Rev Left Radio - A Vision of a Socialist Workplace and Economy

Episode Date: March 10, 2017

I sat down with my friend Jimmy from the local chapter of the IWW to discuss workplace organizing and what a socialist workplace, and economy, might look like.  Follow us on our new twitter page: @RevLeftRadio Facebook: Revolutionary Left Radio

I don't like them putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin' frogs game. Shut up, will you shut up? Now we see the violence inheriting the system. Shut up! Come and see the violence inheriting the system! Hell yeah, I would. Almost confess to her marks of views. Very nice words, but happens to be wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, fuck, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

They're smashing the Starbucks windows. They're smashing the Starbucks windows. barbex windows right now this is complete anarchy god those communists are amazing welcome to a revolutionary left radio coming to you from a fortified bunker somewhere on the great plains i'm your host brett montane and with me today is jimmy from the iww jimmy would you like to introduce yourself um yeah that's uh basically me i'm jimmy i'm a fellow worker with all the rest of you working stiffs out there i've had some time to think about uh these these things i guess that would uh that have turned me from just a working stiff to a working revolutionary i suppose

and what would you say um for people that don't know what does iww stand for and what is that organization about um well despite what many uh newspaper headlines might read um it actually stands for industrial workers of the world not international workers of the world um If I had a dime for every time a newspaper had international workers of the world, I'd have enough money to be a CAPE myself. But the industrial workers of the world is a revolutionary labor union. What sets the IWW apart from other labor unions is, one, there's the inherent political side to it as far as being anti-capitalist, and two, there's a strong focus on direct action

as opposed to traditional routes of trying to get the contract. And so by direct action, how would you explain that to somebody that might not exactly know what that means? There's, I mean, the most obvious one is the strike, but there's also other forms of sabotage, like slowdowns, monkey wrenching, which is a term that came from literally throwing. a monkey wrench into the machines being very participatory the idea that every worker is an organizer and um there there is uh there are no paid like like nobody is paid by the iww to go into a a factory or a convenience store or wherever and to start the union um we don't really have that kind of money but but uh um yeah there's there's only one paid a staff member and that

is the uh the secretary and uh general headquarters um and that person has a lot of work to do so they should be compensated and i know that i mean this isn't the point of the show but it's worth pointing out that the iw was i mean foundational in in the worker rights movements of especially the 20s and 30s um they led the charge on a lot of fronts for worker rights and a lot of the reforms that we enjoy today can be traced back to iWW militant direct action back then so so to stand in that legacy is is certainly to stand in an honorable one more thing about the www real quick the IWW is also stands out from from other unions such as the AFLCIO in that they were adamantly anti-racist in a time where worker-partisan

protections were being pushed in a very nationalistic way by some of the now larger unions. Yeah, and a lot of the unions back then, they didn't allow black people into their unions. Correct. So the IWW has a really long history of that, which is truly beautiful. I was actually reading something about, I forget the years in the 30s, the Klan, somewhere in the Northeast, they were planning on doing a march through a neighborhood and just kind of intimidate the people and show the fascist presence of the clan. And it was actually the IWW that went out there and said that.

If the clan's going to march, we're going to meet them in the streets, and we're not going to allow that sort of stuff. So, I mean, in the 30s, they're at the forefront of pushing for racial equality in the workplace and beyond. So that's really pretty staggering if you think about it. Okay, so I just wanted to say to the audience that this show, since we have a member of the IWW here, we're going to be focusing on what a socialist workplace, and more broadly what a socialist economy would look like.

A lot of the problems with socialism, at least as it's expressed, is that it often takes the form of a critique of the system, but a lot of people are confused as far as what it offers as an alternative. So one of the goals of this podcast is to touch on topics like the workplace and the economy and offer up an alternative vision of what that might look like in a socialist context. And I think it's important to outline an alternative system because the two main systems we have at operating right now is basically neoliberalism, which is just a fancy term for the globalization of capitalism and reactionary ethno-nationalism slash fascism or on the rise in Europe. And clearly with Donald Trump, you know, with Steve Bannon in the White House, an ethno-nationalist program is already in play here.

