no shortcuts to solidarity

Something that I think about (and write about) often is how deeply capitalism has taken root in spaces, groups, and individuals that publicly preach about solidarity. Lately it's become hard not to notice instances where it's clear that the logic of capitalism has impacted leftism either consciously or subconsciously. The difference between the two matters to a certain degree, but there is no hard and fast rule that one is necessarily more harmful than the other. There are no shortcuts to solidarity, and when we succumb to the capitalist framework we are only assuring that any gains in the short term (if any are even to be had) will be wiped out somewhere down the line.

One of my first organizing experiences involved an abolitionist group I was a part of that was doing work in the city to build solidarity and grow the ranks of individuals who dreamed of a world where people received care, not cages. The group was actually a sub-group of a larger leftist organization that mostly let us govern ourselves how we saw fit. We were doing rewarding work and building connections with community members by meeting them where they were to discuss issues that were important to them. We had aspirations of community barbecues, planned events for children, and other activities to strengthen the bond we were trying to form. The larger organzation took note of our success, which sparked the leadership of the larger organization's increased interest in the operations of what we did. This involved wresting control of one of our events from the normal operators to insist that we weren't working fast enough, and that our efforts in building community were a waste of time when we could be focused on other things that in their opinion were more valuable.

The fracture that this caused was instantaneous. We had many people who were attending an event with us for the first time. People who we trying to form trust with. Yet here they were, at the first meeting, being told that this process wasn't operating at a speed that the people in charge thought was acceptable. That our attempt to build solidarity wasn't productive enough is almost too on the nose for the idea that capitalism has infected leftist spaces.

The distinction between knowingly bowing to the whims of capitalism and having it subconsciously influence your thinking is worth mentioning. It does seem that many feel like they have to play the game of capitalism, so to speak, to survive. This sometimes involves conscious efforts to make things leaner, quicker, more eye-catching, or viral. Other times this is drilled into our psyche as implicit to living under capitalism, and thus takes hold as the standard line of thinking. A major area where this issue appears in both forms is within journalism and the media ecosystem. Within this area there are both individuals who believe that they have to adapt to survive, and are willing to knowingly make sacrifices (usually of principle) if it ensures conventional success under capitalism. There are also individuals who look to legacy media outlets which have endured under capitalism as a sort of blueprint for the type of journalism that they wish to engage in, without recognizing the warts that have grown as a result of their continued existence in a capitalist state.

I do believe it's worse from a moralistic standpoint to knowingly sacrifice your dignity at the altar of capitalism in order to survive than be subconsciously influenced by the material conditions around us, but that doesn't inherently make the harm of the former worse than the latter. It's my personal opinion that media engaging in the former will have less conventional success than the latter, but the harm ultimately is measured by the scale that it's being committed on. Regardless, no matter the difference of size or viewership, organizations should be checking themselves for deficiencies in both areas. Knowingly taking shortcuts erodes trust in your reporting, and tying ourselves to certain actions because that's what the norm is in the media environment can prevent journalists from producing reporting and running media organizations in ways that are more in line with leftist values and conducive to building solidarity.

I could go on about how the logic of capitalism has impacted accountability, but I think I will save that for another entry. The preview is that there is seldomly utility in taking accountability under capitalism, which unsurprisingly has influenced how a lot of people and orgs move even in leftist spaces.