Dr. Wolff’s Socialist Thread Room.

17:40 ch4 consequences social media, they’ll turn it on the left more so in the end, because they fear the left more than these guys.

24:00. The statement that Biden makes, which is part of the big scam the Democrats and the GOP both use to do nothing all the time.
 
17:40 ch4 consequences social media, they’ll turn it on the left more so in the end, because they fear the left more than these guys.

24:00. The statement that Biden makes, which is part of the big scam the Democrats and the GOP both use to do nothing all the time.


24:00 I wonder if Biden used those particular words since you are generally considered a two party state. If you want to have credit, you've got to have an adversary.
 
24:00 I wonder if Biden used those particular words since you are generally considered a two party state. If you want to have credit, you've got to have an adversary.
It's all the more reason we need more than just 2 political parties here in the United States. He makes the case that has been made repeatedly here in the US that 2 parties are not representative enough. It actually does a great injustice. And, it always has. Just like he explains. After the 24:00 mark on the clip.

Others have pointed this out over the years, we are supposed to this great democracy. Yet, we only have these 2 political parties "that just don't cut it!" and it has scared our country for a long time. It's pure fact. As he pointed out, we need a "true" left democratic-party, or a social democratic party that resembles the democratic party of FDR which was composed of the 2 Socialist parties we used to have back in the 1930's, and the unions at their very height, the fusion of Labor also.

I mean that very seriously. I've never been more serious in my life. It would push the current democratic party to a centrist right party, and the GOP to a far far Right-Wing ( Even Fascist ) Party [ which is what it is now ]. The next thing left would only be perhaps an extreme far left communist, but would be far few. Which is what the GOP accuses the current democratic party of now, ( which totally hyperbolically insanely wrong )

But, I would say the best of the Democratic party existed from FDR onward until JFK and LBJ, after that it was merely trying to hold the line, then when Reagan came, it was all down hill :(

But, the point is, "We should have atleast 4-5 political "viable parties" on the ballot which could win each election" The EU does, and if I'm not mistaken "Don't you guys do up there in Canada ?"
 
There's generally 5 parties but the Greens are still very minor. The two big guys (liberals and conservatives) dominate but the NDP (New Democratic Party) and in the last two decades the Bloc (Bloc Quebecois) party are the holders of power in minority governments who must be kept happy lest the (major-party) minority government falls and an election is called.
The NDP is what we consider to be left of the liberals and the Greens are seen to be even farther left in environment. The NDP can hold anywhere from a low of 2%-5% to a high of about 10% of federal seats. The Greens still sit around 3%-5% but have had surprising showing in the last decade.
The Bloc is fallout from Quebec's separatist political history of the 70's and 80's and was formed to give the francophone province a larger voice in federal politics. It is a force to be reckoned with at times as the province of Quebec holds 25% of the federal seats although there are conservative and liberal federal strongholds within the province.
Typically the NDP holds up a minority liberal government. I can't pinpoint The Bloc. They have swayed to either major party depending on how the legislation affects the province and people's of Quebec.
 
I our case, we NEED a good clear cut party for the LEFT. In our situation we are lacking for a party for the LEFT. WE are the opposite.

We need a "Clear" choice and a place to go. There are a large number of democrats, independents, socialist, and even others who need their own party. That also can be composed of Progressives, Labor, Environmentalist, and other groups etc. And disaffected Democrats, disenchanted capitalist etc.

It would be mind blowing just how many out there would hop into this party. And we need it! It would yank a knot in the head of the GOP and the DNC and break their little game up!
 
Sounds confusing as hell.

Not really. There's 338 members of the House of Commons. A General Election is held and a majority government is carried by winning 170 seats (169+1).
If no party gets a majority of seats (170 seats) then the Governor General (GG) as the Queen's Representative in Canada asks the party closest to 170 to form a minority government (described below). They may decline if they so wish (I can't site an example) and the next party in-line is asked to form the minority government. If there is a tie for closest to majority then the GG will request the current party in power (if it's one of the parties in the tie) to form a minority government (I've seen this).


* A minority government holds power for the same length of time but it is subject to possible "non-confidence votes" at times.
Certain pieces of legislation are deemed "Non-Confidence" which means a loss of the vote means a loss of confidence which results in a dissolution of Parliament and (generally) another General Election (this I have witnessed).

Minority government are,seen as the best solution to keep a powerful party in check as they must negotiate votes for legislation; sometimes with more then just one other party.

We also have a Senate (not voted in but appointed) but it has really become a rubber stamp. The Senate could hold up or return a piece of voted legislation to parliament for further scrutiny but I don't believe I've ever seen them outright reject anything.
 
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After the last few majority governments and their shenanigans, we tend to value minority governments in that their power is checked and legislation, in generally, is more equitable.