So it's important for the left to say we reject both of those models and that we have something. else to offer, you know, people and especially working people. So let's just get right into it. Do you want to start off saying anything about generally what you think a socialist workplace would look like or how to structure a workplace along socialist lines? Well, I think the most obvious answer is direct democracy within the workplace, all decisions being made in a very participatory manner. And we see examples of this just all throughout.

you know the world really it happens either by desperation or with by inspiration I know I've seen examples of like sewing factories being like a worker co-ops I know of down I think it was in Venezuela there was a factory that got shut down and the workers just occupied it and maintained it and continued running it successfully So, you know, it's just really a matter of, of everyone, A, having a say, but two, also doing their part. You can't, you can't have good socialism if you aren't willing to do your dishes. Yeah.

And it occurs to me that, you know, a benefit of a worker-owned business model where the workers own and operate, you know, the business that they work in is there's psychological effects of that. when i go into my job and i get paid you know whatever 10 12 14 bucks an hour to do a task i'm not emotionally or psychologically or existentially concerned with the value with the um quality of my of my labor i'm going there i'm selling myself for a few dollars an hour and that's where it ends for me in a worker co-op where the worker actually has a say in how that business functions and how the wealth it creates is distributed amongst the workers and back into the business itself there's a dignity that comes with that that we don't have in a capitalist system

where rich people basically leverage their wealth against less rich people to get them to do labor for them so that they can profit. So I think it's important to realize that psychologically it matters. It gives you more control over your own life to have a say in your workplace

and it's totally alien to the average American. We don't even conceptualize work as anything other than something we have to do just to pay our bills, you know? Right. You know, and we see, we see a lot of examples of people kind of expressing that idea

on the other side of coming from like a capitalist perspective. I once, at one point, I tried reading Ayn Rand. And, but in, from what I made it through in the fountainhead, we have this architect that is doing what he wants without like any sort of recognition from the controlling ideology. And, you know, to me, that's, that is, that is socialism. That is, you know, that is, you know, that is what socialism should be because socialism, as from my understanding, like, aside from the basic textbook answer,

is this idea that you are fully involved with what you're doing and you have control over its, you know, control or guidance towards its outcome. It's the way it looks, the way, you know, just, and the thing is is that, like, right now we have the profit motive that, like, run so much of our economy. The way that businesses operate, operate along those lines. And so, like, for instance, at my job, which I won't say where I work, we'll just say I work in big box retail, they were talking about watching the videos of us working, looking at how many steps we were taking, you know, and that's something that like, if you were, if those of us who controlled what was going on, if we were doing something that we actually wanted to do,

like I guarantee you none of us would care about how many steps we were taking you know and you know in our performance we perform to impress our boss enough at least enough so that we don't get fired but if we had you know real freedom you know a lot of people on the right like to throw around that word freedom but if we really had freedom true like personal autonomy then we wouldn't have to be so concerned with impressing people you know It would be more of a mutual, it'd be more like a friendship. Yeah. You work alongside your comrades, your fellow workers to produce something that you all have a stake in.

You said something that's interesting, though, about, you know, like almost the big brother-esque nature of your managers watching how many steps you take on the video camera. It's worth noting that the big irony of capitalist trumpeting, you know, their defense of freedom and liberty, while maintaining wage labor as, as the dominant economic workplace paradigm is that the workplace under capitalism is a dictatorial hierarchy. You are being watched by your bosses. They tell you what to wear. They tell you when to show up.

They tell you how long your piss breaks can be. You know, they tell you how long you can shove food in your face before you have to get back out on the line. It's a dictatorship. Sometimes a benign one. Sometimes you'll have a boss. That's a nice guy or a nice gal, and they respect you and they try to work around your schedule.

