Ep 238 Reform and/or Revolution

First , a reminder you can access all episodes of Revolution Z on various platforms via the Revolution Z archive and help page that are linked from znetworkorg , and another compendium possibility is the site patreoncom slash revolutionz . And now for this episode . Radical activists often debate reform versus revolution .

Should we seek a liberated future or accept but work in a limiting present ? Some day , full transformation , but for now modest changes . Or should we seek modest changes in a limiting present but working toward a fundamentally changed , liberated future ? The 20 Theses for Liberation see the site , for that's the number four for liberationorg urge the second approach .

But a question arises how do we conduct activism seeking limited gains with the personalities and means we have at hand , yet in ways that lead toward comprehensive transformation ? The 20 Theses suggest and I agree that an answer is that we can seek reforms but reject reformism .

We can understand our context and its current tenacity but at the same time develop a future vision that we can refine as we proceed . We can fight for changes now , but do so in ways that galvanize sufficient support to win more changes tomorrow .

We can acknowledge and work in light of the presence limitations but at the same time chart a trajectory leading where we wish to ultimately go . We can win gains that matter now while we also prepare to win more gains without pause until we attain a new world .

Since we want economy beyond capitalism , kinship beyond patriarchy , polity beyond beyond bureaucratic perversity and authoritarianism , community beyond racism and ecological sustainability , and international peace beyond suicidal nightmare , we can and we should organize to win limited gains now to alleviate major pains and prevent worse outcomes now , but in ways that develop steadily

more comprehension of desire for commitment toward and means suited to winning still greater gains later . How does this self-evidence stance involve confusion leading to debates , arguments , etc . Why is this episode even needed ? Why isn't what we do about reforms and revolution each vis-a-vis the other self-evident ?

Why , historically , has it at time seemed like operating between a rock and a hard place ? The rock is reformism . If our words and actions imply the permanence of basic institutions , they will contribute to ensuring just that outcome tilting toward reformism . Our ultimate aims will dissipate into a miasma of suicidal compromise . The hard place is delusion .

We want the world and we want it now echoing off surrounding skyscraper facades . This 60s chant sounded inspiring , but as a sole agenda it leads one to think reforms are for wimps and sellouts . Tilting toward what some call ultra leftism , our prospects will dissipate into a miasma of holier than thou posturing .

Too much concern for respecting and abiding the contours of the present precludes escaping the present . We must be bold . Too much concern for reaching the contours of a desired future precludes gaining a foothold to take positive steps . We must not lose connection with reality . What's the solution ?

Take manageable , immediate steps , always conceived and implemented , consistent with reaching the future . Consider one example . Suppose you seek an increase in the minimum wage . The usual way is to say we want , we deserve , say , a $15 or $20 or whatever an hour .

All those participating in the struggle for a new minimum wage think the full name is the new minimum wage . That will be just . We should win it , celebrate and go home While organizing .

In that case we will create ties , connections and means to exercise pressure to raise sufficient costs and fears for authorities that they will relent rather than risking greater losses .

Good , but we will do it without any notion of persisting after winning , without connection to longer-term aims and vision , without connection to other aspects of a full program , without arousing desires and developing organizational staying power to win more . This is reformism . A second way to approach the situation is to not fight for such a demand at all .

Folks with this view claim such a demand ratifies the powers that be . It fails to seek a new world . With this view , folks may take to the streets courageous and committed , but their demand is to have the world now , and nothing last in is learned or built , much less one . This is delusion .

A different way than reformism or than righteously abstaining from the minimum wage demand entirely , is to seek the new $20 an hour wage but to simultaneously convey a larger conception of what is just worthy and warranted , consistent with one's ultimate aims , which aims might be , for example , that people should receive income for how long they work , for how hard they

work and for the onerousness of the conditions under which they work , but not for property , power or even output . In this third approach , the movement seeks $20 an hour as a worthy advance that will improve people's lives now and also a step toward fully equitable remuneration .

This approach seeks to build ties , connections and means to exercise pressure that can win now , but that will also link with and facilitate additional ongoing campaigns . These contrasting approaches exist for almost any campaign one might initiate .

You can form a campaign or even a large movement that seeks a gain to go home and celebrate its attainment , which tilts toward reformism . Or you can forego even seeking the immediate limited gain on grounds it isn't all that you want , which tilts toward ultra leftism .

Or you can seek the gain to attain and celebrate the very meaningful advance , but also to prepare to seek more , moving further forward . You conduct a fight against a war unto itself , discussing only its immediate harm , organizing to raise pressure today but not to last .

