Socialism has garbage marketing, full stop. Probably because those who specialize in marketing tend to thrive in, and thus gravitate to, capitalist frameworks. Consequentially, a great many members of the working class are propagandized into reflexive rejection of socio-economic policies that would greatly benefit them, based on taboo buzzwords and false equivalences.
Yes, established terminology is quite useful for nuanced discussion in leftist spaces, among those who understand the distinctions between “communism”, “socialism”, “democratic socialism”, “social democracy”, “command economy”, “State capitalism”, and “totalitarian dictatorship”. But for many people, those are all synonyms. “Socialism” means gulags and breadlines and the government stealing your stuff to give it to slackers.
I propose a reactionary framework. A movement committed to abandoning familiar terminology in favor of capitalist buzzwords. Driving a wedge between “capitalism” and “market economies”, leveraging discontent of blue collar workers against big business and political cronyism.
It’s not universal healthcare, it’s alleviating the unfair healthcare burden on small businesses. It’s not universal welfare, it’s freeing business owners by replacing the minimum wage with a prosperity dividend. It’s not a socialized workplace, it’s an equity compensation initiative.
The established terms are poisoned, but the actual concepts are widely popular, if you phrase them right. The movement cannot thrive by trying to carve out a portion of the “leftist” party, it has to draw support from the entire working class. The only way to accomplish this is by abandoning the poisoned terms in favor of business terms that cannot be twisted by capitalists without destroying their own platform.
Thoughts?
Defanging communist terminology is only going to weaken the movement and provide room for social democrats and neo-liberals to co-opt it for their own gain.
What must be done is fighting against red scare propaganda not through terminally online activities, tone policing, or a grand restructuring of vocabulary that will only make it reproduce capitalist ways of thinking, but through actual real material organizing to help people in need as well as holding a solid political platfom through which we can spread revolutionary thought. Communists of today just like liberals of the past must reject notions of the current world so that a new one may be carved in it’s wake.
Another important thing is that socialist terminology is wildly popular, it’s not without reason that it tends to be co-opted and used by reactionary environments. Thus we are only requiered more to never stop explaining.
Also when it comes to the words you proposed, they can and will be used by capitalists for their own gain.
Then only those who own small businesses may recieve such benefits, and their workers omitted.
In a capitalist economy, such a measure would be proven useless in a couple of months. Rents would rise, food cost would rise, gas prices would rise, everything would be more expensive as despite everyone becoming richer no one would be. Real wages could become not only stagnant but even lower for some, particularly those that should’ve been rewarded by UBI the most.
Fucking what? I don’t even understand what would an “equity compensation initiative” be.
And it is our duty, to not fall into the capitalists hands by creating an environment favorable to them. Give them an inch and they will take a mile.
But I have to agree left-right politics are a tumor on modern society and it saddens me we have to exist in this infantile descriptor of ideology, but we cannot easily leave them behind as all of society would have to for intellectualism to flourish.
Do you think? Idealism is nice and all, but memetics seems to be winning elections these days. “Education” and “fighting propaganda” sound very noble but I’m not sure that’s realistic or effective, unfortunately. Adhesion to particular terminology distracts from the underlying principles. If you can’t rephrase your pretense to appeal to the proletariat of any age, it doesn’t really represent them, and is merely another exploitation attempt.
I think you might be using idealism incorrectly to describe what I’m saying, because idealism philosphically means that ideas have primary influence on creating reality and not that reality has influence on creating ideas. Sorry for the tangent. Either way, I do not disagree with you that there is a lot of outdated terms or even a lack of terms, however I completely oppose adopting capitalist methodology to constructing terminology that would only entrench us in things we try to fight.
Also, electoralism? Really? Has Allende taught us nothing? That even in utmost favorable situations we will be faced with violence and repression?
Regarding memetics, I have little to say as I’m uninformed in them. However I do recognize them as an extremely useful tool, but they must be additional to real exisiting groups. They cannot stand on their own. For example in 2016, memetics helped Trump a lot but they weren’t inherent in his victory. They were already carrying a wave of popularity behind them, and most of all they were not manufactured specifically for or by the campaign.
Nobility is not what I strive nor am I guided by. Teaching is what I care about most, and it will not be effective without on the ground work, as actions speak louder than words. But just beause of that, it shouldn’t mean we ought not speak up. These things are something that must happen always, from the littlest begginings to a stage of high popularity which, let’s face it, is a long ways to come.
Remember that we can fight propaganda by making our own and utilizing it in demonstrations, protest, strikes and more. Even the littlest ammount is something we need, and reversing negative stereotypes is something we can only do by showing them to not be true. In the US (and in my home country; Poland) we are not starting at square one, but sqaure negative thirty.
And those principles being? I’ll guess you mean pragmatism, which are a good baseline, so let’s go from here. The words themselves will become archaic with time, that much is true, I support for example using ultra-rich instead of burgeoise when talking to people that are not “in the knowhow”. For most Imperialism itself means general conquest instead of the leninist definition that communists generally use, thus saying capitalist imperialism pretty much does the job for better clarification without saying thr oh so scary word “leninism”.
I don’t understand how proper wording and definitions can exploit a person, much less a demographic. At best I can see it being exploited and co-opted by those that wish to undermine communists and use it against them through misinformation and outright lies. For example, most people nowadays are propagandize beyond belief that they do not consider themselves working class, as they relate that to being poor, and not a person who must survive through the sale of their labour.
I’ll summarize what I believe to best course of action. We must adapt to the times but not allow ourselves to become entrenched in capitalist society by operating through rules that it does, otherwise we will become a force that doesn’t weaken but strengthen capital. And that the best way to spread the message of a fight for freedom and dignity, is by being a living example of it in the world. There’s nothing really noble about this, it’s just the way that works best.