Just like our problem isn’t just one particular “thing,” our solution can’t be one particular “thing” either; anyone serious about systems change must have a holistic, “every-tool-in-the-toolkit” approach that utilizes various institutions to produce a better, superseding system.
There is no need to create false dichotomies around institutional vehicles (ex: “unions vs. co-ops”).
Our #DualPower method leaves strategical room open around worker co-ops, unions, electoral politics, and more.
But we know what we want and, thus, pinpoint limits of each area.
Our #DualPower method leaves strategical room open around worker co-ops, unions, electoral politics, and more.
But we know what we want and, thus, pinpoint limits of each area.
Unions can bring workers together in various ways and at different scales/levels, but may not necessarily lead to something more than mere agitation for more (in wages or rights) within the capitalist logic, or abandonment of unnecessary and ecologically unsustainable industries.
Worker co-ops at their best plant embryonic seeds for cooperative social relations around labor that would define a future socialist society, but can be challenged and exploited via market and profit motives + poor governance models, and are not inherently developed around needs.
Electoral politics are commonly used to explore entryist tactics that usually lead to “progressive” forces being absorbed by the logic of capital and the state, but leave room for municipalism, which can turn “representative democracy” on its head in service to direct democracy.
The point is:
Because we know key elements of the future society we want to live in (direct democracy, cooperation, communalism, symbiosis with non-human nature, etc.) and study revolutionary history from all around the world, we know how crucial nondogmatism around strategy is.
Because we know key elements of the future society we want to live in (direct democracy, cooperation, communalism, symbiosis with non-human nature, etc.) and study revolutionary history from all around the world, we know how crucial nondogmatism around strategy is.
The system as it stands now is made up of many different parts that function in different ways in different places. Each of these parts need to be undone in the building of something better. The task is daunting, and thus requires openness and holistic creativity around strategy.
This strategy, in our view, must ultimately be in service to the cultivation of direct democracy in every sphere of life.
Informal hierarchies will emerge, but more hierarchy produces coercive power and domination, and it must be countered with democratic practice at every turn.
Informal hierarchies will emerge, but more hierarchy produces coercive power and domination, and it must be countered with democratic practice at every turn.
Needless to say, any efforts to cultivate a directly democratic society must deal with labor especially, and this is why our org and partners tend to place principle stress on the worker co-op as an entrypoint institution for us to explore.
But #DualPower encompasses much more.
But #DualPower encompasses much more.
It helps to think about #DualPower as a method or an approach that has us make use of whatever we can in service to building a parallel system radically different from the one we are currently suffering under.
Both history and the present show us there is much at our fingertips.
Both history and the present show us there is much at our fingertips.
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