Socialism in Minneapolis: thinking about elections

DFL=Democratic Farmer Labor Party?

Juan Conatz

Shorty

DFL=Democratic Farmer Labor Party?

Yep. That's what the Democrats are called here.

the name reflects that they were able to incorporate the social democratic Minnesota Farmer–Labor Party in 1944 which was a non-negligible political force there during the twenties and thirties which finally went the way of most (all?) progressive third parties ... similar in North Dakota with the North Dakota Democratic-Nonpartisan League Party

Certainly if the main difference between organisations such as SA and anarchist/libertarians such as '1st of May' is reduced to the issue of 'electoralism' then that would suggest the later have more in common as part of the reformist left of capital than being an organised minority opposition to the fundamental social relationships of capitalism, that is genuine libertarian communists. I find this text confusing in it's mixing up of terminology such as 'left' 'new left' 'ultra-left' 'radical' 'socialist' and 'communist' etc and the relationships between those described this way - seems to imply a common leftist identity despite it's criticism of both SA and 1st of May?

Welcome to the world of American left anarchism!

I think it's clear: The anarchist critique is correct, but it hasn't changed in 100 years so learn it, apply it, engage with it when others might want, but pick your batles.

If voting really doesn't change anything, thatn why do we care so much if people do it or not?

ZING!

MK Dialectics are of course Marvin Gaye dialectics as updated with MK thought.

John O'Reilly

In a moment where some of the most militant forces are the most conservative and bureaucratic on the left, the idea that who our allies and opponents are can be seen clearly through which field of action they mythologize most is difficult to maintain. The question should be what tactics, strategies, and organizational methods move our class closer to a communist future and how can we work towards those ends? It's not that electoralism is wrong, though it is, it's that its unimportant.

This is a really interesting article, I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I picked out the above quote to say that I think I agree. Generally in the US and the UK, we are dealing with a baseline of voter apathy anyway, rather than the past popular support for leftism, which continues to thrive in nations with different political pasts and class compositions. In the latter case I think it fair for organisations to argue against it in a fairly strong fashion, but in nations where possible, it makes more sense to cash in on the existing electoral apathy and attempt to develop a distaste toward electoral socialism, based on the premise that it muddles the dynamics of social movements and reduces their independence.

This I think is preferable, when speaking to those that don't possess an existing deep interest in communist strategy, to announcing it to be incapable of achieving anything, because all it takes is for a pro-electoral political rival to point to a socialist politician somewhere who raised wages, and the argument is seriously undermined in the eyes of someone concerned primarily with their material condition, which I think it is fair to say is the initial basis around which to organise.

Hahaha, marginal sectarians criticise the article for not using their marginal sectarian definition of leftist.

E-W,

So a mild criticism (qualified with an 'if' and a '?') now gets us accused of being ''marginal sectarians'' - not even an upgrade to mainstream sectarians! As to 'definitions', any at all would be better than a general mish-mash which potentially lumps everyone outside the mainstream capitalist parties together. A request for some precision is not the same as requiring this, or other authors of material on this site, to confirm to my or other libertarian communists definitions. It is clear to me at least that neither political support for, nor opposition to 'electoralism', is in itself a sufficient marker of either support for, or opposition to, 'reformism' or 'capitalism' - this seems to be addressed in this article but in a very confused way which leaves open some doubt as to what the author really does consider to be the significant political differences between the groups mentioned though they are it seems ''various''.

Thanks for this, John. I think that it is good for comrades to grapple with these developments (SA's electoral success) and for conversation and debate to continue. I support the First of May statement from early November that is quoted (and criticized) here but not linked to. It can be found here: http://m1aa.org/?p=797

As for the particulars of your piece - while I disagreed with several of the ancillary arguments (and some of the tone), I want to concentrate on the central argument as I understand it (in a strictly personal capacity).

