Leaving Behind "Progressives"

As the 2020 presidential season heats up (way too early, it's still early 2019!), I am continually reminded how much the term "progressive" has been co-opted by neoliberal interests.

My frustration has grown to the point where I believe it is necessary to change how I identify myself. The "Progressive PGH" identity seems to have largely run its course, and change is in the air.

To be honest, I have experienced a transformation of my politics over the next 5-10 years anyway. While I still think of "progressive" as someone roughly around Bernie Sanders' set of politics and principles, I no longer personally identify with that system. Despite calling himself "democratic socialist", Bernie has, at least in the modern era, not been particularly critical of capitalism and neoliberalism. He has called for expanded social programs and "safety nets", which is by all means a great step that goes far beyond what most politicians call for, but falls short of the system change that I believe is needed to address climate change and poverty.

I wrestled a bit with exactly what sort of politics I want to see. Simply screaming negative criticism of every candidate isn't a political stance; I need a vision of the future that I can point to. Whenever someone tells me I have to pick the lesser between the two evils, I can point to that vision and say "No, there's another option".

The problem with progressivism is that it is too much of a capitalist apologist framework. It seeks to cover up the problems of capitalism by claiming that if only we have more social programs, and take a firm stand against government corruption, everything will be fine. This isn't true, because capitalism relies on exploitation, meaning it will always generate corruption, and always exploit poverty no matter how many social programs you have. You can't fix capitalism, you have to oppose it. Same can be said for the similar philosophy of social democracy.

The problem with democratic socialism is that relies too much on a top-down approach. Many of the people I've met that refer to themselves by some variant of this term are largely followers of Marx -- or at least today's interpretations of Marx -- who envisioned that the transition to a more communist society (a classless society) would first transition through a socialist phase, in which the state government would be used to smash capitalism. Once capitalism is broken up -- private property ended in particular -- the government would then be dissolved into more localized, democratic community ownership. Firstly, I've not heard many recent socialists talking about dissolving government -- the focus has been entirely on capitalism so far, which often segues people into politics and the idea that political parties like the Democratic Party are the platform with which to take control of government and smash capitalism. As the political party has been co-opted by capitalist forces, this idea seems wildly unrealistic. It puts the cart before the horse, in my opinion. Second, the transition of centralizing power into a state government first is a dangerous move, one that was taken advantage of by autocrats like Lenin. Concentrating power is never a good idea, and so while I generally agree with the long-term goals of democratic socialists, I'm not a fan of the methodology.

Lately I've been reading about a number of other philosophies. Anarchism is a different take on socialism, calling for a much more bottom-up social revolution against oppression by both capitalism and authoritarian government, which is much more appealing to me. Bakunin, Kropotokin, Rocker, are some good names to read about along this line of thought.

Even better were those that came later, around the 1960s, who looked fusing socialism (particularly anarchist thought) with environmentalism. Perhaps the biggest name along this path for me was Murray Bookchin and his philosophy of social ecology. Bookchin opposed capitalism as well as large government, similar to anarchism, but instead saw the world as confederation of municipalities, democratically-run communities that put ecology and human rights first.

Bookchin's philosophy more than most other people I read strongly appealed to me. Interestingly, Bookchin's philosophy played an important role in the early days of the foundation of the Green Party, which is one reason the Green Party has such strong "eco-socialist" roots.

Another interesting source of inspiration was the London Green Left Blog, which looks to authors from all of these philosophies to talk about eco-socialism, a fusion of ecology and environmentalism with anti-war and civil rights politics, taking the best ideas from socialism and even more anarchist-leaning thought such as Bookchin.

To me, the future seems to be some flavor of eco-socialism. We can't stay stuck on old ideologies; even if some are appealing, we have to recognize that today's circumstances -- a worldwide economy, connected by the Internet, facing the global threat of climate catastrophe -- are different than anything faced by past generations. By necessity, we need something new -- informed by old radical thought, but adapted to today.

So I've decided to more explicitly join that movement by renaming my account. I've decided to use the handle Pittsburgh Green Left instead. "Green" because of the focus on ecology, as well as a call-back to the Green Party's key values. "Left" because of a general support of leftist ideologies, socialism and anarchism. The whole name of course is also a nod to the influential London Green Left Blog.

Therefore, the new blog will also be Pittsburgh Green Left -- update your bookmarks! I may transfer some of the most relevant blogs from here to there, but new posts will go there specifically.

Anarchism and Social Revolution

My recent readings from Bookchin and Kropotkin had me interested to learn more about anarchism. I was recently at the Big Idea co-op bookstore in Pittsburgh, and while browsing came across a series of books. The first is "What is Anarchism?" by Alexander Berkman, which is actually two of his essays combined into a book. It seemed like a perfect introduction and so I bought it (as well as a few others that I'll hopefully write about soon -- stay tuned!).

What is Anarchism? is a fantastic read to get a "lay of the land" on anarchist philosophy. The book is written in an almost conversational tone with a natural flow from one chapter to the next, sort of meant to be an on-going conversation where the author anticipates and answers your questions as they come up at the end of each small chapter. In this way it is similar to Kropotkin's books; not sure if that's a trend of anarchists or just lucky, but either way I have greatly appreciated the "down-to-earth" writing style that isn't too heavy in jargon. I find a lot of socialist material is weighed down by Marxist economic terminology, and while I can (mostly) follow it, I always think about how inaccessible such writings can be to the general public. If our goal is to grow the movement, then we need better educational materials. Berkman's writing is clear and informative and I think would be interesting to any worker that has started on the path to questioning capitalism.

A short summary of, What is Anarchism? is that Berkman essentially makes an argument that the only realistic way to bring about change -- what he calls the social revolution, to distinguish from political or violent revolution -- to end the entrenched capitalist system is by organizing for a general strike. A general strike would mean as many as possible -- ideally everyone! -- would go on strike simultaneously, and not just those from a particular industry or business. Berkman argues that only a complete shutdown of our economy and politics would be enough to force concessions and ultimately win an anarchist socialist society. It's a pretty convincing argument, citing other authors as well as Berkman's own experience following the Russian revolution and its successes and failures.

But why is it needed in the first place? The goal of social revolution is "the abolition of government and of economic inequality, and the socialization of the means of production and distribution". In particular, social revolution is not about fighting and destruction but instead about construction -- about constructing a new system. We don't destroy farms and factories, but we take ownership of them for the workers. We "reorganize conditions for the public welfare", as Berkman says. He argues that much of the poverty and inequality that we see today is a result of capitalism, and is upheld largely by coercive forces of government authoritarianism in the form of "private property" laws, meant to keep wealth and power in the hands of a few rather than the collective benefit.

Therefore, we must at once abolition capitalism and government and replace it with a new system that ends inequality and creates democracy, and his view is that a general strike is the most likely method to be successful. Berkman calls for a social revolution because he deems that a political revolution is not possible because political parties are designed to protect capitalism and cannot be infiltrated within or via independent politics. He also deems a violent revolution undesirable and likely to fail because a citizen army cannot resist the full might of the state's police and military forces; plus, as he points out, our goal must be construction and not destruction. So to Berkman, a general strike creating a social revolution is the only way to win victory, for politics and the military machine cannot function if all of the workers throw down the tools and refuse to work for them or uphold the system any longer.

