this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2025
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Others have done that, we should analyze how they managed to do it and what we can learn from them that applies to our conditions and what does not.
You'll need a place for the dialogue. Do you know anywhere that would work? I don't know how we can organize at that level, but I'm willing to learn.
There are probably worker organizations and parties around you at the local level you can join. Otherwise, reading theory and studying history of worker movements helps a lot.
People don't want to organize around homeless outreach, that's why the huge, costly, and incessant efforts in most cities never turn into literally any useful political action. Most people are more selfish than that, and it's also unclear how giving away donated food and socks translates to anything, anywhere else, in society.
Parents/teacher groups and labor unions are a lot closer to the mark because that stuff has actual impact on the people involved. Although I'm skeptical - the parent/teacher zeitgeist is now one of conflict after the COVID school closures. But it's a place to get traction.
The old school anarchists used grand acts of violence, i.e. propaganda of the deed. Luigi tried that, seems to have dissipated.
Everyone's just rich enough to not care about shit like this any more.
We need worker cooperatives. Unions are a bandaid over the misaligned incentives that capitalism creates. We need better education on exactly how these things work.
If we can get enough coops going we could even shut out partner business that don't have democratic workplaces.
At a certain point you're at a local maxima and incremental changes just don't work. They have to be big changes to knock off the hill to another valley and then society has to do the hill climbing again. Sucks and painful but no other way IMO.
Okay, so Luigi didn't cut healthcare costs. Did you working with people locally cut healthcare costs?
I volunteer in a few things in my neighborhood but I basically do it for warm fuzzies and because I want to make/keep my neighborhood nice. I don't have any aspirations that it'll become grander.
It's not easy, nor is it impossible. Organizing is simply hard, and thus we need to see what has worked for others.