"Thinking about elections" asserts:

- Electoralism is "a False Dilemma"
- " arguing that the idea of left electoralism will teach people to be dependent on left politicians serves no purpose."
- the anarchist position is "incorrect strategically"
- "Urging people to fear and oppose . . . an electoral turn . . . is simply not worth one's time. Furthermore, it invites reformist forces to marginalize and dismiss anti-electoral radicals as out of touch with reality."
- The lesson for radicals should be clear: the choice between electoralist utopianism and actionist puritanism is a false one and obscures more than it clarifies."
- "the idea that . . . allies and opponents . . . can be seen clearly through which field of action they mythologize most is difficult to maintain."

The thrust of all this seems clear enough, even with the head scratching punchline: "It's not that electoralism is wrong, though it is, it's that its unimportant."

Unimportant enough to craft a couple thousand word blog post on!

This argument is full of contradictions and reversals but mainly it is saying don't criticize Left electoralism, that to do so is purist and will be used to marginalize us, instead we should continue to discuss how to relate to these electoral projects assuming they will continue (while striking an unimpressed pose).

To the extent that this is a coherent argument, it is that anarchists, wobblies, direct actionists should stand aside and say nothing (even if we are correct) about this strategy.

This is very bad advice, I'm afraid. Lets leave aside the "traditional anarchist and ultraleft position" around elections, and concentrate on our actual lived experience over the last few years.

First there was the Obama electoral phenomonon which managed to corral millions of oppressed people into "hope" and "change we can believe in" through a new face on the U.S Empire. This included many folks who are likely to be the base for any possible revolutionary movement in the U.S. Is it really possible that revolutionary militants could simultaneously also have hope in change coming from/thru the regime?

Second was the really illustrative example of Wisconsin, where the momentum of events, the apparent lack of an "official" solution, and the efforts of a small group of revolutionary activists and trade-union militants put the call/concept of a General Strike on the agenda for the first time in decades. Eventually this was swamped and diverted into the Recall Walker campaign. What is so important about this example is that the IWW mainly responded to the Recall in the way that you advocate - by doing nothing. We sort of hoped the question of recall vs general strike could be finessed - that they weren't necessarily opposed.

But in fact it was the Recall that the Business Unions and Democrats used to rally working people back into avenues that they controlled and that were within the framework (if out of the ordinary) of capitalist "democracy". In retrospect what was needed was an opposite attitude of the one you advocate. We needed to sharply counterpose the General Strike to the Recall effort, and in doing so point out the ways in which each represented the kind of society being fought over. This wasn't all that was needed in order to pull off a General Strike - far from it. But to even keep the General Strike concept alive as living proposal for agit-prop - we needed to take on the Recall - not treat it as unimportant.

Finally, lets look at the way that Occupy Homes and the Ty Moore campaign treated a police raid on one of the key defended homes on the morning of the election. Frantic texts, emails, and facebook posts went out from organizers and campaigners that this raid represented an attack on . . . the TY MOORE CAMPAIGN! Electoralism obscured reality, so that a foreclosed home in a working-class community - supposedly the center-piece of Ty's campaign, became secondary to that campaign itself. In fact, the far more likely scenario is that police timed the raid in order to take advantage of the diversion of time and energy towards the get-out-the-vote efforts.

My Closing argument:
- Electoralism presents a real problem that we cannot wish away.
- Opposing Electoral strategies is not being "purist", but practical. - In order to defend anti-sytem strategies of direct action and direct democracy it will be necessary to take on other strategies being presented by the authoritarians and reformists.
- While our arguments will be criticized as unrealistic (as will our anti-capitalism), they are necessary to defend and clarify our decision to prioritize organizing along revolutionary, direct action and directly democratic lines.