Of course, organizing up to that point will take a lot of work and convincing, and so Berkman talks about the need to educate and organize now until the movement is strong enough. A "weak" strike too early that does not include all workers can fail and hurt the workers more as capitalism retaliates. Berkman therefore argues that until the social revolution, we must spend our time organizing, educating, and building unions that treat all workers as equals and are focused on attacking capitalism and establishing grassroots democracy as a whole rather than only demanding smaller changes like higher wages. He cautions against organizing only around manual labor unions, as he cites intellectual labor like engineering will also be necessary to construct a new world. Even within manual labor, agricultural work is at least as important as industrial work. Thus a united general strike in solidarity between all manual and intellectual labor must be well organized.

The real fight isn't even so much the strike itself, but constructing a new system that can last and not fall right back into the traps of authoritarianism and capitalism. Berkman reminds us, similarly to Kropotkin's call in The Conquest of Bread, that the revolution will fail unless its first priority is getting food and basic needs to all. So a high priority of the social revolution must be unionizing farms, and creating community gardens for self-sufficiency prior to a full strike and action. Once action is under way, Berkman argues citizen committees would form to ensure everyone gets needed housing and supplies, again a call back to Kropotkin's plan. As communities become self-sufficient and needs are met, the interest in returning to the old system and economy will wane and be replaced with an anarchist society that respects the rights of individuals and encourages mutual aid and cooperation without the use of force that capitalism and authoritarian government require.

In short, it's a great read if you'd like to learn about what it means to be an anarchist and that anarchist vision for change. Like many references, a little light on details of organizing -- what exactly does it mean to organize? How do you remain united and organized prior to the general strike? How do you win enough small victories to keep workers united toward the end goal? These are difficult questions for sure, but ones I think worth visiting. While I am definitely confident a non-violent social revolution largely based on strikes and mutual aid would  be successful, I'm not sure that I entirely agree that electoral politics is worthless. Expecting to reform an entire system from within is probably a little much, but I think municipal elections can be won and used to create more democratic communities. I also think independent politics at the state and even national level can be valuable as educational tools, but as we see with the Greens can also backfire if we aren't careful how we present ourselves and our vision for change. Overall, Berkman's arguments are intriguing and I will definitely be thinking about them more as I learn and organize.

Democracy at Work, and what we get wrong about socialism

What if I told you many of those that call themselves "socialist" are in fact arguing for capitalism -- state capitalism, as opposed to privately-owned capitalism, but capitalism nonetheless?

Richard Wolff's book Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism is a short but very interesting and informative read that essentially argues just that. Wolff starts with a history of modern capitalism in the US and tracks the development of capitalist and Marxist thought through the 20th century. As Wolff looks at economic crises from the Great Depression up to the Great Recession of 2008, and even to other countries such as the collapse of the "socialist" government of Russia in the 1980s, Wolff points out how the common thread of them has been a failure of capitalism.

Classic Marxist thought puts an emphasis on who owns the property (or the modes of production) directly, which sets up a clash between capitalism as the private property system versus socialism/communism as the public property system. Typically in history, socialism's call for the end of private property has translated into a call for state ownership of the property. Wolff's central idea is that state ownership of property actually doesn't fix the problem, and simply replicates the capitalist hierarchical structure within government instead of a corporation. Instead of a CEO and board of directors, we now have a governor and committees, but the hierarchical, oppressive structure is the same. Countries like Russia or Venezuela that the media often describes as "socialist" or even "communist" are far from it, and actually mirror a capitalist structure more than anything else. And that is the same capitalist structure that is now eating the US economy right now.

Wolff instead revisits Marx to find a new definition of the capitalism versus socialism battle. Instead of ownership of property, Wolff defines the struggle as deciding who has ownership of the surplus; roughly speaking, who owns the profits of labor? Under private capitalism, it is clear that the capitalist class owns the profits of the workers, and can manage those profits in any way they see fit including giving themselves high salaries and bonuses; however, even with state-owned property, the profits are simply now owned and managed by the state, and still not the workers themselves. In both scenarios, some small group of elite -- whether business managers or government bureaucrats -- own and therefore direct the usage of the surplus. Therefore in this sense, most modern "socialist" countries are better described as "state capitalism".

The cure is therefore to democratize the surplus, and allow the workers themselves to directly and democratically decide what to do with any profits. True socialism is democracy in the workplace as well as politics, not a "socialist" government that controls and directs the economy.

Wolff goes on to describe how such a democratic worker self-directed enterprise (WSDE for short) would function. He makes several strong arguments that WSDEs would be able to provide workers with better jobs, better benefits, and be more resilient to economic and technological change. WSDEs would treat workers as equals, and rotate leadership positions in order to simultaneously promote leadership training for all members while also ensuring no single person or small group becomes "the leader" that "leads" them back into capitalism (it's that old adage that power corrupts, so we have to spread out the power as much as possible). He points out that WSDEs would be in a far stronger place to put environmental rights and human rights above profits, as the whole worker community would have a say in decisions. He also points out that WSDEs would generally do best rotating workers to different jobs, not only gaining everyone a little experience in many things, but also letting younger workers gain experience and decide what job path to take on their own within the WSDE. I think that's actually a fantastic idea, to let new workers try a few different things and pick their own path, it results in much happier and more productive workers. Of course, as technology changes and automation increases profits without labor, unlike corporations that might lay off employees to save on wages, WSDEs would be able to simply cut the amount of working hours -- say from 40 hours per week down to 35, or even lower! -- of everyone. In short, WSDEs due to their democratic nature will do a much better job at putting people first over profits than our current capitalist system.

I really like Wolff's characterization of socialism as ownership over the surplus (profits), and democratic decision making on what to do with said surplus. I think this emphasis on democratic decision making by the workers meshes well with the decentralized economy envisioned by the Green Party, and in fact, Wolff at the very end of the book makes a short plea for an independent political party focused on labor and making democracy in the workplace a thing. While this could be an entirely new Labor Party, I also think the Green Party is well established and already contains decentralized, grassroots democracy in both government and economics as part of its platform.

I believe Greens should read Wolff's book and really internalize it. Let's work to ensure the Green platform lives up to these concepts, and that we start a strong education campaign to let voters and workers know that Greens support their efforts at democratizing the workplace.

Communalism, Libertarian Municipalism, and Confederalism

Once you read books like Murray Bookchin's "The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy", you realize just how authoritarian and right wing nearly all of our political parties and movements are today. Bookchin is a well-known anarchist, an anarcho-socialist flavor similar to Kropotokin's work but with a much stronger emphasis on ecology and the need to create a sustainable economy, not just one that always grows.

Of course, as I discussed in my essay on Kropotkin's "The Conquest of Bread", the term "anarchy" can create a misunderstanding in modern audiences. It isn't the complete absence of rules, but rather the breakdown of hierarchical power in both government and business. In that context, terms like "libertarian socialist" might be a better fit for modern audiences, but even that can create confusion as the Libertarian Party is very different from the libertarianism Kropotkin or Bookchin advocate for. It is effectively an argument of right-wing libertarianism versus left-wing libertarianism.

In any case, Bookchin calls his philosophy of ecologically-focused anarchism "Communalism" to emphasize that it is distinct from typical calls for socialism or communism. Bookchin discusses the inadequacy of Marx's analysis to handle modern problems caused by capitaliss. Indeed, Marx was mostly focused on economic factors and envisioned economic strikes by workers at factories as generating the coming "socialist revolution". However, Bookchin points out this isn't realistic today as by far the large majority of today's workers are not technical workers in factories but rather workers in service jobs that are more easily replaceable. Bookchin also emphasizes that capitalism has hurt more than just our economic needs, but also contributes to racism, sexism, urban decay, and the destruction of the environment, all issues that Marx did not really address.