Or you fight against the immediate war but simultaneously raise awareness of the broader policies and structures that cause it , imperialism and means to fight against all wars and for internationalism . You conduct a fight for affirmative action for women or blacks or other whole sectors of a population , to win greater access for them today , but not to last .

Or you fight for the immediate gain but also to undo the patriarchal , racist and other systemic causes of the denigration and denial of whole sectors of population by winning new gender kinship and community relations . You conduct a fight against global suicidal climate devolution that aims to end fossil fuel use to save the planet .

Or you seek to end fossil fuel use but also raise awareness of production and consumption , blind to their ecological effects , so as to continue on to challenge all that too . You fight against an insane misdirection of human creativity and labor to expand profits and exploit workers by demanding various reforms of budget allotments and labor laws .

Or you do that but also pinpoint the capitalist causes of impoverishment and of alienation and develop desires for and organization to pursue participatory economic alternatives to enjoy life after capitalism . It isn't rocket science . To dismiss the validity of reforms is to dismiss the needs of people .

Now , to dismiss revolution is to dismiss the reality that without fundamental change , all gains are sharply limited and subject to rollback . There is a related situation to the false polarity between reform and revolution we might also usefully address .

It is less well discussed than the need to avoid reformism and also avoid ultra leftism , but pretty much the same thinking applies , albeit often in more contextually complicated conditions . Consider trying to set up a new institution or movement organization meant to embody the values of a desired future .

While it serves various purposes and needs in the present , a new but closely related rock and hard place choice arises . On the one hand , you want the new project to embody new values , aims and structures , and even to have features consistent with and able to melt into a better future .

On the other hand , the new project has to work in the present , with current people , resources and sources of support . Too much fealty to the ideal goal and you might be true to your desires but fail completely due to not succeeding in existing circumstances .

Too much attention to fitting the constraints of present circumstances and you might build a lasting project which has , however , so lost touch with its ultimate goal that its successful establishment is undercut by its value to be sufficiently new to plant the seeds of a better future in the present .

By way of example , consider you are in position to start a new large media project . Your stated aim might be twofold First , to provide needed news and analysis and second , to develop new institutional relations , defining and sustaining a new kind of journalism .

On both counts , the project might be aimed to plant the seeds of the future in the present , including enhancing the amount and quality of needed news by virtue of the benefits of having a more amenable venue for it . How might people with really substantial financial means seek to do all this ? First , they would face some unavoidable realities .

They would have to employ people who were used to working in and who have habits and expectations molded in the present . Likewise , they would have to pay bills . For example , those involved would need income for their laborers , and other expenses would have to be met as well , such as rent , equipment , fees for services , research costs and so on .

Questions arise when will funds come from ? How will relations among people involved in the project be structured , such as with what division of labor and with what mode of decision making ?

Likewise , how will the new institution interface with other already existing media institutions and with other types of institutions as well , such as movements and , not least , the government ?

For each choice that arises , the general quandary is how does one navigate between , first , the need to establish the institution and keep it functioning at a sufficient scale to accomplish more than the in this case associated writers would accomplish if they were dispersed among other existing mainstream institutions , such as those they already had jobs at before embarking

on the new project ? And , second , the need to have the project take shape and operate consistently with its longer term aims , rather than the project persisting but losing its identity and thus its merit in the process ? This conundrum should be very familiar to anyone who has created new institutions and worked at them .

It defines many hard choices whose resolution depends greatly on views of what the implications of those choices are likely to be . So take , for example , starting Telesor English , or Z Communications or Revolution Z . Those are three projects I've worked on as a first decision , as a first decision to consider to see the dynamics of the hard choices .

Should one take advertisements or not ? The argument for doing so is simple One needs funds with which to pay bills . The argument against doing so depends on how one sees the situation . One might feel that ads are bad only because they have bad content . In that case one might think well , we shouldn't advertise cigarettes , say .

But surely it would be fine to advertise good books or even just books generally . We should do what is not immediately horrible in its specific content and what won't corrupt our thinking and lead , via a slippery slope , to undercutting our virtues , even as it pays the bills . A different analysis might say wait , advertisements are intrinsically bad .

They ratify the idea of deception . They sell the attention of users to corporations . Your audience becomes your product to be sold to companies wanting access , while your content is reduced to a mere means of attracting your audience , and not just any audience , but one with means to buy the commodities that are advertised .

The ads one chooses may , for a time , seem to seek to sell only nice items , but what is really happening is selling your audience to the corporations buying your ad space , and in so doing it compromises the whole media project . Such a discussion always occurs in some actual context . For example , what about other means for making income ?