Solidarity,

K

in a way more interesting than the electoral success of socialist candidates in some local areas in the US is the recent electoral breakthrough a coalition of three trotskyist groups experienced in Argentine: the FIT (Workers' Left Front) achieved a bit more than 5% of the votes nationally (3 seats in the chamber, probably a fourth one pending a recount in one province), a dozen new state assembly members, the FIT's three components, the PO, the PTS (very much involved in the Zanon project) and the IS are more on the other end of the Trotskyist spectrum than the CWI/Militant/Socialist Alternative and have e.g. used the recent oath taking ceremonies of their elected members of to stage demonstrations, to my perception, especially the PO uses a pretty "orthodox" but also revolutionist vocabulary. The highest results did the FIT (there basically only the PO) in the impoverished northern region of Salta (with a strong indigenous influence), where they became with 29% of the votes and 9 out of 21 seats the strongest party in the province's capital (there was btw. a kind of revolt in Salta in 2000 out of which for a couple of months a coordination evolved which some labelled "embryonic Soviets" where the PO was involved) leading to a grand coalition of all other parties in the town assembly

With regard to Kdog’s post, I don’t think anyone is arguing that the anarchist critique is purist, it is that it is about the approach to the principles concerned, and that it is important to show that you have thought openly about the situation concerned and drawn a conclusion based on the available facts. This is far more likely to achieve a springboard by which to begin ingraining a critique of electoralism into the class than approaching it in the sense of ‘this is our ideology, and this is its application to the circumstances’.

Putting the fully fledged critique into practice by a group of workers broader than just the existing milieu, requires some social basis from which it can be constructed, and I’d hazard a guess this is likely to flow more easily by going easy on the fear-mongering and attempting to develop a distaste drawing on and validated by the worker’s own experiences.

Should a kind of widespread distaste with validation be developed, then you have a context in which encouraging widespread adoption of the full critique actually might be possible to achieve.

Juan:
1. My response was written to John's initial blog post, Better Problems, which didn't contain the link. No big deal. It was easily searchable anyways.

2. When you say that "in Wisconsin doing was more important than saying . . . " and then site the many heroic activities of the IWW, I think you are missing my point, or more probably I was unclear. I didn't mean to say that the IWW did nothing in Madison. I said the opposite: "the efforts of a small group of revolutionary activists and trade-union militants put the call/concept of a General Strike on the agenda for the first time in decades." I was part of these efforts. I know all about it. What I did say was that we did nothing (I should have said next to nothing) to explicitly counter the Recall momentum. It was good that one of the pamphlets took on the Recall - and in strikingly similar language to the recent M1 flyer, I might add. In fact the logic of John's piece could easily be read as a critique of this section of the IWW pamphlet as well.

But I had several conversations with Wobblies that were pretty key to the organizing in Madison, people from Wisconsin and people visiting, that were generally reluctant to take on the Recall. The attitude I describe ("We sort of hoped the question of recall vs general strike could be finessed - that they weren't necessarily opposed") was one I experienced and tried to argue/nudge against several times. I think it was not clear to everyone at the time that it would be THE vehicle for kicking the General Strike to the curb - but it ended up being exactly that.

3. The "merely writing boilerplate anti-electoral statements, which anarchists often do" line is a bit annoying, since M1 militants write far too little compared to our activity and when we do its hardly "boiler-plate". While definitely not "mass distributed", our article was written in plain language and had an impact, stimulating discussion beyond the usual suspects . . . and in my humble opinion challenging SAers more than the other Libcom pieces have.

Leo:

1. You say that no one "is arguing that the anarchist critique is purist", but that's exactly what I read here from John: "The lesson for radicals should be clear: the choice between electoralist utopianism and actionist puritanism is a false one and obscures more than it clarifies." Who else does the actionist puritanism refer to?

2. I don't agree that putting a fully fledged critique out harms the possibilities of developing a revolutionary working-class social base. I mean, where do you think our critique came from? Are revolutionaries supposed to forget the few hard lessons we have learned?

