libs and socialists talking to each other

Both really good videos.

Big loss to America, with Graeber’s passing. One of the main drivers of the Occupy movement, and a great exemplar for anarchism — the real thing, not the cartoon version. Brilliant guy, and he could communicate.

Might be a poor analogy, but I see the difference between conservative, liberal and leftist, kinda like this, with regard to the economic system, at least:

Cigarettes (capitalism). Liberals want to put filters on them, so the dire effects are lessened a bit.

Conservatives want to get rid of the filters and smoke ’em straight up. Puts hair on your chest!

Leftists say get rid of the cigarettes (capitalism), period. Why spend all this time and energy trying to figure out ways to mitigate for its effects when there’s absolutely no reason for its existence in the first place?

Go with something that doesn’t require filters (up front) — endless attempts at reform, offsets, protections, etc. etc.

I’m in the both/and camp. Until we can replace capitalism (economic apartheid) with economic democracy (socialism), we definitely need to keep adding reforms. M4A is a great example of that. And you’re right about the compassion aspect of stuff like eight hour days and so on. Do whatever we can to make life better under the current system. EVERY-thing.

My point is really about end-goals, and the journey toward those goals, and why all of that is so important. It’s all too possible to get caught up in the fight for reforms, and lose sight of the kind of world we really want to achieve. Getting mired in the wonkiness of it all.

Again, both/and.

I’m definitely not in the either/or, revolution or bust camp . . . while at the same time, I’m vehemently against incrementalist, move like a glacier reformism. We have very little time to make these changes. We need to get serious now about strong, effective reforms and our end goal of a much, much better world for all humans and natural life, etc.

Interesting video from Hakim.

Would like to hear your take on that, WV.

My own: I start out vehemently anticapitalist. I think that has to be the left’s end goal — to get rid of capitalism entirely. No remnants. All of it. Replace it with full-on economic democracy, democratize the workplace, and do a 180 with regard to the purpose of the economy itself. It never, ever should have been to make a tiny few rich. It should always have been for the purpose of fulfilling our needs, with no one left out. Ever. Anywhere. At any time. And, as Martin Hagglund writes in This Life, we’d also solve problems/crises, together, work toward the common good, and generate as much free time as possible.

(The last one is where the Soviet Union really screwed up. They became every bit the task-masters as the capitalist West, when it came to focusing on endless production, etc. If they had paid attention to Marx’s goal of radically reducing the work day . . . and, of course, democratized, decentralized and broken up all concentrations of power . . . they never would have failed.)

And I lean anarchist. Love what I’ve read by Kropotkin and others in that “camp.” However, I think the left actually need to form coalitions, if we’re to get anything done. In fact, I think we should even go so far as form coalitions with center-left Dems, as we pull them toward our own philosophies, policies, etc.

I’m not good with the nitty gritty stuff on how to do the above. But I think we can find “common ground” enough to work together, and that’s a must, IMO.

wv wrote:

Ken Wilber the new-agey-guru has a term regarding various kinds of religion/spirituality: “transcend but include”. I have always like his approach with that concept and I kinda think it can be applied to politics sometimes.
For example if you are a hard-left-marxist-leninist-maoist-whatever-ist, you can have those revolutionary Aspirational goals — and still work with progressive-capitalists to get M4A. You kinda ‘transcend but include’ progressive-work. At least in the short term.

Its basically the same as what you are saying with “its not either/or”

The alternative is for commies to just…what? Sit around and argue theory? To wait for the collapse of Capitalism? Which never seems to come. People have been saying its going to collapse ever since i can remember. Far-left-commies need to work with reformers when its something like M4A or Raising the Min Wage. Otherwise they are just irrelevant, in my view.

w
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I agree with all of that. Well said, WV.

Like what Wilber says too. Have not heard of him before. Makes a lot of sense.

I want to take the time to watch those, but it’s not tonight.

But yeah, that looks like good watching.

and I agree about reforms, WV.

M4A is an example of a reform that would yield such massive benefits that to dogmatically be against it purely on the basis that “reforms don’t work” would be inhumanly cruel.