Bookchin's goal of communalism is to break down all authoritarian power in all spheres of life, not just economic. Hierarchical power structures are by their nature authoritarian since a small group (and sometimes a single individual) sits in a "position of power" over others, and this structure exists in both the private sector (executive board of directors and CEOs) as well as government (governors/president and legislature). Communalism instead calls for the elimination of these positions as positions of power and policy-making, and instead calls for citizen assemblies to make economic and government decisions as a direct democracy. The citizen assembly would debate and deliberate and directly vote on all issues affecting the community, and attempt to achieve consensus whenever possible.

Bookchin makes a distinction between local governments, which are direct democracy citizen assemblies that derive just power directly from the people, and nation-state governments (such as the state or federal government in the US) that can easily become authoritarian when allowed to make decisions on behalf of the people. Bookchin's solution is a combination of what he calls "libertarian municipalism" and "confederalism".

Libertarian municipalism is the concept that the local city government (or municipality, could be a neighborhood or small district within a mega city like New York City) is where all public decisions are deliberated and made. A municipal assembly makes decisions by consensus and direct democracy, the key factor being the municipality is small enough that the assembly can be held with face-to-face discussions. The municipal assembly would also debate economic policy, not just politics, and "own" public resources and industry. In the ideal, private ownership of business would be replaced by public ownership of the industry, democratically-run by the assembly made up of everyone in the community, not just the workers. After all, the effects of industry can impact the entire community, not just the workers themselves, as is the case of pollution and environmental damage.

These municipalities would band together into a confederal state, which is very different from today's state. Pennsylvania today elects representatives that make decisions -- that is, set public policy -- on behalf of citizens, and this often leads to authoritarian abuses of power and corruption. Instead, confederalism proposes that the municipalities vote on policy directly, and once the policy is approved, muncipalities elect representatives to carry out that policy. In effect, state representatives shift from policy-makers to becoming administrators that simply oversee implementation of the policy chosen by the people. These elected officials would be expected to follow the guidelines set by the municipal assembly, and if not followed, could immediately be removed from the role by the municipality. Should a municipality "go rogue" and harm human rights or the environment, the rest of the municipalities would be able to unite in a confederal assembly to take action against the rogue. The confederal assembly would effectively have a previously-agreed-on set of human and ecological rights, defined by popular assemblies and backed by the people. In some sense, it's a return to the original ideas of small government and democracy enshrined in the US's articles of confederation which would establish the basic human and ecological rights to be protected by the confederation.

Bookchin proposes that this set up remains the most democracy and decentralized while also respecting the need for interdependence. The idea that every community can be 100% self sufficient and never need anything from the outside is ridiculous. We definitely take strides to ensure our communities are very self-sufficient, particularly for basic necessities like food, but we also work within a confederal state of peers of set overall policy and share resources. Bookchin cautions against going to far with decentralized self-sufficiency, that it can be just as dangerous as being too centralized. Bookchin sees communalism as effectively the best balance of decentralization with the need to cooperate in larger structures.

Bookchin does however admit that the plan does have some risk. Decentralization to this disagree can easily turn bad if we do not have a majority of people on the same page with a goal of taking power back from hierarchy and using it toward humanitarian and ecological goals. Bookchin therefore emphasizes the need for education. Democracy on its own won't immediately bring out a moral, ecological society. He also criticizes political parties for being too centralized, saying most national parties including the Greens, Labour, and Socialist parties too often become hierarchical when focusing on nation-state politics. He points to the fact that the German Greens, for example, despite having won many parliamentary seats have not advocated for communities and cities with Green elected officials to have more democratic influence and autonomy. He instead advocates Greens to run for local office on a platform of making the local government more democratic, changing the institution and the minds of people to expect direct conversation with the mayor and community leaders and a direct vote in municipal affairs. He asks, rightly so I think -- how can one take down the capitalist system if one cannot reform one's own neighborhood to be more democratic? Rather than taking actions that prop up a capitalist and hierarchical government (in fact, efforts for affordable housing and parks without corresponding pushes for democracy might actually empower the hierarchy more by giving it a "friendly face" that can be used to justify that the system "works"), we need to keep the emphasis on democratic governments to preserve our planet and can build a movement around today's government and slowly overtake it. In fact, Bookchin speculates that this might be the only way for Leftist politics to win again in the face of a long-established hierarchical system that most people have grown used to.

Largely I find myself very strongly agreeing with Bookchin's call for communalism and a much more democratic system. While always wanting to support stronger action for a living wage, affordable housing, healthcare, and fights against imperialism and other issues, I find myself always drawn back to the idea that "if we had more democracy, this probably wouldn't be an issue..." Poll after poll shows the majority of Americans don't want more war. A majority want to raise the wages and ensure healthcare for all. If we had democracy, we would have voted for it, and it'd already be done. The reason we don't have it is precisely our lack of democracy. Our representative government is much more authoritarian and hierarchical than it sounds like, and that concentration of power into legislatures makes it prone to corruption and the interests of the elite rather than the interests of the population as a whole.

It seems clear to me that a major effort of the Green Party and other organizations seeking change must be towards establishing greater democratic control of government and the economy. We must assert the will and power of the people as a whole to get the change we seek from bottom-up movement, not top-down decision making. I think Bookchin's proposals for libertarian municipalism and confederalism are the goals the Green Party needs to set for future elections. We need to run more local candidates set on making this a reality for Pittsburgh and other cities and communities.

We'll have to think a little more on exactly what this looks like -- for example, I suspect the confederal assemblies would be chosen by proportional representation within the municipalities, or ranked choice for specific tasks. But the key idea is to invert what we have today -- we are not subjects being "ruled" by our elected political elite, we hold the power and elect representatives to serve us. Just educating others on that message I think would make a huge difference on our national political conversation.

We Still Haven't Conquered Bread

Here we are more than 100 year's since Kropotkin's "The Conquest of Bread", and we still haven't conquered it.

Wait, what? What does "conquest of bread" mean? Glad you asked.

Kropotkin's main argument in his book "The Conquest of Bread" is that, paraphrased and in the words of Bill and Ted, we should "be excellent to each other" and make sure every person has bread (or whatever food type you prefer) so as not to starve. Kropotkin cites several failed revolutions, notably the French revolutions of the 1800s, and suggests that the major reason each failed was not because the initial uprising failed -- the uprisings actually worked rather well at getting rid of royalty -- but ultimately failed because the revolutionary leaders didn't know what to do after they had removed the royalty. Revolutionary leaders quickly installed themselves into government in the same positions vacated by the old royalty and government leaders, set up the same power structures and form of government, and quickly became a type of royalty or political elite themselves. More time was spent first fighting over more abstract concepts like political rights and how government would be structured instead of setting a priority of feeding the poor and getting them the bread they need. As such, the poor only tolerated the revolution for a short period of time before growing disillusioned. According to Kropotkin, the wealthy were each time able to take advantage of the situation: "What has your revolution brought? You are still hungry! If you go back to work for me, you can end this and start receiving wages and food again." The poor grumbled and went back to their jobs, and revolutionaries were executed as traitors as the wealthy came back into power. Any revolution quickly fails and returns back to the status quo by not putting the needs of the poorest citizens first.

