I've been through it, I have nothing but sympathy and respect for well meaning comrades who have had this thrust upon them. Nobody gets into this work because they want to litigate factional disputes and get to the bottom of actual abuse. Its sad and its easy to lose sight of the fact that PSL is full of people with histories, feelings, and in my experience a lot of grit. My heart goes out to anyone dealing with factional disputes. I have faith in the members to get hold of the reigns and turn it into a better org.

This is all hypothetical. These are hypothetical houses and a hypothetical owner in a hypothetical market, frozen in time. There is a direct correlation between quantity and quality, since changes in quantity lead to changes in quality. This is a fundamental part of socialist theory of change. This is not a moral consideration, there is no "right amount." Because there are absolutely no possible scenarios where someone owns 10 vacant houses and just loses money on them indefinitely. Is this someone who owns and maintains ten houses all for their own personal recreation and use? How can they afford 10 houses?

The discussion is about the difference between personal and private property. The definitions of these things are socially contingent. We cannot conduct analysis outside of the social context and be serious about truth or social transformation. There is no arbitrary number cut off, splitting this hair in this way is completely besides the point. There is no reason for someone to own and maintain 10 empty properties while others have nowhere to live. My point is even if we aren't consciously capitalizing on the houses, the houses exist within a context. Broadly, that's capitalism, and broadly the properties still function as part of capitalism whether the owner intends it or not. Trying to further abstract this hypothetical in a desperate search for a generalization that is so alienated from reality that you "might be" sort of correct if viewing the situation from one very narrow perspective does not help anyone understand the relationship between personal property and private capital. Because over time, at some point, circumstances beyond our ideals decide that our ten houses are worth more if they have a use value or an exchange value for us. The system asserts itself upon our lives, and there's no real escape.

You have not discovered a loop hole by inventing a kind of property that has neither a use value or an exchange value. You've merely discovered a pit of idealism where material relations exist to suit one's own confusion and wrong headedness. This is not a road to understanding socialism. But I do appreciate the contribution to discussion.

This is all very unfortunate and deeply affecting toward all members. If you've never been through a split in a group, it is incredibly stressful and demoralizing. People who did nothing wrong are being forced to take sides. I know that there have been claims that PSL has covered up assaults and have a rigid and sectarian internal structure that is self preservationist rather than deliberative and building toward a mass character. I can't really confirm the SA allegations but I have some experience with PSL members being a little too inside baseball wrt their mass work. But I have also worked closely with PSL comrades in a wide range of struggles, I have seen the same activists consistently showing up and organizing in the streets for years in my city. Their org isn't perfect perhaps but many of the people in it are fighting like hell, and now I'm sure they are going through some shit.

PSL internals are being shared outside the internal of the org in a way I have never seen before. There are literal fascists cheering on the demise of the org. Try not to take the bait, don't drink the tea, just let this factionalism sort itself out based on the conditions set by years of organizing. Now is the time to extend a hand, invite members to things, help people create or find a new political home, whether that means transforming the org, liquidating into other groups or forming new ones. Don't stand alongside the fascists in cheering on the destruction of authentic, if imperfect, worker organization. Its time to step up as comrades, not give in to turning a legitimate internal crisis into petty drama.

I have faith that nearly all PSL comrades do not condone or tolerate SA, I do not condone or tolerate it either. But let them figure it out for themselves and don't contribute to toxicity. PSL is made up of real people, good comrades, who are going through some shit and most of them had nothing to do with this situation that a few leaders created. I've seen splits form and take shape a few different ways, and its always ugly. Try to be human and scientific about it.

The distinction is a class distinction. Capitalism functions to.ensure that the greatest number of people do not own enough to be self-sufficient. Peasants under feudalism were self sufficient and communal, so the first job of the capitalists in countries that were industrializing was to buy up most/all the communal land, kick everybody off of it and force people to still work it for a paltry wage. There were still people who owned houses and land during this period, but legal and economic pressures forced people to give up what they owned and get a waged job. Even today, small family owned farms fall into debt and get bought up by large landowning companies/trusts and converted into farmland or data centers. It isn't happening to everyone at once, but its a gradual process where it happens to a few people here and there. Some people buy farms and are successful, there are always contradictions and exceptions.

