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-===== Organization =====
+===== Politics =====
 ==== Then ====
-[by **Fred**, 12/8/17, based on //DiEM_Left-Is-Dead.pdf//]
+[Previous Europe-specific text moved to [[regions#Europe|Regions/Then/Europe]]]
-The historic defeat of the German Social-democratic Party (SPD) in the 2017 federal elections marked the end of the political framework that had shaped European societies since the end of World War II. Such a framework has rested on two pillars, i.e. a social-democratic and a bourgeois-liberal pole, which long competed for government, by articulating clearly distinct sets of policies, while agreeing on the basic tenets of liberal, capitalist democracy. As the social-democratic pillar crumbled, the way was opened for the rise of right-wing, national-populist, or even fascist-type parties. Those parties succeeded for a time in appealing to social and demographic groups that had historically supported not only the Social Democrats, but the Left in general, such as “blue collar” workers, students, public employees and young voters.
-Thus the crisis of social-democratic parties was nothing but the tip of the iceberg, the base of which consisted in the crisis of the entire Left, ranging from classical Social Democracy, to green and post- or neo-communist parties. Second, such a crisis was not only political, since it impinged on the very social basis of progressive politics. What then needed to be done? To answer such a crucial question, it was necessary to grasp the nature of the relations between left-wing parties and their social base. Historically, social-democratic, communist and green parties had always risen as the political offshoots of vibrant social movements: trade unions, working class mutual aid associations, cooperative societies, religious communities, environmental protection organizations, anti-colonialist, feminist, civil rights and LGBTQ movements. Such movements not only provided progressive parties with electoral momentum, but they also built large networks that allowed the disenfranchised to socialize and to empower themselves.
-The crisis of the political Left was thus nothing but the final act of a tragedy that started to unfold at the end of the 1970s, the deep sense of which was perfectly summarized by Margaret Thatcher’s notorious phrase, “There’s no such thing as society”. As the historian Tony Judt put it, what was unfolding was "the steady shift of public responsibility onto the private sector to no discernible collective advantage”, which caused, in turn, “an increased difficulty in comprehending what we have in common with others”. It followed that bringing back progressive politics meant bringing back society itself, understood as the common space where individuals could reclaim the capacity to flourish, through free collective association and with the support of public institutions. The question remained, which forces could possibly achieve such a goal? And how would they go about it?
-Existing progressive forces seemed doomed to fall short of the mark. Western communist parties had already lost most of their social base even before they were buried by the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and only became further marginalized. As for the Greens, they had embodied the hope for a renewal of progressive politics throughout the 1980s and the ‘90s, fueled by new forms of civic engagement. However, they steadily abandoned their “alternative” roots to fully integrate into existing institutions.
-Social-democratic parties long presented themselves as a beacon for progressive politics in western Europe, by helping to craft the welfare state system in the 1950s and 60s. But by a strange irony of fate, those same parties were instrumental in dismantling that system in following decades. The demise of social-democratic parties could not, however, be reduced to the treachery of their élites. On the contrary, it was rooted in two structural weaknesses of the compromise between capital and labor that they helped to bring about. As Tony Judt remarked, social-democratic parties benefited from “a very particular combination of circumstances”, both from a political and an economic point of view, which were doomed to fade away. Moreover, they tied their political action to the framework of the nation-state, which was in crisis as globalization proceeded.
 ==== How ====
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 Proponents of electoral activity cited Machiavelli's teaching that political action is nothing but the result of the struggle between the will of political subjects and ever-changing conditions which are not of their own choosing. In such a struggle, timing is essential, even more in times where opportunity windows open and close very rapidly. Thus they called for building electoral vehicles that were tightly connected with broader social and political movements, going well beyond traditional parties.