Kropotkin therefore describes what he believes to be the successful formula to creating a sustained political and economic revolution. First, the revolution must ensure every citizen has food, shelter, and clothing. Kropotkin argued the revolution must be anarchist (or perhaps libertarian socialist is a better term in the modern era, as many misunderstand what anarchism means) in which the centralized state government is also abolished simultaneously with the capitalist ownership of private property. Citizen-led community organizations, democratically run by the citizens themselves, would essentially declare that the food belongs to the people and encourage communities to farm and grow food for themselves. They would next lead tallies to count the unused homes that lie vacant as banks and landlords sit on them, and simply declare that the homes are owned by the public now and move homeless people into them. Should the landlords attempt eviction, the community organizations would defend the new tenants and stop the eviction and refuse to acknowledge any "authority" outside of the democratic community organization. These community organizations would then declare that clothing factories belong to the people and ensure any person can have access to any clothing needed. In the end, food, shelter, and clothing are to be declared rights of all, available free of charge to all citizens in exchange for sharing in the manual labor of the community to maintain the farms and clothing factories.

Once the immediate needs are taken care of, Kropotkin spends a few chapters describing how important it is that the community sets up a self-sufficient economy consisting of decentralized, community-owned (not privately-owned) farms and industry. In his view, as long as the community relies on some other community or nation for its food and products, it will always be reliant on others and will be taken advantage of by capitalists, or even the centralized state. The community must become self-sufficient in order to remain free.

Kropotkin then makes a very human argument for why the decentralized, self-sufficient economy is necessary. He blasts not only capitalism but even Marxist forms of socialism for focusing too much on the "means of production" and worker wages when the economy is really based on consumption. He argues that workers are always exploited anytime they are paid wages -- even under a socialist system -- because wages by definition are sold labor that must be sold for less than it is worth, and so concludes wages in any form need to be completely abolished. He argues people's demands for a comfortable life are what really drive the economy, and when our basic needs are met, we can all spend more time enjoying our lives or working toward ways to create more comfortable and interesting lives. He particularly criticizes the idea of industrialized "specialization" that was brought about by capitalism (and in his view is still defended too readily by Marxist socialists), saying that our goal in life shouldn't be to maximize production of profit but instead to maximize our ability to enjoy leisure time. He foresees a socialist world of automation that would only require of workers perhaps 4 hours of work per day, allowing more free time to people to spend reading and learning, writing books, creating art, doing science, or whatever else makes sense, based on personal decision. He argues that the human psyche wasn't designed to do the same manual labor day in and day out for our whole lives. People aren't healthy unless doing a bit of both manual and intellectual labor and varying up daily tasks, and so he argues that a short necessary work schedule (assisted by automation) to take care of basic needs combined with free time to pursue intellectual hobbies produced the most healthy and normal life, and should be the ultimate goal of any revolution. Essentially, we must seek a balanced life of happiness.

I found Kropotkin's different vision of socialism and the revolution to be a very interesting read, since the narrative seems to always equate socialism with Marxism. Kropotkin's more decentralized vision is particularly appealing to me because of its strong emphasis on personal liberty but within a community, and I think it fits more neatly into the Green Party's platform and narrative that rejects both capitalism and centralized state socialism. 

What can we as Greens learn from Kropotkin's analysis? Are there lessons for Greens as we develop strategy for the next few years? I take three key points from Kropotkin.

First, we must not forget the struggles and needs of the poorest among us. Sometimes we have a tendency to open philosophical dialog and debate some of the finer points of ideas. This is very commendable and even necessary as we navigate the growing philosophical and ethical quandries facing us with a growing technological world in the 21st century -- but I think it is important to remember that isn't the first priority for many people in the country. Too many still worry how they will put food on the table tonight, and that needs to always be our first priority in public. We need Green activists and candidates to put a heavy emphasis on establishing and protecting human economic rights: a right to life, to food, to water, to shelter, to basic clothing, to healthcare. Healthy food and water and modern medicine quickly lead into questions of sustainability, pollution, and climate change, so we aren't taking away from environmental arguments by focusing on human rights, but in fact, enhancing them. These issues are inseparable. Greens need to be the modern evolution of these concepts that take into account such sustainability questions that older philosophers and economists like Marx and Kropotkin didn't fully consider or understand.

Second, once we get past these basic human rights and environmental action, we need activists and political candidates talking about a positive future for humanity. "Let's fix this... so we can work harder!" is not exactly a rallying cry. Humans are not robots: we have emotions, feelings, hopes, dreams, interests, hobbies, and it's time our political policy acknowledged that. At a minimum, this means establishing a right to education and public resources like libraries, so that we all can satisfy our intellectual curiosity. But I think it is more than this. Similar to Kropotkin, I think we must not be afraid of technology and automation, but embrace it. We need to talk a vision where we all labor for our basic needs significantly less, and instead can follow our dreams. Develop hobbies, interests. Do science experiments, or explore the world. In a nutshell: tell people it's ok to be human, it's ok to have time off of work, it's ok to enjoy your life. We don't need to all be working 24/7, we don't need to "keep ourselves busy", our goal need not be to maximize production or profits. Humanity's goal should be to maximize time, something we all have precious little of in life, to spend that time with friends, family, and on interesting hobbies and projects. It's not like technology will stop progressing -- some people will do it as a hobby, and in fact, before the modern era, a lot of science and technology was done as a hobby by the wealthy that had free time from work (for a modern example, one only need look at the "open source" movement of thousands of programmers that in most cases donate their time freely to write software for other people to use, just for the fun and challenge of it). I don't think we often enough talk about that side of being human -- probably in part because so many lack the basic needs of food, shelter, clothing, healthcare, but I think we need to articulate that positive vision of the future sooner rather than later in order to give hope to why we even bother fighting for basic needs. I sympathize with those that feel powerless: if you're going to be required to work a job you hate 8+ hours per day for the rest of your life no matter whether it is owned by a capitalist or socialists, what difference does it make to your life whether the capitalists or the socialists are "in charge"? Any political vision must include a better life for us all, one where we can look forward to reaping the benefits of community and technology. We can do it when we create a socialist society rather than allowing only the wealthy to benefit from automation, and that must be the message.

Third, we need to better articulate how decentralized government works. As it turns out, decentralization seems to be a very foreign concept to many Americans, even those that associate themselves with "small government" or socialism. The knee-jerk reaction is to assume changes come top-down, that a leader of some kind sets the vision and makes it happen. What we're fighting for is the opposite: opening up the process to everyone, letting everyone take their turn at being leader instead of waiting for change to happen from others. As I've said before in past essays, this is a point of contention between Greens and Democrats that we must highlight more often as I think many progressive-minded voters don't entirely understand the difference (myself being one of those people in the past!). Our goal isn't for Greens to simply "replace" Democrats within this same structure. Our goal is to be the "anti-party party" that breaks down the barriers to participating in democracy: makes it easier to vote, easier to participate, by taking the power out of political parties and corporations and returning it directly to the people. Democratic government shouldn't be funneled through a few "representatives" or "superdelegates" that have more powers than the people, we should do everything we can to get decision-making out of the halls of Harrisburg or Washington DC and into the hands of communities themselves. In a nutshell: it's time we very strongly challenged the misconception that "we're a republic, not a democracy!" that many repeat as if it is a good thing. The decentralized approach favors more democratic assemblies made up of people in the community whom the action will impact, giving everyone a voice. We strive to put decision making at the smallest level that makes sense. Some wide-reaching decisions, such as what to do about global warming, are probably best handled at the large nation-state or international levels where we can all agree on a single method that doesn't step on others' toes or even inhibit the plan, but most decisions can and should be handled directly at the community level as a discussion and vote by the local stakeholders. The idea of capitalist-owned private property is problematic precisely because it violates this rule -- a rich capitalist who has never set foot in the community can suddenly own large tracts of land and resources in that community. Why should someone who has never lived in or even visited the area be able to have so much sway over those that currently live there, some for generations? The decision must be made democratically by all those impacted, with all voters as equals, not by a small group of councilmembers, representatives, or CEOs and shareholders. Anything else is a power imbalance that favors wealth over the poor.