3. The likelihood that more workers will develop a distaste for electoralism (most already have that by the way) and more - develop a taste for fighting for something else - is greatly increased by the articulation of a solid critique by other workers. Similarly with other issues. The anti-sexist sentiments that exist within the class are more likely strengthened by folks articulating those stands. Of course there are always better and worse ways to go about arguing perspective, but a simple statement articulating an anarchist position is hardly "fear-mongering".

Solidarity,

K

Hey Kdog, I can see where you are coming from, but I guess what I was specifically trying to avoid is getting caught up in a 'pragmatism is shit!' - 'no purism is shit!' discussion that leads nowhere and used to happen on this forum when Liberty & Solidarity members used to post here, because I think this leads to a polarisation whereby each side of the argument becomes obsessed with not being associated with their respective boogeyman, leading to tactical stagnation on both sides as the 'pragmatists' all go off and engage in competition with each other to see who can abandon their principles the most, and the 'purists' become terrified not to suggest adjustment of strategy according to circumstance lest it deviate from what is acceptable within their milieu.

I feel as though it is a shame if discussion gets sidetracked toward this, and yes I think it is a mistake that the article makes a flippant reference to 'actionist puritanism' (I'm not particularly sure what that means). However, I still think the content of the argument isn't directly hostile to anarchism, only the approach anarchists often adopt, and I find it largely inline with my own views as described below.

I don't agree that putting a fully fledged critique out harms the possibilities of developing a revolutionary working-class social base. I mean, where do you think our critique came from? Are revolutionaries supposed to forget the few hard lessons we have learned?

To be accurate, the critique largely came from us reading a bunch of books in an attempt to revive a political movement that learned its lessons over one hundred years ago, and had largely disappeared by the fifties. This isn't to say it is not still relevant, but the problem is that the way in which it is largely learned today is not through struggle, but is instead previously accrued knowledge superimposed upon a situation with a pretence of critical thinking. It may be possible for a trickle of growth of revolutionary ranks to continue from this, but my own personal view is that we are failing to win large groups of workers toward them precisely because the way in which people are won to ideas is through formulating the idea themselves, and anarchists and syndicalists should see it as a process of reconstructing and rebuilding the critique of electoralism etc. every time within the campaigns, bringing a wider fold of people into this reconstruction process than just ourselves. This as opposed to an approach in which the idea is set and formulated within our own circles and then rolled out as a line that we must tap away at, in the hope people recognise its inherent right-ness and adopt it fully formed.

Apathy/indifference toward electoralism exists, but i'm not sure an active distaste does yet, which I think is why the full critique is lost on many people. I wouldn't say the full critique harms anything, just that people don't pay it much attention because they see it as something constructed off the back of a bunch of politics they don't share. The critique needs to grow from the workers themselves, and its our task to develop that, and this is to not see the battle of ideas as a static moment of rivalry between fully formulated A&Ps.

This is a good discussion, and I appreciate having my post challenged.

Leo:

1. While my politics are very much guided by my ideas, values, and experiences - I favor framing arguments around pragmatism as much as possible. Pragmatically speaking, I don't think refomism and electoralism can deliver what we need - but I sense we agree on this point. The debate is over how to engage with the class with this assessment, yes?

2. M1's anti-electoralism definitely has been influenced by books - anarchist, Malcolm X, and others - but maybe less than you think. In any case the lessons of electoralism are reinforced so often that I feel like Bill Murray in Groundhog's Day. My points of reference in this argument are the struggles I've participated in, plus Obama, Wisconsin, etc. While it is generally true that each movement must develop its own perspectives from within, it is also true that each movement depends on veterans of previous struggles and the (hopefully constructive) lessons they have learned and bring with them.

