourse COINTELPRO promoted in US organizations in the 60s and 70s (when they weren’t outright murdering the party members).
How’d that one work out?
It’s easy to deflect workers off the path of real, lasting change when even the organizers only try to do sloganeering instead of education.
I was trying to avoid the sloganeering you clearly hate by saying we should be avoiding labels and focusing on ideology, you know, the route of “real, lasting change”. But at least u got to feel smugly smarter than me for a brief moment after failing to understand what i said and arguing against something I didn’t say. Please stay out of this topic, you’re the exact kind of person that makes larger swathes of people not want to associate with them because they’d be associating with you too…
Many ways, but a good way to start is joining an org near you, like PSL or FRSO, or even the DSA with the intention of joining with Red Star Caucus (all US based orgs). Unionizing can be great as well, as long as you combine it with reading theory (I have an Introductory Marxist Reading List if you want somewhere to start).
Studying the history of worker organization and revolution helps teach us what we need to do, and can help guide us in analyzing how our conditions are similar and different to find a correct strategy.
You can’t organize the working class with a “Marxist” reading list, maga was already told they don’t like that word. Speak the ideology of unionization while avoiding the things that can be associated with Marxism, communism, socialism, while remembering they don’t understand those things, they just have a trigger words they know to hate.
As an aside when speaking to maga, don’t let the conversation ever be Dem vs GOP, always frame is as workers vs elites. In the former we are divided, in the later we have solidarity.
Edit: My response to many responses, I just said dont say marxism or communism because a huge percent of the population are literal sheep who have already been told thats bad, just make a new label, or better yet, just avoid giving it a label, keep it down to “we need to stop the elites/ruling class”. Regardless, if you get a bunch of people to fall in line with this ideologically they can label it whatever they want at that point, sheep don’t change their minds, so when they villanize the new label, or assign it to a preexisting label, you would hopefully already have enough on board outside of modern left/right bubbles that it can spread through traditional grass roots methods.
If you don’t read theory, you’re going to have a hard time with praxis.
I tend to find that labeling things is a lot of wasted effort, but shrugging and owning the label other people give you is a powerful method of reclaiming the language.
If you’re an affable, compassionate, well-organized, and appealing organizer, and someone comes around calling you a Far-Left Sicko Commie, then that’s actually pretty great for Far-Left Sicko Commies everywhere.
The struggle I see, more often than not, is with individuals who come into an organization dogmatically adhering to a party line that lacks a party. The dogmatism in the name of Marxist Theory (or Anarchist Theory or Liberal Theory or whatever personal staunchly held belief you’ve decided to cling to) is what ends up wrecking an organization. Theories can only inform your actions, but at the end of the day you need to tackle your problems practically and make your case materially.
People bickering over the ideological underpinnings of the Spanish Civil War, then spiraling into calling one another Tankies and Scratched Liberals and such… not terribly helpful in the long run.
I don’t understand how saying we should avoid labels and stick to ideologies is a bad thing. I just don’t see a route for people to organize working class folks under a banner when all the banners have already been tarnished for 60-70% of the people, it seems that route is a more uphill battle with no determinable advantage to just organizing under the idea that we the working class are being robbed endlessly by the elite ruling class and it has to change.
As to your point about theory only going so far, yes I 100% agree. But i was speaking about our current state, specifically because this is the first time in recent history that division among left/right working class folks has ever traveled closer to each other, if only a little bit.
Am i using the word ideology wrong maybe? Because it seems a few people are at issue with what im saying, while saying the same thing rephrased. There might be some sort of nuance to the word I’m missing. I mean ideology as purely just theory and reasoning on why a thing is or isn’t; in this circumstance as a stand-in for something loosely close to “We the people are no longer represented by government, and billionaires run the country”. Id worry if you expand it beyond that you lose a lot of support. But you obviously should go beyond that at some point, and you have to have a gameplan, but as mentioned before that feels like a conversation for down the road.
I don’t see the problem of banners being tarnished nearly so much as the Right Wing Wurlitzer media blinding and defeaning its audience at a scale no small community outreach organization can compete with. It’s less that anyone has an entrenched view of <insert ideology> as dirty and more that - at any moment - a talk radio host can unload a shotgun full of sloppy diarrhea in any direction.
At some point, people do need to understand that they control the means of production in a very literal sense. Their hands are on the rudder and it is their collective effort that moves the ship. But building that class consciousness is hard. At some level, you aren’t trying to build a giant ideological social movement. What you’re trying to build is a network of people around you who like and trust one another.
That’s significantly more impervious to shotgun blasts of feces from a national media organ, because its no longer a contest between Army of Loud Mouths and Guy You’ve Never Heard Of.
I think you have a large deficit of trust, generally speaking. There is no Perfect Messaging Strategy you can use to shape discourse. There is only the sheer volume of discourse blasted out over a wide audience. YouTube filling up with random right-wing hacks doesn’t happen because the hacks are incredibly good at their job. It entirely because the billionaire donor class is willing to spend enormous amounts of money to spew this message everywhere.
You, personally, can’t do anything about that. But you can build up a local group of friends and neighbors who like one another. Having a community around you who like and trust one another is the best defense against this kind of aimless hate. Sticking up for one another at every opportunity builds trust and confidence. Finding new opportunities to make new friends and expand your circle is all you can really do.
I did not mean actually tarnished, I mean figuratively tarnished in the minds of a large group of people that are required to affect change.
Agreed, but I dont think you can begin to teach that lesson until the working class has solidified more, or you risk breaking momentum when one of them goes “Boy i swear i heard this from the radio man i let control my opinions as something i dont like”
100% true. I’ve seen a majority of the country get swayed by the literal lowest common denominator of conman ive ever seen. I know the reason for this is because of the influence of the media and their own personal bubbles, but it does prove that they are incapable of forming their own opinions.
Yeah i know, so i just try to speak about the path forward that makes sense to me and hope it resonates with people.
Historically, such a strategy doesn’t actually work. Sooner or later, you get accused of being a godless commie or a tankie anyways. You can either stand firm in your beliefs and attempt to sweep away the dirt of the Red Scare to accurately contextualize Socialism and AES states, or fail to support them at all, leading to issues like Trotskyism (poor understanding of theory and a lack of support for AES) or PatSocs (Nationalist Socialists in the Imperialist countries).
What you’re saying is exactly the discourse COINTELPRO promoted in US organizations in the 60s and 70s (when they weren’t outright murdering the party members).
How’d that one work out?
It’s easy to deflect workers off the path of real, lasting change when even the organizers only try to do sloganeering instead of education.
I was trying to avoid the sloganeering you clearly hate by saying we should be avoiding labels and focusing on ideology, you know, the route of “real, lasting change”. But at least u got to feel smugly smarter than me for a brief moment after failing to understand what i said and arguing against something I didn’t say. Please stay out of this topic, you’re the exact kind of person that makes larger swathes of people not want to associate with them because they’d be associating with you too…