And certainly that's the case. But when push comes to shove, you're going to bump up against the dictatorial nature of the capitalist structure. And what socialists are arguing for is extending democracy into that realm. If America pretends to love democracy and liberty and pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, then give us the ability to control our own lives in the workplace. Don't let me have to labor under the watchful eye of somebody who's trying to squeeze as much profit out of my labor as they possibly can and give me as little as they possibly can to keep me coming back. So I think that offers a sort of orientation to how we view the workplace as it currently stands under capitalism, as more or less a dictatorship.

But bouncing off of that, I was going to sort of get into the idea of automation, artificial intelligence. We live in the 21st century. More and more automotive technologies are coming into the workplace, displacing workers. So I was wondering if you can maybe touch on that and take it in any direction that you would like to. Well, I can tell you, working in stores where the self-checkouts have been installed, I guarantee you that we're still understaffed to perform efficiently. So that whole notion of it's going to let things happen, more efficiently, at least on an efficiency argument, it's just, it's crap. But what it's,

what it's doing is it's like technology is turning into almost the new immigrant as far as the scapego in labor. And, you know, so whereas, and it's still being said, you know, people before would be like, well, you better work for less otherwise that that immigrant's going to take your job. Well, like now is, well, you better work for less or else. that machine's going to take your job. And so it's the same crap arguments with, but it's also the same people in charge that are benefiting from from scaring you with these tactics. Yeah, and they're using, yeah, they're using the same coercion.

And that's the tragedy is because we're on the horizon of developing these amazing technologies that could help free up human beings to get out of wage. labor and to self-actualize, maybe implement a basic income which redistributes the wealth created by these technologies and puts it in the pockets of average citizens so that they can have more control over their own life and more free time to live their life. But what it's used for under the capitalist paradigm is, as you say, simply as another weapon to put pressure on labor. Say, you need to perform this or your job will be gone. And you see these memes from the right all the time. Oh, you want a $15, you know, living wage.

to flip burgers and they show a picture of an automated, you know, machine at a McDonald's that just takes your order and no cashier. And they say, well, this is what $15 living wage gets. But isn't that, like, cruel and ruthless and absurd that they're going to, a small handful of people at the very top of the economic pyramid can use the technologies that human civilization has created generation after generation leading up to these technologies and a few apes and suits at the very top get to dictate what those technologies are used for, and it's always used to put more

plenty in their pockets and put more pressure on us to fight. Now we, now not only are we fighting against each other, not only are we forced to fight against immigrants, but now we're forced to fight against fucking robots. Right. It's like, this is, this is like a sci-fi dystopia. Yeah, and, you know, and it's really funny

to me because the staunch free market supporter would suggest that well, if your job is displaced in one location because of the technology, well as the technology becomes more distributed than that should open up more jobs but the thing is is that like we don't ever see that you know and uh unless you know unless there's like just some

major over innovation uh like we had you know like like with the assembly line and stuff like that we don't really see a whole lot of of change and and job getting right yeah and that's one of the things they say is, well, don't worry in the past, there's been technological advancements, and that just created more jobs. Like, so don't worry, yeah, this robot might take this specific job, but all these magical new jobs will be created, but like, as you kind of indicated, like, where are they? What are they going to be? If we have something just as simple as, I mean, not as simple, but as at the fore as self-driving

cars, you're talking about tens of millions of American people who drive buses, who drive taxis, who drive semi-trucks, Uber, Lyft, these people are going to be out of a job. Where is the comparable creation of new jobs in that context? And that's only one small, you know, technological advancement, i.e. self-driving cars. So, I mean, we can't live in this, in this delusion that everything's going to be fine. There's going to be more and more jobs for everybody else. It's simply not the case. All right.

And I think another thing to think about as well, When it comes to this technology is, you know, we touch, you know, basically we've been touching on it as far as, like, who controls it. And, you know, the reason why technology looks so scary sometimes to us is because there are oftentimes, like, there's very few people who know anything about that technology, and there's even fewer people who control, like, the outcomes of what that technology does. and you know that's why it's important when we look at like a socialist alternative to technology is the first thing we have to look at is is who controls the means of production and that has to be spread out that has to be democratized otherwise you know we start seeing control polarizing to you know we become enslaved to either you know those who control basically a capital, which we have now, or, you know, we, we have some other sort of dictatorial state where basically only those who know how to control the certain technology becomes sort of esoteric and weird. Almost like a technocratic mysticism.