-Voter suppression had long been the major electoral strategy of the racist right in the U.S., going back to the Federalist era, the tragedy of the post-Civil War Reconstruction of the slave-holding South with the nation-wide triumph of Jim Crow, and again in the 21st century with the the reversal of the Civil Rights era’s victories of the 1960’s. The usual voter suppression tactics were revived with renewed Gerrymandering, closing of polling places, strict voter ID laws and massive arbitrary purging of voter rolls all aimed at minorities and the poor.
+[by **Richard**] Voter suppression had long been the major electoral strategy of the racist right in the U.S., going back to the Federalist era, the tragedy of the post-Civil War Reconstruction of the slave-holding South with the nation-wide triumph of Jim Crow, and again in the 21st century with the the reversal of the Civil Rights era’s victories of the 1960’s. The usual voter suppression tactics were revived with renewed Gerrymandering, closing of polling places, strict voter ID laws and massive arbitrary purging of voter rolls all aimed at minorities and the poor.
 Obviously, the way for the anti-racist left to counter this strategy was to mount a vigorous  voter registration campaign. This had been the strategy of the Rainbow Coalition proposed by Jesse Jackson, but the national Democratic Party never endorsed it. The DNC, dominated by the millionaire donors and established politicians, was afraid of being challenged by an expanded base and apparently preferred losing elections to the Republicans (who won the presidency twice with a minority of the popular vote). The real scandal of the Democratic defeat of 2016 was not the largely ineffective Russian stealth propaganda campaign, but the illegal suppression of the populist Sanders challenge which left Donald Trump as the only populist in the field.
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 The revitalized DSA rapidly broke with its past, resigning from the neoliberal Socialist International (which included France’s François Holland and Greece’s Papandreou) and repudiating Harrington’s subservience to the Democratic Party, while struggling with the issue of what kind of electoral strategy to pursue without falling into the same trap. [RG]
+[This section improvised on line Oct. 21st meeting]
 As the label "the left" ceased to have substantive meaning - encompassing everyone from Hillary Clinton to Bob Avakian - a new terminology gradually emerged: [Sam Fassbinder on [[https://caucus99percent.com/content/utopians-vs-conformists-part-two|Utopians vs. Conformists]]]
-//Branch here to 3 scenarios in 2024//:
+//Branch here to 3 scenarios in 2024//: [by **Sam Friedman**]
   * The election is annulled, the people revolt
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 In explaining how they managed to minimize these disasters and to build the good world we have today, we really need to understand the problems, complexities and hopeful possibilities of the situation “the day after” the working class took power. In retrospect, we were very lucky in how the revolution took place.  It could have been so much less favorable!  Most important, the revolution was truly global. It only failed to come to power in a few of the smaller countries—and over time, they joined the new society too. Furthermore, although by no means peaceful (in spite of the wishes of the movement), the revolution and ensuing revolts by the old ruling groups and their supporters were not so destructive as to destroy civilization. This good luck let us avoid untold problems that might have destroyed humanity.  As it was, our ancestors could concentrate on the contradictions and difficulties implicit in the notion of workers’ revolution per se—that is, what do we could do with our power—rather than on problems of maintaining power in case of a geographically-limited victory or coping with a devastating nuclear war.
 So, on the day after the revolution, problems and positive possibilities both were plentiful and confusing. On the positive side, the very fact that we were strong enough to win meant that we had gone through enough revolutionary experience, and had set up strong enough and democratic enough organizations, that we had organization, consciousness, and considerable unity as a shared resource. This let us go from being the done-upon and manipulated of history to being the new ruling class. It also was essential that we had not merely conquered state power but also had taken control over most workplaces and many community institutions. Thus, workers’ power and discussions could be implemented in many different parts of the social order. That is, we could figure out what to do—and then make our decisions actually happen and, critically, learn through our own experience where and how to modify our plans.
