What it comes down to is a matter of trust. For example, let’s say there’s a strike going on and management makes a generous offer, but it would only apply to the senior employees. If the union accepts this, then the newer employees will feel like the union is only working for the people who have been there longer, and are less likely to take risks or stick their necks out for the “common good,” because that “common good” seems to benefit some people more than others.
Now, with the workers divided, they have less power and less ability to resist whatever the company decides. In time, even the senior employees may end up worse off.
However, I do agree with you that you don’t have to do everything at once. Small victories can serve as a proof of concept, showing tangible results of organization. But there’s a difference between a small victory that’s shared or fair and a small victory that only benefits part of a coalition and serves essentially as a bribe.
In the hypothetical of “freeing half the slaves” it’s kind of impossible to answer from a purely theoretical standpoint, it depends on the specific conditions. If the level of trust and political consciousness is high enough, then the ones who benefit can be trusted to keep fighting for the others and the others won’t feel betrayed or left behind. But if it’s a fledgling coalition and opportunists are present, then it’s a recipe for the whole thing to fall apart.
Every proletarian has been through strikes and has experienced “compromises” with the hated oppressors and exploiters, when the workers have had to return to work either without having achieved anything or else agreeing to only a partial satisfaction of their demands. Every proletarian—as a result of the conditions of the mass struggle and the acute intensification of class antagonisms he lives among—sees the difference between a compromise enforced by objective conditions (such as lack of strike funds, no outside support, starvation and exhaustion)—a compromise which in no way minimises the revolutionary devotion and readiness to carry on the struggle on the part of the workers who have agreed to such a compromise—and, on the other hand, a compromise by traitors who try to ascribe to objective causes their self-interest (strike-breakers also enter into “compromises”!), their cowardice, desire to toady to the capitalists, and readiness to yield to intimidation, sometimes to persuasion, sometimes to sops, and sometimes to flattery from the capitalists.
Example, ACA, there’s been no real talk from Dems after “compromising with Republicans” to pass that to try and make it better. To maybe go with the original plan of universal healthcare for all and not health insurance for all.
People get complacent after doing some, it’s always better to do it all than half arse it and promise to come back later.
To some degree, this is correct - people tend to leave behind the passion once they’ve done something about it. But this is a reason to do as much as one canwith the circumstances given, regardless of worrying whether it is ‘too radical’ to last; not a reason to refuse to do anything that doesn’t immediately result in the end-goal of your ideology.
Put another way, this argument could be used to oppose anarchist organizing - after people do a little for the revolution, like organizing, they tend to get complacent. Only immediate and violent action in service to revolution is moral.
Plus it y’know actually stops the suffering rather than prolonging it but lesser.
But it doesn’t stop the suffering until it succeeds, if it succeeds.
Which is the better outcome? Someone wanting to save 10,000 lives, but failing to save anyone’s life; or someone who wants to save 1,000 lives, thinking it’s all they can do (rightly or wrongly), and succeeds in saving 500?
Does freeing 500 take 1% of the effort of freeing all 1k? Do the 500 first and then start working towards freeing the rest.
Now, this requires actually doing the second part, but some good actually done is better than all the good wished for but none done.
What it comes down to is a matter of trust. For example, let’s say there’s a strike going on and management makes a generous offer, but it would only apply to the senior employees. If the union accepts this, then the newer employees will feel like the union is only working for the people who have been there longer, and are less likely to take risks or stick their necks out for the “common good,” because that “common good” seems to benefit some people more than others.
Now, with the workers divided, they have less power and less ability to resist whatever the company decides. In time, even the senior employees may end up worse off.
However, I do agree with you that you don’t have to do everything at once. Small victories can serve as a proof of concept, showing tangible results of organization. But there’s a difference between a small victory that’s shared or fair and a small victory that only benefits part of a coalition and serves essentially as a bribe.
In the hypothetical of “freeing half the slaves” it’s kind of impossible to answer from a purely theoretical standpoint, it depends on the specific conditions. If the level of trust and political consciousness is high enough, then the ones who benefit can be trusted to keep fighting for the others and the others won’t feel betrayed or left behind. But if it’s a fledgling coalition and opportunists are present, then it’s a recipe for the whole thing to fall apart.
People get complacent after doing some, it’s always better to do it all than half arse it and promise to come back later.
Plus it y’know actually stops the suffering rather than prolonging it but lesser.
Example, ACA, there’s been no real talk from Dems after “compromising with Republicans” to pass that to try and make it better. To maybe go with the original plan of universal healthcare for all and not health insurance for all.
To some degree, this is correct - people tend to leave behind the passion once they’ve done something about it. But this is a reason to do as much as one can with the circumstances given, regardless of worrying whether it is ‘too radical’ to last; not a reason to refuse to do anything that doesn’t immediately result in the end-goal of your ideology.
Put another way, this argument could be used to oppose anarchist organizing - after people do a little for the revolution, like organizing, they tend to get complacent. Only immediate and violent action in service to revolution is moral.
But it doesn’t stop the suffering until it succeeds, if it succeeds.
Which is the better outcome? Someone wanting to save 10,000 lives, but failing to save anyone’s life; or someone who wants to save 1,000 lives, thinking it’s all they can do (rightly or wrongly), and succeeds in saving 500?
It’s almost like reality has nuance and shit.