Reproducing the discourse that our exploitative social conditions are eternal truths only devalues the labour of activism and organizing.
Since I have cemented my political positionality on the left, I have heard just about every “reason” why leftist-oriented movements only envision idealistic, utopian futures that will never work in the “real world.”
These kinds of narratives are virtually endless, but some have become more widespread than others in recent years. One example is the response to the “defund the police” movement that became more visible following the protests against police brutality in 2020.
Many of these responses include the allegation of hypocrisy, with individuals declaring that the left cannot make streets safer if they defund the police and critique our carceral systems.
As some responding sources note, these narratives are driven by a fundamental misunderstanding of the “defund the police” movement. It makes sense that definitions of these movements’ goals could get confusing, as they exist on a spectrum. As noted by the Ontario Federation of Labour, some members view the aims of the “defund the police” movement as “eliminating the police budget and completely reconceptualizing public safety.” Others in the movement instead view it as an opportunity to re-examine police budgets and allocate public funds to community-oriented initiatives, like allocating parts of police budgets to funding community services or mental health professionals to call when needed, instead of using the police and carceral punishment as a universal solution.
We have also seen similar arguments depicting those who believe in socialism or communism as mindless, uninformed idealists, since, in the words of a TikTok user, “every country who has tried [socialism or communism] has left people starving and in death.”
“I know it sounds nice, but it’s a lie,” the user continued.
Not only is this a massive, ahistorical generalization, but the fascinating thing about these types of arguments is that they seem to ignore two central things: the idea that socialists or communists aim to replicate the ways these systems have been implemented in the past, and the fact that capitalism itself leaves people “starving and in death” near constantly.
Though forming arguments on assumptions isn’t the best idea, it is sometimes clear that there tends to be a middle-to-upper class positionality associated with the latter claim. Capitalism is far less promising when you’ve experienced or witnessed the vulnerabilities that come with living near the low-income or poverty lines in society — though it shouldn’t take experiencing poverty to meaningfully consider the social realities of those who face financial marginalization when forming political positionalities.
Another user on TikTok made a video combating these kinds of arguments against socialism, using Chile as an example of why “socialism never works.”
Essentially, the user explains how Chile’s 1970 implementation of socialism under Salvador Allende was initially very successful, until the country decided to nationalize their copper mines, giving the state ownership of all copper sites. Given the role copper exports played in international markets, the United States were not thrilled about Chile’s nationalization of their copper mines, and they subsequently contributed to the overthrowing of the socialist government through involvement with a military junta that disbanded left-wing movements, including those of the Socialist Party and the Communist Party.
As the user noted, the United States’ involvement with the overthrowing of Allende’s socialist government is not conspiratorial, but evidenced in declassified files from the CIA.
The files note that “Allende’s democratic election and his socialist agenda for substantive change in Chile threatened U.S. interests,” leading the country to plan for the socialist government’s demise.
Dominant forces only benefit from the discourses reducing visionary activism to utopian ideals, since delegitimizing our capacity to incite meaningful social change keeps dominant power solidified just as much as it keeps our harmful social structures strong.
Author, lawyer and activist Andrea Ritchie brings an interesting remedy to these lines of thinking in her exploration of the concept of emergent strategies.
As Ritchie articulates in the introductory chapter of her book, Practicing New Worlds: Abolition and Emergent Strategies, emergent strategy organizing focuses on the strength of local movements and small-scale activism to build towards the conditions to create large-scale systemic shifts. By focusing on local organizing instead of waiting for a mass movement to materialize, communities can work on having the needs of their members addressed and build a movement’s power in doing so. Using emergent strategy principles, these small movements will point to the need for broader systemic shifts, thus leading to wider social change.
No organizing work is devalued when each local action is viewed as a contributing factor to meaningful social change.
Viewing activism in this way feels, to me, as an important response to the discourses attempting to delegitimize activist work on the left and reify the powerful positions our dominant structures hold.
Evidently, we cannot confuse the power of our dominant structures, systems and ideologies for justification or evidence for their place in society. They are not eternal truths, and they are most definitely not objectively correct.