Right. Like, we are the keepers of the flame. Right. Yeah, absolutely. So you mentioned it about the democratization. What would, I guess the next question would be, what would these technologies look like in a socialist economy? How would they be utilized? We know we just pointed out, you know, the flaws of having them operate in a capitalist system.

It basically goes to benefit a very small number of people at the very top. They control all the wealth that the technology creates and can decide what to do with it. So what would an alternative to that be? What would we use the technology and the wealth that it creates for and how would that be controlled, in your opinion? well you know and i think uh one thing is like if if as a society it's determined that we can maintain like such a level of automation um i think what that would do is that would free up people to be like more creative uh if if if we had a certain level of maintainable automation um you know we have like a four-hour work

week you know and uh then what we would start seeing is you'd start seeing people no longer having to be so beholden to their their shit job and they would be free to to think to write to to make music to organize politically right and but also too to um to think about technology and to advance on it you know Yeah, I, like, I have friends who are, you know, in the science, they do science for their jobs, and, but they have, like, regimented, like, measuring and all this stuff that they have to do, you know, and I'm just thinking to myself, like, well, if, if they weren't beholden to, to stuff that they had to do, like, if they, if, like, that basic, uh, research could be somewhat automated, then, like, they'd be free to do their own research if they wanted to. Right. So instead of, you know, doing all the dirty technical work of like filling up the jars and all of that stuff, if that could be, yeah, if that could be automated in some sense, then you free up the creative capacities of the scientist or more broadly speaking, take the analogy back to where it started. You free up the citizens of a society to start pursuing their actual interests. And the social, the why I'm a socialist is because I firmly believe that there is an enormous amount of untapped energy. creativity and innovation in the minds of so many people that because they have to spend 80% of their waking life just securing enough money for food and shelter, they cannot unleash those creative capacities. And that's one of the biggest tragedies of capitalism, in my opinion,

is that for so many people, you know, you're trapped in this rat race, you're running on this treadmill trying to, you know, live in paycheck to paycheck, and you're never able, I'm going to use this word again, to self-actualize, which means to fully develop your capacities to their fullest degree, to pursue your interests without regard to how that interest can be marketized and turned into money so that you can buy food. And for the first time in human history, we have the technologies on the horizon that could, in theory, allow us, like you say, to work much less and maybe at some point to not have to work at all. It's just a matter of organizing and wrestling those technologies away from the people who

control them because, again, these technologies are not made by the capitalists. You know, capitalists aren't in their garage tinkering away, making amazing innovations. They may invest the capital because that's how capital flows in a capitalist society to fund the research and development. But the people that actually do the creative, innovative work are not the same people in business suits that are the CEO. of these companies. And in some cases, there are exceptions, but for the most part, I think that that's true. So I would like to kind of take that a step further, and the question always comes

in about a basic income. So we're seeing with neoliberalism, the working class is really on the ropes in a lot of ways. Automation provides maybe some hope that we could create wealth and redistribute it among the people. And one of the main ways that people say we can do that is via a basic income, which is basically a check that, you know, the government or whoever cuts to every citizen, it could be 500 a month. It could be depending on the situation, and $2,000 a month. There are experiments all over Europe and in small parts of America where people are trying to see how would we implement a basic income. So I was hoping maybe you could just touch on what you think the promises of a basic income are, or more specifically, will a basic income just

be a way that capital keeps its grip on things so like we'll give you a basic income but we're still going to fundamentally control of technology and enrich ourselves right i i wrestle with this with this topic uh because on the one hand i i have my immediate material needs which uh suggests yeah you know get a basic income but the on the other hand i i have to think well i'm not thinking in a paradigm of trying to exist within existing capitalist structures, but rather what a new social society would look like. And so, and I think that the issue of money is a really hard thing to get rid of in our heads. Certainly. The idea that, you know, you exchange things, you know like you know we always talk about like mutual aid which even even mutual aid has has

