This post will probably piss people (especially Americans) off. Here, I talk only about supporting socialist revolution in the USA, and do not care much for the morality or treatment of Americans in order to get there.
The US’s position as the dominant capitalist power founded on settler colonialism means it will be the one of the last countries in the world to have a communist revolution. For the sake of all people of the world, it is also the most important country to have one in. The US would need to first lose its empire and have all Americans live as semi-feudal cyberpunk slaves before the possibility of communist revolution. Even then, Native Americans will probably still be treated like shit.
Because of this, revolutionary socialist parties have a difficult dilemma in the USA. They must fight for reforms that make life better for Americans in order to build public support, but because reforms are ultimately compromises by ruling capitalists, doing so makes US bourgeois ‘democracy’ appear responsive to worker demands and delays the future date of revolution.
Are there ways we can support revolution while circumventing this dilemma?
I think socialist-sympathetic petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie can fill such a role by playing the ‘bad cop’ to socialist parties’ ‘good cop’ role.
In the USA, power as an individual depends almost solely on money. Thus the most effective way for any person to shape US policy is to found a startup to get rich, then use it to bribe politicians to do shit. Of course, this approach is fundamentally not socialist, and anyone who gets rich enough to do so probably won’t hold socialist views anymore. For the sake of discussion, let’s say one of us socialists founds a company and gets rich.
The more ruthless a capitalist you are, the more successful your business will be.[1] Businesses run by ‘softies’ with morals always lose market share to (and are ultimately bought out by) competing businesses with none. This means there is a natural pressure under capitalism to make life worse. If a socialist starts a business with the goal of providing an alternative to this, they are fighting a losing battle which ensures future irrelevance.
In this US capitalist environment, should socialist-sympathetic businesses accelerate the revolution by instead deliberately making Americans’ lives worse? Doing so would produce more profit, which would ensure their continued existence and allow them to expand market share to make even more Americans’ lives worse, thereby accelerating the revolution further.
Of course, said businesses should also funnel a portion of profits to covertly supporting socialist parties. Alternatively, they could transfer money to China, thereby supporting the construction of global socialism.
Of course, this approach walks a fine line. Socialist founders must be vigilant that their business strategy ultimately helps revolution rather than just becoming another part of the capitalist system. Founders must also be extremely careful not to get found out, as that would jeopardise both their business’s attractiveness to capitalist investors, and look very hypocritical to the public.
No. The problem ,especially in america, is not that the working class are not poor enough to have a revolution. It is that they lack class consciousness. By being good to employees and clients a socialist business owner can open people up to agitation and propoganda.
Sure, but class consciousness depends mostly on material conditions. A comfy white-collar worker probably won’t be revolutionary until they and all their colleagues are almost homeless.
As much as it sounds nice for businesses in the U.S. to treat employees and clients nicely, in practice they just lose to ones that are more ruthless. A startup like Uber who seeks to grow as much as possible must ruin the jobs of as many taxi drivers possible, as quickly as possible, to become the dominant product. All the nice, moral, mom-and-pop taxi companies are all dead now.
Class consciousness is a material condition. It feels like you are conflating “material conditions” for “trends in living standards.” “Material conditions” means the entire state of things at a given point in time. Wealth inequality and worsening living conditions are major influences on revolutionary movements but class consciousness is what separates an angry mob from a proletarian revolution.
The conditions that lead to the Luddite movement did not impart class consciousness which is why the movement failed. If there had been more class consciousness and the movement had gone beyond the textile industry it could have sparked a proletarian revolution but instead it was limited to a violent trade union strike.
There is no such thing as a “comfy white collar worker.” The so called “middle class” is under intense pressure as it shrinks. The fight to maintain that level of “comfort” is far greater than the struggle of being poor. The most miserable and stressed people I have known were white collar workers earning 2x the median income.
A white collar worker who is properly propagandized can see the trends in labor relations and understand that even if automation isn’t threatening his job directly the rise in unemployment will put downward pressure on his wages and living standards. The ignorant ones blame fellow working class people for trying to squeeze in on their privilege.
“If I don’t steal it someone else will”
There will always be someone willing to be more immoral than you for a buck. If your business model isn’t able to compete without resorting to exploitation then it isn’t going to be viable unless you completely abandon all sense of morality. The only way a bougie, petit or otherwise, can be socialist is if they abandon their plans at being a bougie. You can’t have it both ways. You either fight for the working class or you work for the ruling class.
It sounds like you are either trying to whitewash a class traitor becoming a bougie or are trying to justify a bougie who is refusing to be a class traitor despite understanding the immorality of being an exploiter.