If we can integrate these three ideas into activism and campaigns, I think the Greens will make significant ground over the next few years. People are itching for a change, they recognize the problems, but don't have a full clear idea of where to go next. Greens must lead the way with the vision and empower others to build on that vision.

Carnegie's Gospel of Wealth Still Guides Us

With efforts to turn a bit more local, I have been looking for more ways to learn about Pittsburgh's history and present day. Recently I found a copy of the autobiography of Andrew Carnegie, the steel "robber baron" based in Pittsburgh during the Gilded Age. While I haven't read the main text itself, it includes a reprint of Carnegie's short essay "The Gospel of Wealth" at the end.

I recommend everyone read it as a good way to "get inside the mind" of others. I found that Carnegie's words articulate many of the same objections and talking points that I hear today when I talk with others about progressive or Green causes. It seems likely that Carnegie, being such a big name in the city even to today, had a much larger influence on the political thought of the area than I at first realized.

Carnegie essentially makes an argument for capitalism, and why it is good that capitalism results in money concentrating in the hands of the wealthy. Carnegie was under no misconception of "trickle down economics" -- he specifically admitted that he knew this economy would fundamentally push more wealth to the wealthy. Carnegie's purpose was explaining why he thought that was the best idea.

In a nutshell, he argues that concentrating wealth is a good idea, and that the role of the wealthy in society is to give away most of the fortune to the greater civic good:

...thus becoming the mere agent and trustee for his poorer brethren, bringing to their service his superior wisdom, experience and ability to administer, doing for them better than they would or could do for themselves.

What's interesting here is the implicit sense of superiority, that somehow the wealthy, just by virtue of having money, are smarter and could make better decisions than the poor. Carnegie even calls out Communism in his essay, with the typical attack of putting too much decision power into the poor that cannot handle it.

This is a refrain I've heard a lot recently, even from high school students that I spoke to -- that democracy, leaving decisions to the "common rabble", cannot be trusted. I see now this is an attitude Carnegie rubbed off on people, and honestly even Carnegie was likely influenced by earlier generations including the Founders that believed only the educated wealthy landowners should be able to vote. I don't know how people can argue against themselves having greater political power, but I have heard it with my own ears. I suppose this mindset convinces people they are special, and so many people experience no cognitive dissonance because they believe they are part of that special wealthy or at least middle class that makes the decisions, despite evidence being to the contrary. We obviously need to make a better case for expanded democratic rule as a way of equalizing political power. Convincing people to stop working against themselves and stop supporting this type of philosophy that puts more power into the hands of the few is part of our struggle.

Carnegie also argues against public spending for the poor in what can easily be described as social darwinism. After acknowledging the downsides of the "law of competition" (capitalism and concentration of wealth), he says:

...while the law may be sometimes hard for the individual, it is best for the race, because it insures the survival of the fittest in every department.

This is that typical callous, utilitarian business view of people -- you are only useful or "fit to survive" if you fit in with the business world to make profits. Anyone not generating profit is at a minimum lazy, and perhaps not even fit to survive. In his view, the poor get lazy under social programs, and only by requiring them to work harder will they get out of their situation. Specifically:

In bestowing charity, the main consideration should be to help those who will help themselves...

Carnegie then goes on to describe how giving charity to the poor that don't work hard enough and don't deserve it actually hurts them more than being poor. There's hints of the modern "they need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps" saying in his writing.

I found interesting his attack on alternative economic systems and distribution. For example, he makes an implicit argument that Native Americans are somehow less civilized because they didn't shower their leaders in wealth the way Europeans did, everyone was more equal:

The Indians are to-day where civilized man then was. When visiting the Sioux, I was led to the wigwam of the chief. It was just like the others in external appearance, and even within the difference was trifling between it and those of the poorest of his braves.

While trying to argue that concentration of wealth is natural and a foundation of our society as a whole, he criticizes Communists and others calling for different systems:

Objections to the foundations upon which society is based are not in order, because the condition of the race is better with these than it has been with any others which have been tried.

Firstly, this isn't a very sound argument since he assumed that capitalistic wealth distribution is an integral part of "civilized" society. But more simply, his argument is essentially "well, it's good enough, could be worse!" While it could indeed be worse, this sort of statement also lacks imagination -- is current day really the best we could ever hope for? Even if it is true that we are better than in the past, shouldn't we try to improve further? Well, Carnegie has an objection to us seeking better alternatives:

...even if it were good to change it, which we cannot know. It is not practicable in our day or in our age. ... Our duty is with what is practicable now; with the next step possible in our day and generation. It is criminal to waste our energies in endeavoring to uproot, when all we can profitably or possibly accomplish is to bend the universal tree of humanity a little in the direction most favorable to the production of good fruit under existing circumstances.

This strikes me as almost exactly word-for-word objections we hear from Democratic leaders on why we can't have things like single payer healthcare, free college tuition, and other social programs. "What a noble goal!" they say "It's just not practical." During Bernie's campaign, very commonly we heard "Why waste energy setting up single payer healthcare system when you can just protect the ACA and expand it?" Carnegie is saying exactly that here -- while more socialist economies might very well be more noble and efficient, why put energy into changing things when we can just make tweaks to what we have now? What we have now is practical. I wonder how many of the factories and technological advancements of Carnegie's era, much less today, would have been seen not as "practical" but "pie-in-the-sky" dreams a few hundred years ago. That's the flaw with these arguments, that somehow it's too difficult to advance when advancement has been exactly the story of humanity. Perhaps out of pride and conceit, we convince ourselves that we are today at the peak of human evolution, and nothing could ever possibly change at any point in the future. In reality, we will likely be the "cavemen" for some distant generation, much like we look at people during the Revolutionary War, the Middle Ages, or even further back.

Interestingly, Carnegie does support one fairly progressive reform: he argues that wealthy people sitting on money is not good for the economy, and that simply gifting that money to descendants is giving money to people that haven't earned it yet in the name of creating a dynasty. Carnegie actually argues for a high estate tax in order to encourage the wealthy to spend that money within their lifetimes rather than sit on it for inheritances, even going so far to say that he'd prefer to see that type of tax than most others. While this almost sounds like a good idea, Carnegie's point is that with a high tax rate, very little would get taxed and the government still wouldn't spend much -- instead, the wealthy themselves would act as "trustee" and spend that money on civic needs they deem worthy. Again, rather than democratic, public spending, he'd rather the wealthy act as oligarchs, deciding what the people need and don't need for them -- obviously, the wealthy are better than us and we should just trust them to make the best decisions on their own! Surprisingly, I've known poor people that defend this however; Republican family members of mine repeat talking points similar to this to explain why tax cuts for the wealthy are somehow good. They'll spend it on good things, obviously, and will definitely give good paying jobs and amenities to them in return.

Having heard these arguments from middle class and even working class people around Pittsburgh, seeing how much the arguments are intertwined with the city's history through Carnegie gives me new perspective on cultural inertia. While easy to imagine today's Republicans preaching the Gospel of Wealth, many of these statements sound a lot like Democratic leaders too, further emphasizing the fact that our two-party system has evolved to be an effectively one-party pro-corporate pro-capitalist system. While there is certainly difference and disagreement between the parties on some issues, they both have a fundamentally neoliberal outlook on society and economics.