Taking donations from users entails asking for them , which can undercut outreach and feel degrading .

On the other hand , if you can keep that debit to a minimum , using user donations as a funding mechanism has the virtue of allowing self-sufficiency and of raising pressures on the media project to meet audience needs rather than to sell audience attention and information to companies . But what if your audience just won't donate sufficiently ?

What about taking funds from large money donors , whether foundations or individuals ? On the plus side , this can generate large chunks of cash , facilitating many useful endeavors . On the downside , however , this can generate dependence on sources who may impose , implicitly or explicitly , constraints on content .

You adapt your budget to fit the expectation of large incoming sums from particular donors . The donors then threaten to remove the sums . Your dependence causes you to moderate in respect to their wishes . Nice values are acceptable , the donors may say , but don't go too far or you will lose our support . The threat need not be explicit to be powerfully damaging .

Now consider another , still more complex issue how to make decisions . It could be a media project , a political organization or whatever that you're forming . How to organize its work ? The same kind of calculation applies . It is ubiquitous , which is really my point . We need to make decisions and to organize the tasks composing our work .

Any organization has to do that , of course . Should we do it in ways that are familiar from current society , in ways that match people's prior experience and expectations , or should we do it in new ways that attempt to move toward what we prefer for a new society ?

The former , familiar approach is far easier and at least in some respects , we know that it works . It will likely be easier to get funding for the familiar and it will better fit people's prior habits as well . A hierarchical approach to decisions , for example , will get decisions made .

A corporate division of labor in which some folks monopolize tasks that are empowering while others do purely rote tasks , will get considerable work done . Donors will understand both choices .

In contrast , a self-managing decision-making approach that apportions to all workers will say proportionate to their involvement is uncommon to people's prior experience and will require training and experiment and is unlikely to appeal to large donors .

It asks for more participation from many folks and it strips some authority from other folks as compared to what people are used to .

Similarly , regarding apportioning work tasks , having what we have called in many Revolution Z episodes balanced job complexes where everyone does a balanced share of empowering and therefore also of disempowering work Again it asks of people a kind of involvement they are not used to and which many may find initially quite foreign and even consider a burden .

The argument for the plant the seeds of the future and the present option of self-management and a new division of labor is twofold .

First , the choice won't ratify what our long-term aims should want to transcend and while the choice will risk new kinds of problems due to clashing with old habits and expectations and horrifying big donors , it will also allow new kinds of benefits due to facilitating diverse opinions and better developing and utilizing all participants' talents .

Second , in a media institution or movement organization in particular , there is another argument . Consider an analogy why should a media institution reject sexist or racist structures in its own organization . I think likely most everyone hearing this episode of Revolution Z would agree . First , doing so will avoid ratifying and enforcing what needs to be rejecting .

It will allow new kinds of benefits , such as contributions from folks who would otherwise be alienated and diminished . But also , second , if a media institution or movement organizing project is internally racist or sexist , then over time its ability to address issues of race and gender in its reporting , its analysis and policies will steadily deteriorate .

It will understandably become steadily harder to even perceive much less critique as something to be overcome . What one is daily engaging in . The point of the example is that the same observation holds for having internal authoritarianism or a corporate division of labor .

The rationale justifying that choice will infect people's values and perceptions and will inhibit and even obliterate prospects for media coverage or organizing work to fully properly address power and class issues .

So for a media experiment or for a movement organization , the issue we are considering becomes how to raise finances , make decisions and define jobs and rules for work . And what is at stake is twofold Will editorial content or outreach organizing be compromised , and will the institution survive and serve as a positive model ?

To judge choices that are made is always hard from outside , but the basis for judgment ought to be evident Win reforms , but avoid reformism . Win reforms that benefit folks now and that move toward ultimate goals and prepare and inspire folks to seek further changes later .

The same broad logic follows for implementing structures or for policies you establish for your own organizations . Have eyes on immediate needs , on immediate success , but also on implications for future goals . And what about revolution Z ? Well , it is a pretty simple operation no division of labor , because I am the only staff .

Not much funding controversy , because the operation is inexpensive and the funding is entirely donations . The one potentially problematic aspect is content . Does it envision future goals , fundamental change , does it explore strategic issues and means , and does it try to find non-reformist paths forward , which , however , recognize the need to fight for reforms ?

If your answers are yes , I hope you will consider not just listening to lots of episodes but also making them known to other folks , and I hope you will consider visiting wwwpatrioncom To provide some material aid . I can certainly use the help . And , that said , this is Michael Albert signing off until next time for Revolution Z .