Come on, comrade

You're seriously going to check my Marxism card? Which debate rabbit hole do you wanna take this down? How much more should we confuse this issue?

Lenin discusses the role of consciousness in the formation of the vanguard party in "What is to Be Done?:

Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers… would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own efforts, is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.

This line, influenced by Kautsky before he went "renegade," is about the need for a worker's party capable of organizing the working class. It's a deeply important line to Marxist thought. However, as Lenin notes in the preface to "12 Years," it has generated much confusion:

My second comment concerns the question of economic struggle and the trade. unions. My views on this subject have been frequently misrepresented in the literature, and I must, therefore, emphasise that many pages in What Is To Be Done? are devoted to explaining the immense importance of economic struggle and the trade unions. In particular, I advocated neutrality of the trade unions, and have not altered that view in the pamphlets or newspaper articles written since then, despite the numerous assertions by my opponents. Only the London R.S.D.L.P. Congress and the Stuttgart International Socialist Congress led me to conclude that trade-union neutrality is not defensible as a principle. The only correct principle is the closest possible alignment of the unions with the Party. Our policy must be to bring the unions closer to the Party and link them with it. That policy should be pursued perseveringly and persistently in all our propaganda, agitation, and organising activity, without trying to obtain mere “recognition” of our views and without expelling from the trade unions those of a different opinion.

So it's clear to me that the socialist movement, having organized ourselves as a revolutionary party opposed to capitalism is, according to Lenin, to show solidarity with unions, to work with them in order to promote revolutionary consciousness beyond the "trade union consciousness" that develops out of organic worker struggle against their conditions. However, whether or not this later quote is a refutation of the first is another area of confusion. This view was promoted by Hal Draper, and ultimately led to even more confusion in subsequent years. Was Draper a socialist? Or was he actually the left wing of the bourgeoisie? I am familiar with analysis on both sides of this debate. However, the point is, its all very confusing.

Engels, in Anti Duhring, describes the Utopian communism of Robert Owen:

To them, therefore, the fruits of this new power belonged. The newly-created gigantic productive forces, hitherto used only to enrich individuals and to enslave the masses, offered to Owen the foundations for a reconstruction of society; they were destined, as the common property of all, to be worked for the common good of all.

Owen’s communism was based upon this purely business foundation, the outcome, so to say, of commercial calculation. Throughout, it maintained this practical character. Thus, in 1823, Owen proposed the relief of the distress in Ireland by Communist colonies, and drew up complete estimates of costs of founding them, yearly expenditure, and probable revenue. And in his definite plan for the future, the technical working out of details is managed with such practical knowledge – ground plan, front and side and bird’s-eye views all included – that the Owen method of social reform once accepted, there is from the practical point of view little to be said against the actual arrangement of details.

This, in my opinion, is similar to the Markiplier example you described, although in extreme. Sounds great! A bourgeois who internalizes the materialism of Saint Simone and Fourier, uses his extensive knowledge and experience of industry to create communism for the workers. Unfortunately, when his project moved from a model of benevolent capitalism to Utopian communism, the situation changed drastically for Owen.

His advance in the direction of Communism was the turning-point in Owen’s life. As long as he was simply a philanthropist, he was rewarded with nothing but wealth, applause, honor, and glory. He was the most popular man in Europe. Not only men of his own class, but statesmen and princes listened to him approvingly. But when he came out with his Communist theories that was quite another thing.

Banished from official society, with a conspiracy of silence against him in the press, ruined by his unsuccessful Communist experiments in America, in which he sacrificed all his fortune

Engels holds Owen in high regard, and even says:

Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen.

However, the point that Engels makes is that these concessions from individual individual capitalists, is not a form of worker organization, but a source of confusion:

from this nothing could come but a kind of eclectic, average Socialism, which, as a matter of fact, has up to the present time dominated the minds of most of the socialist workers in France and England. Hence, a mish-mash allowing of the most manifold shades of opinion: a mish-mash of such critical statements, economic theories, pictures of future society by the founders of different sects, as excite a minimum of opposition; a mish-mash which is the more easily brewed the more definite sharp edges of the individual constituents are rubbed down in the stream of debate, like rounded pebbles in a brook.

To make a science of Socialism, it had first to be placed upon a real basis.

Marx, in the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon, describes what happens when the interests of lower classes and enterprising individuals create contradictions that resist the supremacy of the ruling class (emphasis by Marx):

Every common interest was immediately severed from the society, countered by a higher, general interest, snatched from the activities of society’s members themselves and made an object of government activity – from a bridge, a schoolhouse, and the communal property of a village community, to the railroads, the national wealth, and the national University of France. Finally the parliamentary republic, in its struggle against the revolution, found itself compelled to strengthen the means and the centralization of governmental power with repressive measures. All revolutions perfected this machine instead of breaking it.

So can we please prevent any further ridiculousness where one or the other of us starts proving who is more or less Marxist? I can defend my position, and argue against yours with sources and a deep familiarity of Marxism from about a decade of practical organizing experience, with an emphasis on building the worker's party. I'm sure we could go back and forth disputing caricatures of each other's politics until the wheels fall off. This does not interest me, and I find it impractical.

So here is my position: I believe that the promotion, if not the entire process of the creation of the movie Obsession has the effect, whether intentional or otherwise, of harming the unionization of workers in the entertainment industry. I am sorry if I described your argument as "apologism" if that characterization felt to you as a personal attack.

Yes I believe you have some confusion around this topic, however I think confusion is something that can be remedied. I was adhering to the pro-union message, despite my own criticisms of the union form, particularly the bureaucratic and collaborationist nature of craft unions, and institutional capture of many industrial unions by the capitalists who own the means of production within these industries. I believe that expanded participation in unions by workers is a systematic improvement over the current situation, evidenced by the difference between the pre and post neo-liberal turn of the late 70s, particularly where it concerns the break between increases in real economic productivity while wages stagnated, that occurred after that period, a trend that has only magnified since then.

I do not believe that participation in unions alone is a viable road to revolutionary socialism, without the creation and influence of a real mass workers party to represent the long term interests of the class over the immediate interests of individual unions. I believe that once In a union, workers need to struggle to reform their unions. A good example of this is UAW, as the reform movement that successfully elected Sean Fain (not Sean O'Brian of the Teamsters) has negotiated better contracts for workers, and recently totally divested from Israeli genocide bonds. The UAW reformers are also promoting more radical class demands, like renegotiating union contracts to expire on May 1 2028, in order to bridge the gap in consciousness between workers who dont want to break the law, since general solidarity strikes are illegal. But if everybody's contract expires at the same time, across many major industries and unions, and the unions and workers movements prepare for radical solidarity actions, a sort of legal general strike can be carried out, to force changes in the system.

I dont appreciate my pro-union position being mis characterized as being anti-revolutionary party. I just think your one example of Markiplier doing the right thing this one time doesnt prove that greater involvement of the IATSE crew trades union would have been bad for the workers who were screwed over by Obsession. In fact it proves that while there is nothing that forces people to do the right thing, as Markiplier did, that the trend will be a further deterioration of wages and worker power within the entertainment industry.

Continued