We need more alternative visions and arguments, we need more diversity of thought, and we need to be prepared with counters to these arguments as we grow and get our message out to the public. Today's generations now live 100+ years after Carnegie's heyday; his influence, as well as the influence of many other capitalists, has long had a grip over our country's economic system. It will take a very sustained effort to get people to open up to alternatives, but knowing how they think by reading things like Carnegie's essay helps us understand the filter through which they see the world, and helps us devise new ways of presenting our argument.

Why The Left Must Stop Playing Defense On Ideas

A recent Jacobin article articulated a point that has been kicking around in my head a lot lately: that we are shooting ourselves in the foot by trying to pretend that people with different ideological goals are good allies. For a bit of a sports metaphor, we too often "play defense" and not enough "offense". We too often use the appearance of compromise and agreement to defend our thoughts and actions, which sets us up for long range failure as we imply that we generally agree with their worldview.

The article is effectively a caution against being too closely associated with capitalists and business owners that have come out in favor of some form of single payer healthcare. The initial reaction is to do much like Bernie Sanders did in his recent townhall: highlight "See, it's good for business!" as a major reason we should adopt a single payer healthcare system. It appears like a moment of non-partisanship, of agreement between two different people that shows hey, we can compromise and make good ideas happen. On the surface, that seems like a winning move at swaying opinion, and perhaps it is... for this particular idea. The problem is that we may be setting back the larger movement in doing so.

The key word here is compromise. By pulling in these capitalist leaders as endorsements for single payer, we are implicitly saying yes, we agree with these people that business comes first. It just so happens that single payer is great for business (at least, everyone except the health insurance companies themselves that will be cut out of the loop!) and there's a lot of economic reasons why it saves a lot of money for both business and government.

However, by highlighting the fact that single payer makes economic sense, we are implicitly agreeing with that worldview. We suggest to all those listening that yes, making economic sense for business is a key factor in any policy we decide. It sets the precedent that good policy requires the agreement of business leaders, that good policy must be good for business... or maybe, just maybe, it's not a good policy if capitalists and business leaders don't endorse the plan.

This is a huge risk for the movement, by tying us to the exact system we are trying to combat. Single payer for me is primarily a moral argument. Yes, there's fantastic economic arguments, and we tend to get much better healthcare results for treatment under a single payer system, and those facts should definitely be included in any discussion, but the major focus and argument is a moral one: that our society does not let anyone die in vain. We never turn our backs on someone in need. We do everything we can to help anyone, because it is the right thing to do and the right way to live our lives. That we become a cold, callous civilization in decay every time we shrug and look away when we see suffering, particularly suffering we know how to treat and cure with our modern technology. Every person suffering is someone's parent, child, sibling. How civilized of a society can we be if we are willing to turn our backs on our community's family and sneer Well, they should have had a better job to pay for it, not my problem? (As if jobs fall out of the sky and people can completely control what happens, but that's a discussion for another day.)

Can we save everyone? No. Can we immediately fix all problems with a single law? Of course not. But we can declare that our goal is progress, that our eternal quest is to improve the human condition. We will never be satisfied until we can help everyone, and if we can't do it yet, we keep working toward it. Every time we encounter a failure, we at least step back and mourn, we don't pass around blame, but simply ask ourselves "What can we do to be better, to prevent this in the future?"

By relying solely on the business and economic argument, we are ceding the moral argument. We are preemptively deciding that people don't matter unless someone can make a profit first, and setting that viewpoint into law with things like Affordable Care Act (which relies on private for-profit insurance to provide "coverage" -- you can only get healthcare after insurance takes its cut for their profits!). On some level, we are complicit unless we call out such moral injustice, otherwise we are capitalists ourselves putting corporate profits over -- or at least with equal standing to -- real people. In fact, it's almost a more sinister form of capitalism that has realized it can exploit more profits by going after the very social systems that protect us. This isn't just ripping people off on big screen TVs, it is ransoming people for their health and their very lives. Is that really the attitude we want to acquiesce to?

We can no longer play defense in a game with rules made by the capitalists themselves. By defending ourselves with "well, capitalists support it!", we're actually giving them the credibility to later down the line take other actions that harm us: further tax cuts, further government budget cuts, etc.

We cannot endorse and welcome this behavior, we have to take a firm stand and go on the offense. We need to start changing the conversation toward our vision, not just the corporate vision. It means when they talk tax cuts, we talk tax increases to address rising inequality. It means when they talk private sector growth and the government deficit, we talk about the need for a government jobs program that ensures everyone is fed and everyone has a job contributing to renewing the country in some way -- infrastructure, education, etc. It means when they talk about freedoms and the rights of business, we talk about freedoms and human rights of individuals over business. When they talk about the need for ever-increasing growth for their insatiable demand for profits, we talk about the need for a society founded on conservation of resources and sustainability. When they talk about the need for centralized power, whether in business or government, we respond with a demand for more democracy and decentralization.

Do not misconstrue this argument for saying we can never compromise. Rather, it is a caution about what sorts of compromises should be made. We must obviously welcome everyone that wants to put human rights and dignity first. If you agree the economy needs to become more focused on sustainability and harmony with nature, I definitely want to talk to you. There's a lot of room for ideas: how do we become sustainable? What is the best, fastest path to get there? How can we create better democratic systems, especially in the economy? There is a lot of detail to work out, and we should absolutely be willing to discuss and negotiate and even compromise on those details. We'll probably sometimes have very heated disagreement about the best path forward, but as long as we remember we all have the same goal, we can defuse the situation and arrive at agreement. We are true allies, and the debate helps us sort out the big questions and find the best solution.

Where we cannot compromise is in our values. Plans and details change, but our values cannot. We must always stand for human rights and freedom first. We must stand for democracy, not dictatorship or oligarchy. We must stand for a sustainable economy and a healthy planet we can pass down to our descendants, not exploit resources and people mindlessly until we drive ourselves extinct. We must stand for a life focused on finding meaning in family, community, education, and personal and community achievement, so that we may all have the opportunity to pursue happiness, not argue for a life of economic slavery for the benefit of only the wealthy few. These fights are too important. We cannot compromise on those values.

Be careful that your "allies" actually share your values and are not simply temporarily cooperating on a single goal. Otherwise, you may find the long-term fight compromised. But by the same token, be open to working with others you merely disagree with on details, but share the same values and overall vision, for only together can we win.

I think this is the message the Green Party needs to share more often. Lately I have heard many say "Well, many progressive Democrats agree on many of the same policy positions -- universal healthcare, debt-free college, etc. -- so why be Green? Why not just fight with progressive Democrats?" The argument irks me, but it does have a kernel of truth, though not in the way the questioners usually mean it.

Nancy Pelosi in a somewhat recent CNN townhall told constituents that "We're capitalists, and that's just the way it is." Ultimately, she sums up the difference between Democrats and Greens in this one sentence.

Democrats are capitalists, pro-business and generally right-wing in the sense of their neoliberal push that the "free market knows best". We saw this in action with the ACA, with the assumption that "competition" between health insurance providers would give us the best healthcare system, or at least better than a government-backed program could. While the GOP is often more extreme, to the point that Democrats seem "moderate", the truth is both parties have a tendency to put business rights and needs over individual rights and needs.

