Lack of worker solidarity. We’re too atomized and stressed to support each other through a GS. Hopefully that is beginning to change. I just hope its not too late.
Lack of worker solidarity
In theory, the problem of “two paychecks” is solved (at least in part) by working people seizing certain critical means of production for the purposes of mutual aid. So, grocers strike not by closing the front doors but by shutting down the cash registers and handing out food for free. Landlord admins strike by refusing to collect rents. Teachers strike not by refusing to teach but by refusing to grade. Etc.
And if everyone knows this arrangement will be in effect, they can act together as a bargaining unit to threaten the control of the landlord class.
But if they aren’t in close communication, because the public forms of media are censored and strictly controlled, then individuals can’t express solidarity prior to the strike. And if they aren’t in alignment, then you end up with the same “haves” and “have-nots” reproduced across the striking cohort, creating contradictions that landlords can exploit. And if they can’t repeat this experiment of communication, trust building, strike, reap concessions, then they can’t build momentum of numbers or expand the demands.
Hopefully that is beginning to change
I haven’t seen much to suggest it has. Perhaps the soul is willing, but the body public remains weak and emaciated. We still don’t have avenues of communication independent of the capitalist class. We haven’t built trust between industrial sectors. There’s little we can point to that’s been successful, much less reproducible.
I just hope its not too late.
It’s never “too late”. All that changes is the players and the stakes at play.
But whatever comes next, you’d be foolish to believe you’ll see both the beginning of it and the end. You’ll be lucky to know what you’re in the middle of.
Lack of grassroots, well-structured organizing to kickstart a movement in an economy of 250 million workers.
The fact that a general strike hurts smaller and less-wealthy businesses first and hardest. It only further consolidates wealth and market share into the hands of mega corporations.
Loud, terminally online leftists need to stop romanticizing Eastern Europe in the 1950s and address the landscape in front of us today. Economies and the culture we face now is distinct from those in the past and require different tools to dismantle.
People in more precarious positions than now organized and that’s how they got every concession ever. The conditions may be different, but it will only get worse without organizing and striking.
Debt servitude works better than any whip or chain.
No universal healthcare for when they shoot you in the face with pepper balls or whomp you to a pulp with nightsticks…
General Strikes tend to be difficult to bring about in the United States because our only productive, profitable, material industry is in the reactionary sectors: oil and polymers, automobiles, weapons, and the production of raw materials for these industries (steel, etc.). These industries are either comparatively well-paid or staffed by immigrants who are in a precarious position.
Most of the wealth of today’s billionaires is in intellectual property, speculative assets, and foreign production. These things aren’t going to be affected as much by a strike in the U.S. as, say, a factory that makes boots.
The american people are cowards.
Oh yeah? Where are you at in your worker’s paradise praytell?
What is this aggressive response?
It was clearly an observation, not an insult - there was no need to try start arguments off it.
Objectively incorrect take. You look really dumb right now. What exactly are Americans supposed to do? Protests do not work and the general population is not prepared or organized enough for armed struggle. Please explain exactly what you expect them to do.
I trust that you’re an American.
So am I.
We are in fact cowards
Well it’s not entirely untrue. But it is, because we lack a credible plan to fight under. We lack leadership. We want to fight, and we are stronger they they are, they are fucking cunts, we are stronger, when we untie.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
I’m drowning in organizing work and we need more people. Get involved.
I want to brother, I want to help believe you me. There is not viable way to do so at the moment.
The “viable way” is going to come one way or another whether you like it or not. If you don’t have a local org, make one.
If you think currently there’s no viable way but it might be easier in the future, I have a bridge to sell to you
In time a true leader will emerge that will raze and burn the oligarchy.
My country is not bombing others at will.
You are powerless to change anything in your own country, admit it! We need a new system, something something.
Nobody here has any influence over their country doing anything
The American system rewards cowardice
It also makes bravery expensive (not that cowardice isn’t expensive in the long run)
Only 10% of the US is in a union. Who’s going to lead it?
The biggest of those unions I’d guess would be AFL-CIO, which I suppose did a okay job leading the Minnesota strike
Roughly one in four Minnesota voters either participated in the January 23 day of shutdown and protest against ICE, or have a loved one who did…Of those participants, 38% percent stayed off the job, either because they did not go to work, or because their employer closed for the day of action… 45% of voters “generally support the call for no work, no school, no shopping as a form of protest.” https://inthesetimes.com/article/labor-general-strike-minnesotans-ice-protest-trump-cbp
Keep in mind those numbers are voters in minnesota, not super great for a bunch of “progressive” people.
Even the national strike on the 30th wasn’t terrible, but neither had any economic effect. There just isn’t enough organization, especially in key industries. People aren’t educated on unions, even in communist circles a ton of us are running around without a clue what good union organizing looks like.
No class consciousness, and americans are cowards. Next question
reductive and unhelpful. next dumbass
unhelpful
Americans when they can’t even help themselves and expect everything to be handed to them because “oh noooo what about my paycheck!?”
Like the rest of us didn’t have to fight through much worse conditions to get even half a crumb
yeah idk what you’re even talking about anymore. keep being delusional and blaming decades of systemic propaganda and decreasing education standards and material conditions on individuals with zero power or influence.
definitely a winning strategy
Not hungry enough
Lack of class consciousness and education in general
The main obstacle is the average American being brainwashed into thinking they are living the best life possible on the planet and that they too can be a millionaire if only they work 60+ hour weeks while sick.
Essentially same situation as North Korea, just less extreme (at least in some aspects).
Workers in DPRK actually have things like housing, healthcare, and retirement. The burger reich is nothing like DRPK.
American sees something American happening Americanly in America: “What are we, a bunch of ASIANS?!?!???”
how do 3 men in their 30’s not have $500 between them?
Isn’t that the entire point? lol
Imagine this conversation in 18th century France.
Peasant: Should we do a revolt?
Other peasant: Are you kidding? I’m down to my last loaf of bread over here, no way!
Americans love making excuses because working class solidarity is pretty much impossible for them to even imagine. It’s a settler colonial state to it’s very roots.
It’s the same reason you won’t see socialist leanings in Israel. At best it’ll be fascism pretending to be socialism. Remember ACP?
Keep the serfs destutute so they can’t organize against the rich, disgustingly lavish aristocracy is a tale as old as time. We’re literally seeing ruling philosophies Medieval kings used and people say this is the best system.
The other half of it is conditioning a society to be so dependent on convenience and little luxuries (yes, even poor people in US have luxuries compared to other parts of the world) that they technically could strike, but doing so would be so below their standard of living that it would not be sustainable.
Destitution didn’t stop the French, it emboldened them.
Enough unions to organize it.