The far end of that, thought, is the Italian scenario where you have too many parties and governments cant stay in power to do anything.
 
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After the last few majority governments and their shenanigans, we tend to value minority governments in that their power is checked and legislation, in generally, is more equitable.

The far end of that, thought, is the Italian scenario where you have too many parties and governments cant stay in power to do anything.

Und die Deutschen? And the Germans ?
 
Portugal is run by 2 Socialist parties, and the Green Party together, with the addition of elements of a democratic socialist party.

I heard they are very successful.
 

Abstract​

Debates on U.S. union decline and revival usually focus on policy, technical, or political fixes. Missing are discussions of bringing workers together to act collectively at work. This has historically been the job of a “militant minority,” workplace activists (often leftists) who brought militancy and dynamism to unions, dedication and personal sacrifice in organizing, who linked workplace and community struggles, who were involved in unions’ day-to-day activities, and who connected rank and filers to leadership. This layer is largely missing today, making labor revitalization difficult. In explaining who the “militant minority” was, how it worked, and why it disappeared, we can find clues for rebuilding it.
Keywords militant minority, socialism, communism, labor movement, strikes

Introduction​

U.S. labor unions have been in decline for decades. As of 2018, union density stands at 10.7 percent overall (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2018). Union decline has contributed to growing economic inequality and eroded workers’ voice in politics (Farber et al. 2018; Rosenfeld 2014; Western and Rosenfeld 2011). Labor scholars and leaders have long debated how best to reverse labor’s flagging fortunes. Proposed solutions can be grouped into three categories: (1) policy fixes, particularly labor law reform; (2) technical fixes, including sophisticated organizing techniques and comprehensive campaign strategies; and (3) political fixes, including electing sympathetic politicians and winning regulatory reforms like minimum wage hikes.
Each of these approaches has merit, but they are limited by flawed conceptions of how unions build power—conceptions rooted in an elite-led theory of social change from above (McAlevey 2016), whether by legislators, jurists, policymakers, or union staff and leadership. This ignores the sources from which unions have traditionally drawn power: social mobilization and organizing at the workplace. During key periods of growth—the private-sector upsurge of the 1930s and 1940s and the public-sector upsurge of the 1960s and 1970s—union gains resulted from massive social mobilizations that created crises to which elites had to respond. These movements also revitalized unions themselves, bringing forth new leadership layers and fresh ideas. These movements were based in the workplace, relying on workers’ ability to join together, withhold their labor, and forcibly extract concessions from corporations and governments. Even when conflict did not escalate to strikes, these workers exerted control over their day-to-day lives at work, often forging “cultures of solidarity” that sustained the union as a vital, ongoing presence (Fantasia 1989; Keeran 1980).
In each of these periods of explosive growth, unions were aided by mass social movements, which could not be willed into existence. Nonetheless, examining previous upsurges can provide insights for developing a viable strategy for union revitalization today. This is because the upsurges had a structure to them—a structure that was built before the movements exploded. We can analyze that structure, how it was built, and why it disappeared. At its core, that structure was made of a “militant minority,” a small layer of activists in the workplace and recognized as leaders by their coworkers (Post 2016). Not coincidentally, this militant minority was strongly influenced by left-wing ideologies (Moody 2017). They were the hardest fighters, the most dedicated organizers, and the ones that most actively built unions’ cultures of solidarity. This group was key not only in leading upsurges but in consolidating their gains.
Today’s labor movement largely lacks this militant minority. We argue that rebuilding it is central to labor revival. In order to understand why, we offer an historic analysis of the militant minority: who was part of it, what it did, why it disappeared, and what might rebuild it.

