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Solidarity is not just with members of your political 'tribe'! Allow a little leftist pluralism - we can support each other!
(media.piefed.social)
this post was submitted on 07 Apr 2026
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Pragmatic Leftist Theory
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The neolibs are too far right. The tankies are doing whatever that is. Where's the space for the people who want fully-automated-luxury-gay-space-communism, but realize that it's gonna take a while and there are lots of steps between now and then? Here. This is that space.
Here, people should endeavor to discuss and devise practical, actionable leftist action. Vote lesser evil while you build grassroots coalitions. Unionize your workplace. Participate in SRAs. Build cohesion your local community. Educate the proletariat.
This is a place for practical people to develop practical plans to implement stable, incremental improvement.
If you're dead-set on drumming up all 18,453 True Leftists® into spontaneous Revolution, go somewhere else. The grown ups are talking.
Rules:
-1. Don't be a dick. Racism, sexism, other assorted bigotries, you know the drill. At least try to default to mutually respectful discussion. We're all on the same side here, unless you aren't, in which case kindly leave.
-2. Don't be a tankie. Yes I'm sure you have an extensive knowledge of century-old theory. There's been a century of history since then. Things didn't shake out as expected, maybe consider the possibility that a different angle of attack might be more effective in light of new data.
-3. Be practical. No one on the left benefits from counterproductive actions. This is a space informed by, not enslaved to, ideology. Promoting actions that are fundamentally untenable in the system in question, because they fulfill a sense of ideological purity, is a bad look. Don't do that.
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And as an anarchist I disagree with you, but on most struggles we're actually facing we're probably on the same side.
If you're polite and don't force me to operate within a hierarchical structure we can probably work together in a lot of real-world situations.
Hm. This is my first comment on Lemmy. Woo hoo!
I'm middle-aged and recently had what I consider to be a quasi-psychotic break: I realized that society is built on institutions--whether explicitly like the government, or implicitly like white supremacy--and pretty much to get ahead in any organization, you are judged primarily by how you serve the institution or those inside of the institution.
What really blew my mind is realizing the social work--the field I was in--was actively supporting whtie supremacy even as everyone in the field would deny any such thing. People serve these systems unknowingly, like the coppertops in the Matrix..
As a result, I'm pretty pessimistic both for society and for my future job prospects.
Does anarchy have any intersection with this collection of beliefs?
In general, it does.
The general basis of anarchist philosophy is a rejection of all hierarchies. These can be explicit hierarchies, like governments or private companies, but also things like white supremacy or transphobia that aren't always formally organized (even if they're often enforced by more formal organization).
Social workers often have to deal with that sort of tension, because their work almost always exists within a hierarchical way of doing things. Even the most well-meaning social workers have to operate under the logic of government. That way, it's unavoidable that they place themselves in a hierarchical relationship with their clients. Anarchists would prefer more cooperative models, primarily based on mutual aid.
As anarchists, we similarly can't avoid those hierarchies. Part of the anarchist critique of governments or capitalism isn't just that they oppress us, but also that they force us to oppress others. Most anarchists have to come to terms with this in order to find a job that they find bearable.
Yeah, my old and quasi-semi-current carreer is in social work, and I can't get a job because I keep talking about wanting to remove barriers between me and the people I work with and not wanting to be "the expert" talking down to them. Job search poison.
There's a wonderful dissertation written about social work and education are actually the domain primarily of white women, granted that privilege by the white patriarchy in exchange for servicing the white patriarchy. Love and Treason: https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/educ_llss_etds/124/ I wouldn't let social work off the morally compromised hook merely on the basis of the existence of hiearchy.
In my own currernt work, I see how the governing board primarily reflects the desires of privileged white funders, and I see how everyone's position is based on kissing ass, at the expense of the people we putatively serve but are functionally just excuses by which we maintain our position and status. I've brought up at least one regular and flagrant ethical violation with absolutely nothing done because it serves the interests of the institution to continue.
There is a position in social for peer advocacy, recognized in my state, that I'm training for. But it's a step down in every way from what my training is, it's a dead-end job, and, again, I'm probably never going to get hired because I'm overqualified and I'm going to have authority by my education and training beyond the low-totem pole position of a peer advocate.
Anyway. What are you doing for work?
Resources for connecting with other anarchists and learning more about anarchist philosophy without Gramsci-levels of linguistic abstraction?
don't see how I will force you to operate with hierarchical structures but I work within them and support them and you likely find yourself needing to given its how we are setup as a society. I mean im not part of law enforcement. That being said I believe in limited hierarchical structures and limited wealth disparities so having work in one should just be typical wages. Like congressmen should have enough to support a family decently but that should be average and it should be the same as most any other government job like janitor or firefighter but they would in addition have a budget to run two offices and including staff ans such just because that is necessary for the job but they should face consequences if they try and use that to enrich themselves an such. The hierarchy be out of necessity and not be confused with the equal value of human life.
I don't even mean in the hypothetical future in which you (or those you champion) would have power. I was talking about our current-day organizing.
Some Marxist organizations insist that everything they're a part of is organized in their preferred way. For example.
this is more lower level though I think. Its more about if there should be organization or not or at least the extent of it. Honestly one thing that annoys me about marxist and some other philosophies is there tends to be an org outlay like everyone is just going to agree and respect a away of doing things without specificying how this is going to happen being that people just don't agree or respect others often. Law is basically an agreement of the rules and its enforced because people won't respect it without it. You get the everything I think is good for everyone and everything I don't is harm to everyone. I mean trump talks like this all the time. Never sure how much he believes his own bulltrump.