I live in the U.S. and the labor movement here is generally disperse and low. That is what the bourgeoisie want. After reading Mao’s “The present situation and our tasks (1947)” he spoke of his military strategies. One that stood out to me was his principle to attack the nationalist forces where they are weakest first and save the strongholds for last when capturing territories. This is precisely our problem. That we are as a socialist community are attacking generally, not in a concentrated manner. The aim for the left in each county in America is to pick a target and stick to it. Each county will likely have a different target based on the local economic landscape. Although since much of America is economically the same I propose the target if I were to pick one for most counties would be Starbucks. Why? Because there is already a movement across the U.S. and all over the whole country especially in the cities every Starbucks is injected with the subconscious awareness of this. In short the subjective factor of these locations are already primed. Before we are to have credit among the masses as revolutionaries which would heighten our agitation; should we not be able to conquer a single company specifically targeted within our counties? I think so. If we can unionize every Starbucks in a city, we can unionize another company, then another, all the way to conquering Amazon strongholds.
If you want to work towards a strong nationwide movement, you need a convincing analysis that backs a strategy that takes into account the current state of the communist and labor movement. Analysis comes before strategy obviously, you shouldn’t write an analysis to fit a vibes based strategy.
Here are some questions that could be explored:
- What are the class dynamics in the US?
- What are the key industries that shape the US economy?
- Which parts of the US population are closest to becoming revolutionary?
- Where are these parts of the population located and organized?
Here are some reasons why starbucks might not be a strategic target:
- Starbucks is not part of a key industry. If Starbucks suddenly disappeared, the economy would still run. People would get their coffee elsewhere.
- Starbucks workers might not be the easiest to organize, analysis is necessary on their class position and material interests compared to workers in other industries.
Key industry or not there’s Starbucks’s everywhere. Real cart before horse behaviour, the revolution won’t come all at once because you targeted the correct key industry to organise. The OPs idea of fighting for easy recognisable wins is the way you work up to organising and controlling key industries. This comment has a whiff of the Larouchite “productive vs unproductive labourer” anti-barista nonsense debate.
EDIT: Also, Starbucks has a market cap of $121B, is one of the largest food/drink restaurant/cafe chains, and employs over 300,000 people worldwide. Unionising Starbucks and forcing concessions from their owners would be a massive win for organised labour, and while not the end point would signal the strength of the movement. Unionising Starbucks doesn’t make the company stop existing.
Im going to be thinking about this comment and try and implement your critique into my final formed position that I will propose irl, thank you. Although to clarify, I wouldn’t go as far as to say what I proposed here was vibes based as i simply was pointing out that shooting for more attainable targets in a concentrated manner by our local orgs instead of general union struggle might be what the U.S. labor movement needs to get started, Starbucks was just an idea and your area may not choose to focus on that exactly. To address one of your assessment questions I believe that the community with the most revolutionary potential in the U.S. is the black community. This definitely should be a consideration, thank you for the feedback.
I didn’t mean to imply that your strategy is vibes based, you did indeed describe the analysis in your post. I missed the economical and class based parts of your analysis. I hope more people start posting these practical analyses because they are good exercises to do and give feedback on. Good luck with your proposal!
If I may, I think a potentially better target would be Amazon. There is also a labor struggle against Amazon with good socialist leadership like Chris Smalls. Not to mention, Amazon’s mass distribution network is closer to representing the real US economy. Also, the corporation is so extensive to the point where large swaths of different kinds of workers are involved in it.
“But why male models?”
I somehow read your post at least 5 times and didn’t catch the end. Fuck me, that was embarrassing.
Maybe cutting teeth on staryucks.