Reversing Union Decline​

Debates on reversing union decline tend to focus around (1) policy fixes, (2) technical fixes, and (3) political fixes. Proponents of policy fixes contend that labor must change the exceptionally antiunion U.S. legal regime (Forbath and Rogers 2017). Winning labor law reform has been a fervent hope for the labor movement from the mid-twentieth century to the present, as the legal landscape in the United States has long been more hostile than that of any other wealthy country. Most recently, Barack Obama promised to pass the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) during his 2008 presidential run. EFCA would have made forming a union much easier for workers and stiffened penalties for employers who retaliate against workers for union activity. Unions hoped the act would reverse labor’s declining fortunes, but it went down to defeat, and labor’s decline continued apace (Lichtenstein 2010).
While the legal climate is exceptionally hostile for workers, the problem with policy proposals for union revitalization is that they get cause and effect backwards. Labor made its greatest gains when the legal climate was most restrictive: its greatest upsurges were in the 1930s, before the establishment of the modern collective bargaining regime (Goldfield 1989; Rubin, Griffin, and Wallace 1983). Likewise, in the 1960s and 1970s, public-sector workers walked off the job in mass illegal strikes. In both cases, a hostile legal framework did not prevent working-class upsurge; upsurge produced a less hostile legal framework (Eidlin 2018; Post 2016).
Arguments for technical fixes spring from the idea that shifts in the American economy and its integration into the global economy require a shift in labor’s organizing strategy. According to this argument, unions’ current organizing models are rooted in an outdated conception of the economy that has been uprooted by globalization, offshoring, the growth of the service economy and corresponding decline of the industrial economy, and the decline of stable employment and the rise of the “gig economy” (Hyman 2018; Rolf 2016; Weil 2017). To revitalize, proponents of technical fixes argue that unions must expand their use of strategic research, develop stronger communications and messaging strategies, and deploy innovative organizing tactics. These fixes are important. Strategic research is central to understanding the complexities of today’s employers and their vulnerabilities. Likewise, strong communications are a basic part of strong unionism. But unions have often deployed strategic research and communications strategies in ways that have pulled union campaigns further from the workplace, as unions have become laser-focused on exploiting potential vulnerabilities through the strategic research “air war” without building the shop-floor organization “ground war” (McAlevey 2016). Meaningful union revitalization requires a focus on building power on the shop floor, where workers will experience the outcomes of the campaigns unions carry out in their name—and where, ultimately, they hold power (Moody 2017).
Finally, unions have tried political fixes to spark revitalization, including electoral strategies, lobbying, and regulatory reforms. But this strategy has yielded little (Davis 1986; Greenstone 1969; Heideman 2016). Recently, President Obama passed a number of important reforms resulting from labor’s close ties with him. But, overall, his presidency was a disappointment for unions (Meyerson 2010). Like policy proposals, relying on political strategies to affect union revitalization mistakes the cause for the effect.
The flaw behind these proposals is their understanding of building worker power. They start from the idea that such power can only be built once workers are given permission from forces from above. Only once elites open the gates for workers to organize—through the right politicians, laws, and/or techniques—can workers build that power. Labor then emphasizes constructing an agenda for those elite forces to fulfill. Rank-and-file workers become passive agents—those who “are organized” rather than organize themselves. The source of labor movement dynamism moves outside its actual members. Thus, the three proposed fixes to labor’s decline are not just offered as an alternative to building militant unions at the rank-and-file level but are in direct conflict with building that kind of unionism, since they operate according to an alternate and even competing logic.
What is needed for labor’s revitalization is not an immediate shift in the legal and economic terrain. Nor is it a savvy new set of tools that can bypass the need to organize workplaces. Rather, the focus needs to be on building a workers’ movement that has the power to create crises and use disruption as a source of dynamism. Creating such a disruptive movement will require viewing the workplace as the site of building power at which workers can create “cultures of solidarity” (Chibber 2017; Moody 2018). Seizing opportunities for labor’s revitalization requires building a class-conscious, combative layer of workers in workplaces—a “militant minority.” This layer has been at the heart of past episodes of union growth. Today, it is largely absent. As such, understanding who made up the militant minority, what it did, and why it disappeared can offer clues for a viable strategy for union revitalization today.

Who Was the Militant Minority?​

Montgomery (1987, 2) defines the militant minority as that segment of the working class that “endeavored to weld their workmates and neighbors into a self-aware and purposeful working class”—those members of the working class who played key roles in turning their fellow workers from a class in itself to a class for itself (Marx 1973). Post (2016) calls the militant minority “a layer of workers with a vision and a strategy for how to organize, fight, and win.” The militant minority’s presence and vitality made the key difference in many unions that took up militancy in the Great Depression and New Deal era; their continued presence helped some unions buck the tide of conservatism and bureaucratization that labor experienced during and after World War II (Horowitz 1997).
Who made up this militant minority? The composition varied depending on location and industry. In meatpacking, for instance, black workers composed an important segment, pushing the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) to adopt a broad unionism that included taking on white supremacy. So did a segment of class-conscious white ethnics (Horowitz 1997). But the groups who historically played the most important role in forming and maintaining strong unions as part of the militant minority were radical leftists: Communists, socialists, Trotskyists, anarchists, and others who held explicit political commitments to militant unionism. While these radicals have played key roles throughout American labor history, they achieved the most in the heyday of the CIO. The United States had seen previous periods of labor upsurge. But the upsurge of the Great Depression/New Deal and World War II eras coincided with an era of strong leftist organization across ideological perspectives in workplaces around the country. The particular strand of radical left organization that proved dominant varied depending on the given union or industry or region (Dobbs 1973; Dollinger and Dollinger 2000; Horowitz 1997), but the Communist Party proved the most influential during industrial unions’ formative years (Davis 1986), constituting “the main expression of native, working-class radicalism in the United States” (Laslett 1981, 115).