If you are able to sustain yourself 100% on your own production, that's extremely rare. My cousin was a nurse practitioner and stacked cash his entire life, and in the last few years became like a yeoman. He butchers his own meat, he grows much of his own food, but still buys 10-20% of what he needs, mostly flour and grains. Under socialism, at least any socialism that I would fight for, he would be left alone, because he really isn't the problem. The family that owns an ice cream shop or a bakery, particularly small businesses who help people, contribute to social movements, are against ice are pro Palestine, pay their workers well, these people own capital but they aren't the problem.

The social relations you are describing are so far in the future that they are virtually impossible to understand. The first socialist revolution will shift power from the capitalists to the workers, but will not abolish private property. This will begin a phase of transition where private property will be collectivised. But the biggest barrier to collectivization isn't just who owns what, it is the divisions in the working class. There are a lot of social relations that have to be "worked out", and nobody is able to create a one sized fits all solution for everywhere (socialism is necessarily international) at once. Some places might hold on to private property and become more social democrat, retaining their ruling class in order to have higher wages for workers. Other areas might try to become fully communist. Some places will try to ban all private industry, some will collectivise some large industries and leave others privately owned.

Social conditions are deeply contradictory because people are contradictory. So trying to logically work these things out is always gonna be incomplete and imperfect. What matters is the working class continually working together to create better conditions for more people. Eventually, this collective effort will reach like a tipping point, and the next revolution will occur, which will be more humane, more democratic, and less violent than any that came before.

There is a ton of real world struggles that can actually be won (universal healthcare, universal jobs guarantee, robust social safety net, improved transportation/sanitation/education) that can be accomplished by just taxing the rich to the hilt. But in order to get there, we need solidarity and class unity. Once we have that, we can reorganize society in ways where the answers to your questions will have clearer solutions.

Socialism isn't just a future, it is being able to see the resent society, the people in it and their needs and experiences, and working for a better society. IMO individual private/personal property questions will make more sense once the conditions for them have a concrete basis.

Actually, no. If you have 10 houses and 9 are vacant and remain vacant then your nine vacant houses are contributing to the surplus that keeps rents high. Landlords not only rent homes but crucially, keep homes/units empty to control rent prices. Developers and landlords often work hand in glove with local governments to craft policies for just this purpose. Blackstone holds a high number of empty houses in their portfolio, it would be silly to believe that those homes are not capital.

Personal vs. Private property is not really an individual choice but a systemic set of incentives and consequences. What happens when one of the houses has property taxes that come due? What happens when the roof leaks and needs replaced? In the winter, pipes in vacant buildings are kept from freezing by running water, and there's going to be electric and/or water costs associated with that maintenance. will it just remain vacant while the owner hemorrhages money indefinately? If all ten units are empty and creating no income, and the owner has no plan to appreciate them as assets to resell them (because if the owner does, then they become capital) then is the owner really just like a wage worker, or do they have capital that makes them enough money that they can have 10 houses for personal use?

I'm sorry, but you are misunderstanding how capitaliam functions as a system. If someone has one extra house, maybe because of circumstances, I could see your point. But ten? No at that point they're practically no different from a landlord, as they are propping up rent prices whether they intend to or not. As long as there are ten families who need homes who can't get housing, that is private capital whether the owner uses it to make money or not.

I see the comma now, but Percy Bysshe Shelley was an incredible writer who is studied and lauded, rightly, on his own merit. Anyone reading this thinking Mary's husband is insignificant compared to Frankenstein needs to read Ozymandias or The Masque of Anarchy right now and witness this beautiful, humanistic and liberatory spirit.

I mean, I'm a big fan of Percy Shelley's poetry, the fact that he isn't taught more IMO has to do with the liberatory character of his writing more than he was an inferior writer to Mary. Mary's book is great, but PBS was an incredible writer whose work has wide cultural significance, even if we aren't like forced to read it in school or whatever.

People should read more PBS, he should be more popular.

Marry Shelley's husband was not John Polidori, it was Percy Bysshe Shelley. Surprised no one picked this up. Percy was an amazing poet.

