106
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 02 Jan 2025
106 points (94.2% liked)
Asklemmy
44254 readers
1017 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
Exactly. Lemmy can be a cool place to discuss theory and check up on the news with likeminded comrades, but that's close to the extent that it can handle with political organization. Actual org work is handled in orgs.
I fundamentally disagree. This mindset is why so many leftist orgs still operate through processes, governance structures, and methodologies invented when the horse was the main vector to transfer information. There are plenty of spaces to become better at organizing, and digital spaces to exchange expertise and grow are important.
You can use digital communication to organize large-scale orgs, I never disputed that. My point is that an open forum based social media platform is not going to be the vanguard of the revolution, or even a good union platform. Security and privacy are far too important for organizing, and social media is far too easy to attack from bad actors.
I'm not talking about organizing on social media platforms. I'm talking about learning, sharing expertise, and interesting material on how to build organizations.
Oh, well there's a decent deal of that, mostly on Hexbear.net and Lemmygrad.ml. I even made an intro Marxist reading list and linked it on my profile, and share it frequently. There are several communities dedicated to learning and sharing.
Indeed, but these seem to be mostly focused on political topics, rather than organizing per se. I've rarely seen content about organization design, facilitation, effective communication, process design or other similar topics. It's usually sociology/economy/political theory stuff for what I've found.
The lemmy users have only interpreted the world in various ways, the point, however, is to change it.
There's a good deal on org theory as well, such as theory on Democratic Centralism, the Mass Line, how to conduct yourself within orgs such as Liu Shaoqi's How to be a Good Communist (on my reading list, in fact), and more. If you have specific questions, there are also comms for asking those as well.
I was thinking more about practical knowledge to employ today, rather than political speculation on hypothetical societal/political structure. I need people to get better at facilitating meetings, tracking tasks, and writing notes. Until then, discussing democratic centralism is sterile escapism.
I think you're a bit confused here, Democratic Centralism and the Mass Line are organizational principles. They are primarily for party structure, not only mass societal structure, and Liu Shaoqi's work is on behavior within orgs. Any union, political party, etc. can and would benefit from learning these and discussing them.
Is there something specific you are asking about? Like, how to file for specific legal status or something?
I don't think they are.
They aren't looking to take a class on theory. They want a set of resources and knowledge base to discuss how to build labor organizations and discuss issues with the actual building of these organizations.
You'll see some discussions on theory on Lemmy, but I've never seen discussions on actually building a union, co-op, or other collectivist organization.
I mean, that falls under the subset of theory, though, and concrete discussion of local org building should be done in private among those actually involved for OPSEC reasons.
Not really. Building an organization is not a theoretical exercise, but a practical application that involves dealing with people. It is like saying that getting a degree in political science makes you qualified to be a politician. There is a lot in the application of politics that doesn't perfectly align with theory.
And the person isn't talking about setting up the organizational building online, but to know where there are resources to discuss how. There are basic strategies that are effective in building unions and union busters already know them.
Building an org is a practical application of theoretical principles, you don't form an org by praying it into existence but by studying proper org mechanics and building them, adjusting as you go and figure out what does and does not work. Any actual discussion on the particulars of org building should be done within the org being built, by the organizers of the org.
Having seen organizations get built and operate, it is far more than just an application of theoretical principles. There are a lot of soft skills that the leaders need to develop and there may be other types of knowledge that are needed as well; for instance forming a union is probably going to require a basic understanding of labor law in the area they are in.
Yes, hence why I asked OP to clarify if they mean discussing particular legal problems, or practical techniques for building an org and how to operate within them.
Fair enough, but I don't believe mass parties can be built anymore without a mass society, so it's stuff I don't really read about because again, it's not really actual or usable.
In other spaces like the ones I would like to find on lemmy, the areas that get discussed are stuff like organization design, process design, software and software practices, facilitation, mediation, consensus building, effective communication and so on and so forth. You know, the stuff you need to build an organization that is effective in the world.
I don't know what you mean by a "mass society," these principles and methods are practical even in starting small orgs in existing Capitalist society. You'll have to be more clear on why you think they aren't.
Secondly, the theoretical principles and works I listed are absolutely in line with what you describe, particularly the subjects of Mediation, Organization Design, Effective Communication, Facilitation, and Process Design. I struggle to see why you think what I already listed doesn't fulfill those.