3. The context for this whole debate has been SA's achievement of rallying a significant amount of leftists, community activists, and pissed-off folks to their electoral efforts. This base of people is certainly capable of engaging with M1's arguments - and some of them have. I just had a short discussion with the VP of my union Local about this debate! What's more, we sensed that these election campaigns would have the appearance of success and could become poles of attraction to wider groups of activists and some radical-minded workers and community folks, and that would serve to cement the top-down "militant" reformism of SA, SEIU, Occupy Homes over larger sections of "the movement". Just to be clear - the leadership of these forces are not any more rooted than revolutionaries are in Minneapolis. What they have is access to a tremendorus amount of resources (the preponderence of paid staff is overwhelming) and a program that is less of a break from mainstream/conventional ideas about change.

What M1 did was say "Hey, wait a minute!" and try and lay out what was going on and what the problems with SA's approach would be. It was done in a principled manner in fairly straight-forward language. We also tried to explain, in brief, concepts like "the State" from an anarchist point of view. While this may be "bolierplate" to many Libcom readers, it is not for the broader group of activists and politically interested workers and community folks we hoped to reach - many who may have never had a discussion about "the State" or even considered it as an entity that could be questioned.

Juan:
1. I am regreting my tone in my previous post about Wisconsin. The IWW's work promoting the General Strike in Wisconsin is still underappreciated in the Labor Movement and on the Left. Some people have denigrated our efforts. I do not in any way want to contribute toward that. I do wish that we had, collectively, figured out ways to better take on the Recall, but given our size resources, and experience it would have been very, very, very hard to have resisted that pull. The statement about the Recall in the IWW pamphlet was good and right. I am proud of the small bit I did in the effort in Wisconsin and am grateful to yourself, John, and many others who did much more.

I think the important point (that we agree on?) is that the Recall WAS a problem and that it had to be taken on by the advocates of the General Strike.

Solidarity, K

PS I hope my numbering of arguments/points is not too annoying - it makes it easier for me to keep up with it all.

Hey, not at all, i'm barely keeping up with my own points, I suppose the reality is my arguments can only go so far with respect to this particular struggle, due to being so far removed from the ground and basing my information entirely on what I can investigate using the internet. So I appreciate your sharing of information, and I think in response i'll have to bow out from the debate on this specific Occupy Homes etc. campaign purely on the basis that it would be arrogant for me to argue my points any further - i've put them forward as far as I think it is possible for me to do with the information available to me without social involvement in the relevant struggles. Just to be clear, I suppose whilst my argument in some way relates to the M1 statement, I should point out I do not intend to single it out above everything else, since I know very little about the group or its tactical orientation. I suppose my final question - and this a question I ask in a fashion unrelated to the previous discussion - would be to what extent there is still a lively base involved in the Occupy Homes campaign that remains to some degree autonomous from staff or electoral influence - with the failure of the Ty Moore election, is the energy still there to continue the work being carried out prior to the electoral adventure?

As to the M1 statement being considered boilerplate by many libcom readers - well i'm not so sure. I think it would be accepted wholely by most, which I suppose is one of the reasons I feel it is worth discussing (and challenging).

With regard to pragmatism, as a concept guiding political strategy, it has gained a somewhat sullied reputation in the UK due to some well-meaning but very embarrassing / highly fantasist articles associated with a few short lived apolitical platformist-influenced projects, one of which later turned toward getting its positions adopted in the UK IWW in a rather unscrupulous way, which unfortunately coincided with key periods of long-awaited successful union activity thanks to the mass defection from a mainstream union of what I suppose had been a 'venture syndicalist' experimental organising campaign that got a little too hot for the mainstream union to handle. An internal split developed amongst wobs and remained for over a year, things didn't end too well, and that campaign since left to form its own base union. So framing strategy through pragmatism is not viewed too kindly amongst the militants I am good friends with, although as a concept I think it is still important, if tempered by the fact that the wider and longer-term concerns have to be taken into account - which as you point out includes recognising reformism and electoralism as a block to the development of composing the class into militant formations independent of state and capital (ie. a pragmatism in the longer term, not just a pragmatism considered only in the context of each moment).