4 ms·

It is extremely strange to see soi-disant socialists fail to recognize the difference between essential traits of small businesses, and qualities contingent upo

It is extremely strange to see soi-disant socialists fail to recognize the difference between essential traits of small businesses, and qualities contingent upon a legal regime which socialists themselves argue should be changed in ways which would largely alleviate the problems they describe. Unbinding health care from employment makes it available to everyone, whether their employer can afford a group plan or not. Reforming anti-union legislation means small business employees can unionize effectively across shops. And so on. I haven't paid Jacobin much attention heretofore. If this article is any representation of how well worth taking seriously they are, I'll continue that policy. This reads more than anything like a Republican caricature of leftist thought.

billfruit 7y ago
But small capitalists are a bigger problem in someways than bigger capitalists, since the difficulties their workers face are harder to be brought into public attention, because of the small localised scale of them. Large businesses have to face regularly oversight and scurutiny on a much more wider scale. So there is a strain of left-wing thought that see smaller businesses as a bigger evil that big businesses. From the article: "In reality, small business promotion is mostly a bad idea. Small businesses pay lower wages, provide worse benefits, are often exempt from important worker protections, and are incompatible with the way unionization works in the US."
- throwanem 7y ago
  The point I'm making is that - even granting their claim, which I'm not sure I do - unionization doesn't have to work in the US tomorrow the same way it does today. Neither need benefits and worker protections. Given that exactly these sorts of changes to the status quo are table stakes for socialist political movements including the one that's been trying to form around Bernie Sanders for half a decade or more by now, it is, again, strange to see an ostensibly socialist publication treat the status quo as immutable. Poking around a little more, I get the sense from Jacobin's articles that they're written by the sort of, again soi-disant, socialist who can spend all day toying with highflown theories, but turns contemptuous on the instant when faced with the expectation to back up words with action, and thinks nothing of crossing a picket line when it'd be even slightly less personally convenient to do otherwise. In other words, I think they're a bunch of useless academic liberals who enjoy the cachet of calling themselves socialist but can't be bothered to do the work of earning the name. Perhaps I'm doing Jacobin's writers an injustice, but seeing as I'm judging them by their writing, I don't think that I am.
  - billfruit 7y ago
    Well, would Marx have joined a picket line? I don't think that joining picket lines suffices as the main credential on speaking on socialism.
    - throwanem 7y ago
      I said 'cross', not 'join'. What I mean by it is, I don't get the sense these people, unless they knew someone was watching, would inconvenience themselves by refusing to give their custom to a business whose workers were striking. Whether that qualifies as a "credential for speaking on socialism", I can't properly say. But I'm not inclined to listen to anyone speaking on socialism who I don't even trust to not cross a line.

billfruit 7y ago

But small capitalists are a bigger problem in someways than bigger capitalists, since the difficulties their workers face are harder to be brought into public attention, because of the small localised scale of them. Large businesses have to face regularly oversight and scurutiny on a much more wider scale. So there is a strain of left-wing thought that see smaller businesses as a bigger evil that big businesses. From the article: "In reality, small business promotion is mostly a bad idea. Small businesses pay lower wages, provide worse benefits, are often exempt from important worker protections, and are incompatible with the way unionization works in the US."

throwanem 7y ago
The point I'm making is that - even granting their claim, which I'm not sure I do - unionization doesn't have to work in the US tomorrow the same way it does today. Neither need benefits and worker protections. Given that exactly these sorts of changes to the status quo are table stakes for socialist political movements including the one that's been trying to form around Bernie Sanders for half a decade or more by now, it is, again, strange to see an ostensibly socialist publication treat the status quo as immutable. Poking around a little more, I get the sense from Jacobin's articles that they're written by the sort of, again soi-disant, socialist who can spend all day toying with highflown theories, but turns contemptuous on the instant when faced with the expectation to back up words with action, and thinks nothing of crossing a picket line when it'd be even slightly less personally convenient to do otherwise. In other words, I think they're a bunch of useless academic liberals who enjoy the cachet of calling themselves socialist but can't be bothered to do the work of earning the name. Perhaps I'm doing Jacobin's writers an injustice, but seeing as I'm judging them by their writing, I don't think that I am.
- billfruit 7y ago
  Well, would Marx have joined a picket line? I don't think that joining picket lines suffices as the main credential on speaking on socialism.
  - throwanem 7y ago
    I said 'cross', not 'join'. What I mean by it is, I don't get the sense these people, unless they knew someone was watching, would inconvenience themselves by refusing to give their custom to a business whose workers were striking. Whether that qualifies as a "credential for speaking on socialism", I can't properly say. But I'm not inclined to listen to anyone speaking on socialism who I don't even trust to not cross a line.