John Polidori was in love with Mary, but was not married to her

It's crazy that this argument about how having a trans girl on a girls sports team is being flipped around like "it doesn't matter if we ban it it affects almost nobody" okay, then why the fuck should it be banned??

Listen idk what the right thing to do about young people wanting reassignment surgery, is this an actual issue? I know that parents can have their sons circumcised while they are babies which doesn't seem too far removed, except in the case of a young person choosing sexual reassignment surgery the young person is actually involved in a decision about their own body. People cry about permanent disfigurement (or whatever shock-inducing language can be deployed to stop gender reassignment surgery) where it concerns this one issue, meanwhile many many more children get ground up in farm machinery every year and nobody gives a wet shit about about that.

So like, I think the first step is making sure the young person is safe, supported, and receiving gender affirming care. I think ultimately the decision is up to the individual, their medical/mental health support team, and their family to the extent that they are not coercive or manipulative. Call me a libertarian or whatever but the moment judges and lawyers and politicians get involved in private medical/reproductive health decisions, I tend to side with the desires of the individual. I have enough experience with young people to trust them with decisions about their own life more than I trust adults with decisions about the lives of young people in the abstract.

Don't pretend there's like any logic or good intentions. This is classic capitulation to right wing framing. Like I said, idk what the answer is, only that we aren't gonna find the right answers by leaving it up to bloodthirsty, power hungry, gore soaked psychopath pedophiles to decide what is right for young people.

Charlie Kirk would have never allowed this to happen

Idk you're basically asking people to think in a way that they really don't process info. Its akin to being like "in order to understand my point you have to complete this trigonometry problem" and they're just gonna go, "nah" and then revert to their heuristic.

They might like Facebook, or really rely on google. So all you can do is talk a little bit about alternatives. Since all these companies spy and steal data, they are speaking from a place of like resignation. Asking to stop using any service is kind of a maximum demand, not in essence (I actually don't believe in min/max political demands) but in affect. Its like, to stop using google would be a major change, require some intimidating technical expertise (are you gonna offer IT support for their Grapheme phone/Linux Mint computer?) and then all the other services are just gonna steal their data anyways. Leaving Facebook is scary and hard, its like an addiction. And like all addictions you can fully know that something is wrong, and still be afraid or fail to quit it. There has to be a breaking point and you're not gonna be able to offer that in one conversation.

The better strategy is to try and find common ground on problems that people are concerned about, like data centers, and then offer actions or political leadership. If we really care about an issue, then the best method I have found is to schedule one on ones and try and draw people into work. If you want to teach then you need a theory of pedagogy and the idea that good ideas can replace bad ideas is fundamentally broken.

I like a lot of folk music, so Woody Guthrie, Utah Phillips, Phil Ochs, David Rovics and Sarah Ogen Dunning. Old folk music was the most lefty American genre. Leadbelly had a lot of left wing songs too, I understand he was skeptical of white socialists but he was very popular among the movement. He's also like one of the greatest musicians of all time. Oh and if you've never listened to Victor Jara, absolutely just stop what you're doing.

A little more country, but John Prine is absolutely essential listening, unrivaled in the songwriting category. Kris Kristofferson was a lefty, and for a more modern take, Sturgill Simpson is a really unique artist with good social messages. Earl Scruggs also has a lot of pro union/pro worker/pro working class songs, and is one of the greatest living country/Americana musicians.

Gang of Four is really good and underrated, one of my all time favorites. I used to.really think the clash were lefty, and they certainly had left/anarcho sympathies, but Joe Strummer almost always wrote a final cringe verse into his political songs, like Washington Bullets. I'll always dig his sympathy for homeless and outlaws, but geopolitics he was kinda moderate. Over time I've come to appreciate Mick Jones's poppier less political stuff. But Gang of Four never drops the ball, and I've come to favorite their first two records, Entertainment and Solid Gold. While we are listening to punk music, I'd throw in The Minutemen as honorable mentions. Less explicitly left-wing political, but D. Boon was such a prolific and intensely thoughtful writer, that I think he was a comrade.

Another super underrated pick is The Refused, the Shape of Punk to Come. This record is undeniably a work of situationist Marxist theory, this is my favorite pick of the bunch. Napalm Death is another heavy selection, many of their songs are about solidarity and anti imperialism.