When Democrats say "we want universal healthcare", they mean they want everyone to have access to a market to purchase healthcare from for-profit business. Perhaps the feel slightly bad for poorer people and are willing to throw in some small subsidies or help, but overall it is a very right wing "free market" stance. When they say they want "debt-free college", they mean they're open to the idea of helping out really poor people in special circumstances, but they generally feel everyone should purchase education -- often from private colleges, or at least public colleges that "partner" with the private sector -- from a "free market" of colleges.

Notice the underlying concept in their message -- "We're capitalists", as Pelosi said. Democrats' policies do not help people near as much as many believe, because even when they do some small amount of good, their world view is that it was necessary to keep the "free market" and "competition" working. We give some small aid only to the poorest of people to try to the grease the gears of the "free market", then we let business do its thing and let people fight for their share of the profits. That's the world view, that's the mindset.

The Green world view is different. We want universal healthcare -- in the form of a single payer system -- because it is the right thing to do and we have the technology to do it, so why not? We believe health and life are human rights. Similarly, we want not just debt-free college, but tuition-free publicly-run colleges that are operated to benefit people -- not just for jobs, but for life. We value education because education is important to democracy. Again, education is a human right in a free society. Notice the huge difference in viewpoint - we want to do these things because they are human rights that improve the lives of everyone and society as a whole, not just because we want to keep the "free market" going for profit.

While we have similar goals on these particular issues, our values are vastly differently. This is why it is so important to resist not just the Republicans but the Democrats too, because even when small policy victories occur, the mindset of economy and profits over people and planet is advancing further to victory. This is the reason to be a Green rather a Democrat. (Although that said, while there is some policy overlap, Green policy tackles significantly many more issues than the Democrats, including student debt relief/bailouts, fighting climate change, recognizing indigenous peoples' rights, etc., which is all in keeping with our values and why Democrats have never adopted those policies into their own platform.)

Now I'm not saying all Democrats are "free market" capitalists. A good chunk of them, including Bernie Sanders, are much more rooted in the Green world view than the capitalist Democratic view. The question is always: is it enough of them -- and in positions of power -- to remake the Democratic party into one that fits our Green values? My suspicion is that the answer at this time is "No", as evident by the fact that most party leaders seem to agree with Pelosi's take time and time again, and we continue to see party leaders like Perez purging progressives from leadership roles and fighting reform at every turn. Sanders, despite doing a lot of good by raising good issues and points, is trapped playing "defense" within the party, and it often hurts his arguments and therefore sometimes the movement as a whole. We saw this in the healthcare townhall where he made the argument that single payer is good for business, likely to counter a point Clinton and Democrats hammered during the 2016 primaries: "How are you going to pay for that?". By allowing the conversation to be pulled toward profits and taxes rather than morals, the Democrats' capitalist values are winning the debate, and it makes Bernie look inconsistent to voters that have generally not studied leftist ideology as extensively as many of us have.

We must stop playing defense from within the Democratic party, which is what we are doing every time we try to influence policy without confronting the warped capitalist "values" and ideology. I call on all like-minded individuals to stop supporting the Democratic party, and work to change the debate. I personally believe the Green party has the right values and the right platform to win, and it's the largest leftist party in the country, and so invite you to join us. But even if you feel your home is better with DSA, Socialist Alternative, The People's Party (Draft Bernie), the Progressive Independent Party, or other organizations, that's fine too. As long as we recognize we are related by our values, even if we disagree a bit on policy, and the important thing is that we oppose the capitalist values within the Republican and Democratic parties together as a unified coalition. Republicans and Democrats generally don't share our values, and can never be true allies. We must stop pretending that they can be allies if we want to make real progress. We must reach out directly to citizens -- around party leadership and the system they have built -- and win them with our values. I think it will take a third major party to rally the people and break the current system and replace it with better values.

Be Careful Labeling 2017 Democratic Elections as "Wins"

Initial analysis of 2017 seems to show that many high profile races resulted in democratic socialist candidates winning, even in districts that previously voted for Trump or GOP in past elections. Here in PA and Pittsburgh in particular, we saw an independent candidate Mik Pappas win against an incumbent establishment Democrat (who held the office for 24 years!), as well as Our Revolution and DSA candidate Anita Prizio also winning a seat on the county council. But independents, progressives, socialists, and Greens won races across PA and the nation yesterday. Greens have been elected to more than 44 local offices just this year so far. More ran for office, with some like Jabari Brisport in New York City receiving some of the highest third party votes in decades. In fact, the Green "success rate" (percent of all Green candidates that won their races) was something like 27%, which is pretty impressive for a smaller third party that rejects corporate cash and relies solely on small individual donors in a strongly unfair electoral system.

This is a great start for progressives, and I think shows an upward trend for third party candidates. Imagine what we can do as the Greens grow with more volunteers and candidates! While we should definitely celebrate some early wins against the establishment, I think we also need to pause and be wary about how we interpret these events.

The media is already reporting this as a "blue wave" of Democrats and trying to co-opt the movement. Ex-Clinton campaign staff are already out saying Democrats are winning and that Bernie should be a Democrat or get out of the party because they don't need him. And to some degree, they're right: despite the strong showing from Green/DSA progressive candidates, many more corporatist right-wing Democrats have been elected solely on an anti-Trump agenda. As Draft Bernie points out, the media has been focusing on a few Democrats: Ralph Northam, a conservative that voted for George Bush in past elections, and Phil Murphy, a former Goldman-Sachs executive. As is typical, Democrats think that catering to conservatives and financial elite is OK since they'll get elected anyway just for not being Trump.

We need to watch these newly elected officials, because we've seen this behavior before. Remember a "blue wave" swept Obama into his first term with a majority in Congress, which Democrats then squandered and made sure very little of the progressive agenda was actually accomplished. In fact, some of Obama and the Democratic Congress's first acts were to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich, expand war in the Middle East, and pass a right-wing health insurance plan that relies on for-profit insurance to deliver care (Obama quickly dropped his earlier proposals for a public option once elected). And in fact he was willing to cut social security and other programs to get a deal, and pushed on that idea throughout his presidency. None of that is progressive at all, and it's really par for the course with Democrats. They (at best) sound progressive on the campaign trail, but as soon as elected, the donors pull the strings to get what they want. The needs of the people come last, every time.

It's even harder to believe that Democrats will change much from this election when you consider these progressives are being swept into a larger party that is still set up to squelch progressive voices. DNC chair Tom Perez is fresh off of kicking progressives out of leadership roles in the party and is still out repeating Clinton campaign talking points. Donna Brazile's truth-speaking about the stolen Democratic primary is now being called Russian propaganda, among other things. Most disappointingly perhaps, even Bernie Sanders has dialed back his expectations for the Democratic Party, with a recent email to supporters saying he wanted the DNC to "reduce" the number of super-delegates in the party, rather than previous calls to eliminate the undemocratic super-delegates all-together. The local candidates that won office today are only a few small voices within a giant political machine that is continuing to do as much as it can to crush those progressive voices, and I worry those local candidates will quickly find themselves frustrated by party leadership.

While we celebrate some local wins, let's also be careful not to get too excited about the overall Democratic Party victories as a sign of progressives winning. While progressives certainly had some encouraging victories, they haven't taken the party yet, and Democratic leadership thinks 2018 will be an easy win because of Trump; not only do I think that is a dangerous attitude to have (as we saw in the losses of 2016), but the 2017 elections reaffirm Democratic beliefs that there's no need to change the party because they still win votes by default by simply not being Republicans. I think progressives are really shooting themselves in the foot when they donate their time and energy into the Democratic party by running as Democratic candidates. Exactly as we're seeing, even when progressives win, the Democratic Party machine simply uses it as an excuse to support its agenda and attack insurgent progressives even more. You're emboldening your enemy the more you try to play nice with them and think you need to follow their rules. Martin Luther King, Jr.,'s non-violence movement wasn't to work with the oppressors within the system, it was to peacefully build a new coalition outside of the system that would force the needed cultural changes.