@@ Line 168: / Line 161: @@
 ==== Now ====
-**From Improvisation to ‘Planning Factories’**
+=== From Improvisation to ‘Planning Factories' ===
 Once peace was re-established on the planet, the Internet revealed itself as a horizontal networking and sharing tool as useful now as during the period of revolutionary emergence. The first order of the day was to make a rapid assessment of the state of the planet and its population so as to address the most urgent needs, the first wounds to treat.The Net facilitated first the gathering of information and then the matching up of needs and resources around the planet.
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 The Internet also permitted great planetary debates and referendums on certain fundamental questions: ecology, health, human rights. There were competing global plans for limiting the extraction and use of fuels emitting CO2 and other gases dangerous to the ozone and the atmosphere. There were proposals for the creation and coordination of sources of alternative energy. There were also plans for saving plants, animals, seas. The different choices proposed by the ‘planning factories’ and their likely consequences were clear and comprehensible to every voter.
+=== Reconstruction ===
+Ironically, thanks to the technology inherited from capitalist barbarism, reconstruction was less difficult than had been feared. The dismantling of the armaments industry freed immense industrial resources that could now be put to the service of the people and the planet. As in the ancient prophecies, people literally “beat their swords into plowshares.” The enormous bulldozers that had once served to demolish Palestinian houses now served to make water available to the Palestinians. Factories for war planes were being transformed into factories for agro-economic transport. Near Hartford, Connecticut (USA) a former tank factory was now producing mini-tractors and trams.
+How had theses transformations come about? At the end of the global general strike, the strikers occupying factories, mines and refineries had taken stock and begun little by little to restart production of goods and materials needed for immediate consumption and to keep other industries supplied. The practice of making decisions democratically acquired during the strikes and occupations now carried over into an improvised forms of cooperative self-management by assemblies and workers’ councils. Internet links enabled these cooperatives to ‘advertise’ for the materials they needed and trade them for finished goods they produced. Thanks to this global ‘E-Bay’ system, goods were exchanged through an intricate system of barter.
+These forms of economic self government operated smoothly. They had evolved quite naturally out of the various types of organisation that had been thrown up to meet the needs of the strikers during the struggle. The common principles among them were these. Leaders were elected and subject to recall by their constituents. Terms of office were kept short to prevent the creation of a professional political class and to keep representatives in touch with their base. ‘Officials’ were paid normal workers’ wages, and members of a collective more or less rotated in office. There was no firewall between the executive and legislative functions of self-government. Those who voted measures were also responsible for carrying them out. Thus the ecotopians had revived the ancient Greek ideal of participatory democracy – but no longer restricted to free native-born males.
+=== Development vs Simplicity ===
+As various projects were discussed in neighborhood assemblies and collectives,  the debates generally turned around the choice between plans considered "productivist" and more conservative plans that put the emphasis on the reduction of work time and minimal environmental impact. Some Utopians argued in favor of a greater immediate effort to construct infrastructures that would make life easier or safer in the future. For example a crash program using carbon-based production methods to rapidly construct wind, solar and other sustainable energy sources that would replace them permanently. Others opted for a slower rate of accumulation, a simpler life, the least impact on nature, the liberty to dispose of their own time.
+Groups of citizens with projects to propose could also ask the 'plan factories' to prepare estimates and technically feasible plans. By this process, each consumer, each worker, each local community could clearly see the choices that suited them best. In practice, the great diversity of societies simplified things. Certain regions opted for greater productivity, others for greater simplicity. As long as the basic needs of the environment and the rights of neighbors were respected, there was no problem. The dissatisfied always had the option joining other communities better suited to their ideals and their lifestyles.
+Participatory democracy was not limited to geographical conscriptions. People were also associated in networks and assemblies as consumers, parents, workers, and in all aspect of their multiple identities. Assemblies tried to come to conclusions by consensus, but if a consensus could not be reached, a majority decision might be called for. Even then, if the minority were large and resolute, the decision might be put off or imposed for a limited period only. In any case, all decisions were periodically reviewed. If a plan caused negative or unforeseen results, it could be changed or even withdrawn.

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