Power never gives up power for free. You generally can't appeal to power's "sense of fairness", because it has none. Democrats will not give up their power, their rich donors, their corporate influence in the party until forced to do so. They will continue to attack progressives and rig elections because it has worked in the past for them. Democrats have to lose big time and see their voter base dry up before they will make changes; only when the voters leave and Democrats are no longer a "sure thing" will the donor money dry up too, and it will take hitting their bottom line before they get the message. Whether you believe we need a whole new party or believe Democrats can be reformed, both strategies I think require a strong Green Party challenger to the Democrats to win some high profile elections and force Democrats to re-think their position in politics.

I'm looking forward to the opportunity for the Green Party and progressive movement in general in 2018. I hope you'll join the Greens too and help us run more candidates and expand our movement.

Insanity is Working With Democratic Party

Insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results, as they say. It seems like since the late 1960s, American socialists gave up on their own relatively successful party (which was winning local/state elections and influencing the national parties) to try to work within a two-party system, and that strategy has been a massive failure. Every election, socialists try to influence the party platform and candidates, and are basically disregarded as the party picks its own candidates and ignores its own platform. For 50 years now!

This is probably one of the biggest takeaways from my most recent read, "The 'S' Word - A Short History of an American Tradition ... Socialism" by John Nichols. It's a good book that I recommend to anyone that wants a short overview of important moments in American history that were shaped by socialist ideas (sometimes those ideas were a bit ahead of their time; perhaps the better way to say is those ideas shaped American socialism?). The book covers how Thomas Paine, Abraham Lincoln, and Martin Luther King, Jr., among others, were all influenced by socialist ideas and principles. It also is a decent short history of the Socialist Party, including the campaigns of Eugene Debs.

But the most interesting chapter to me was the last one, that talked about the socialist movement since the 1960s until today. While never a major party nationally, the Socialist Party was at its apex a very influential party that won local and state elections. In some cities, socialists were the major party, or at least the major opposition party. Socialists were often invited into Republican and Democratic administrations, as appointees or advisors. Many of the policies and programs that we know and love today - medicare, social security, five-day work week, even public water and sewer -- started as party platform demands of socialists that major party candidates adopted in order to win elections.

Unfortunately, the major parties used World War 1 (and later WW2) to stop the socialist movement. Most socialists opposed the US entering the war and spoke out strongly against it. The major parties passed laws declaring any opposition to the war as "unloyal" to the country, making it illegal with a stiff penalty of years in jail. Therefore many socialist party leaders, including presidential candidate Debs, were thrown in jail for a few years before later on having their sentences commuted. The aggressive attacks against 1st amendment speech had a chilling effect, and the party shrank. The socialist party didn't disappear because it was unpopular, it began to disappear because it was undermined by collusion between the major parties against our constitutional principles of freedom of speech. That undermining led to disagreement between factions within the socialist movement on how to best combat attacks from the major parties.

So the question is, what happened in the 1960s? There was a growing movement for the Republican party to move to the right that echoed many of the civil-war-era arguments for "states' rights". Largely the movement grew as an opposition to the expansion of civil rights, with a purposeful campaign known as the "Southern Strategy". The Republican party as we know it today -- not the party of Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt -- was forming.

To combat that, some socialist leaders, in particular Michael Harrington (who wrote a popular book "The Other America" on poverty, which apparently influenced JFK and Johnson), decided that the best thing to do was to play electoral politics as part of the Democratic Party rather than continuing to fight on in a Socialist Party. Harrington worked with several other activists to establish what would eventually become the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which focused on putting pressure on the Democratic Party to implement policy rather than the traditional voter education goals of Socialist Party campaigns. Harrington and his activists went to the Democratic conventions to demand more socialist policy as part of the Democratic platform. They were successful getting many ideas written into the platform (at that time, the "most liberal platform in party history"), and were at first embolded by some early steps taken by Carter, but Democratic presidents have utterly failed to ever implement those socialist ideas in the Democratic platform ever since. In fact, the socialist-backed candidates were never picked, and the party instead picked pro-corporate party insiders, with candidates since Dukakis growing more and more weary of calling themselves "liberal" (we see that in today's Democratic candidates that often proudly call themselves "centrists"). With many activists moving to DSA and assisting the Democrats, the Socialist Party essentially died out nationwide (with a few holdovers here and there).

That story really stood out to me as a parallel to our recent elections. To stop Trump, Bernie and many others made the argument to hold the nose and support Democrats and vote for Clinton. Progressives were kicked out of the convention as Clinton nominated Tim Kaine, a fairly conservative Democrat, as her VP pick rather than a more progressive person like Elizabeth Warren or a socialist like Bernie. Several Bernie backers were placed on the party's platform committee earlier in the year, but Clinton-backed members defeated most proposals from the Berniecrats while the items that made it into the platform were essentially ignored by Clinton and her surrogates. Much like how in 2008 many rallied around Obama for hope and change, only to be disappointed when Obama ignored practically all of his progressive policy promises in order to implement a right-wing healthcare plan and continue much of Bush's economic and war policies.

This reaffirms my belief that attempting to work in the current money-dominated two-party system is a failed strategy for progressives and socialists. I knew that Obama and Clinton had no interest in implementing progressives policy, but I was surprised to learn it dates back much further. Progressive and socialist activists within the party have been trying to work with the Democrats for 50 years, only to watch Democrats drift further and further to the right each election. It feels insane to me to think that continuing this strategy will somehow magically work finally in 2018 or 2020, when it hasn't happened yet in 50 years.

It also confirms that third-parties can and do win; the strategy of a strong Socialist Party resisting both Republicans and Democrats has worked in the past to bring about important change. The strategy works because the major parties have to work to win the election. They have to offer better plans than you if they want to win, they cannot rest on status quo that isn't working. In a two-party system, it is too easy to be lazy and say "Well at least I'm not as bad as the other side!" and let the status quo stand, as we have seen for years now. Having third, fourth, fifth parties requires everyone to work harder, and so all Americans win with the best ideas being elected and implemented.

I view the Green Party as the spiritual successor to the Socialist Party. In fact, many Greens refer to the party as "eco-socialist", to emphasize that the Green platform is a combination of de-centralized democratic socialist economic policy with a need to practice ecological wisdom in our industries and economy (publicly-owned production that still spews out pollution is not a longer-term viable option either!). Socialists I think would find a lot in the Green platform that they would love, and probably don't even realize it! Not long ago, I had spoken with a few socialists at a rally in the early days of the Trump presidency, and asked if they'd sign to get a Green candidate on the ballot. They at first said no thanks. When I asked why, it became clear that they thought Greens weren't socialist enough for their support. As I explained the Green platform, they started to perk up, with one person saying "Oh, I didn't know that's what Greens stood for".

I think our challenge is to teach people about the history of socialism in our country - the labor movements, civil rights movement, etc. - and work to correct those misunderstandings of both socialism as a whole and the Green platform specifically. I know my goal is to help grow the Green Party into a strong champion of progressive socialist ideals in the Pittsburgh area. I think we can finish the work that Debs and others started more than 100 years ago, and work for a more just society and economy for all. I invite all others in the area to join the Green Party and help us create that vision.