this notion of of the exchange of like goods or services not necessarily in a very quid pro quo way right but you know it's still there and so uh so when you talk about exchange immediately our minds are our our minds are formed to go immediately to to money and income But I don't think it necessarily has to be that way. You know, one can make a good argument for a phasing out of, if we're phasing out of the use of money and capital, then the basic income would be the most logical in-between step. And I've heard, and I don't know, like, you know, these numbers may not be correct, but a friend of mine is very intelligent. He's also very rich, has brought up that if we took the budget that was used nationally and locally on welfare programs, that would be enough to give, then that includes, like, the incomes of, like, the people working and whatnot, that would be enough money to essentially establish the basic income of, I think it was like $25,000 a year or something like that. for every citizen for every citizen and he talked about like a tiering system where you know once you

start to make over a certain amount you tear back on like that basic income so there's still like there's still this the incentive to like try to take risks and to start businesses and all that stuff but the thing is like if it like fails you don't end up starving I see yeah so that makes that makes sense it's almost like a strategic like you said a strategic phasing in of a new paradigm almost or at least a new way of relating to money right yeah that's really interesting and um you touched on the the fear you might have of supporting a basic income because you say that you're thinking you know within the confines of a system and and as i mentioned a basic income could be used by those in power um to just buy off to basically placate us why they still run the world um so that

that is something we have to watch out for but i i have this thought that reoccurs in my mind is that one thing that a basic income, regardless of the amount, would do, is actually give labor some bargaining power. So if we're not constantly desperately searching for work and trying to scrap together money, paycheck to paycheck, but we have a little safety net in the form of a basic income in our bank accounts every month, well, that gives us more choice and where we want to work. That gives us more power in the workplace when we come to the bargaining table. Oh, you want me to wear this uniform?

Well, I'll just go work for this place over here that doesn't because I don't need you. So a basic income, in my opinion, if it's implemented correctly, it could at least act as a transition phase where labor becomes empowered by not having to desperately seek out employment. You know, you put some advantage back into the pockets of labor. And so I think that might help us. And it might allow us to have more free time to politically organize, to actually take that next step, and try to transcend some of the more. stubborn aspects of capitalism so there's pros and cons to the basic income argument but it's

something that we should be thinking about because economists are thinking about it governments are thinking about it it's coming down the pike but for socialists a leftist of any stripe we should be hopeful but also cynical and critical of how they're implementing it and what material forces it ends up serving right we should be on the watch out always always read the fine print that's right that's right all right well i kind of wanted to broaden out and maybe look at the economy as a whole in a socialist society let's say we're already there what would what role would the nationalizing of certain industries play like community ownership over banks or um federal government you know that that runs energy corporations do you have anything

to say on those fronts um i i would say that there to me it makes sense that there are certain industries that at a certain level would need to be collectively controlled and those would be the industries that essentially everybody uses and like right now that would be oil the internet electricity you know the thing is that like like right now we have this you know we're still stuck in this like dictatorial capitalist mindset of structuring and so when when we're when something is like, quote unquote, public, it's not really controlled by the public. Exactly. You know, it's still controlled by special interest.

It's just that parts of our wage is taken to operate it. And so I think in a socialist economy, these industries, people wouldn't be so. Like, I think the stigma around, like, nationalizing or collectivizing things wouldn't be there as much because there would be this emphasis on, like, well, you can, you know, you control, like, the local electrician or, like, like, the provider of electricity in your area, well, if you're provided with electricity, well, then you have a say on how it's ran. and that that makes like it less scary and you more willing to put your material resources into the operation of it because you actually have control over it whereas right now the way the way things around like I have I have no control over the local utilities here yeah exactly yeah I totally agree and I also think it's an it's instructive to look at banks and how those would be nationalized but maybe not nationalized actually community control you know Bernie Sanders ran on a platform where he says break up the big banks make them smaller you know if they're too big to fail they're too big to exist because

their failure has ramifications for the entirety of society the entirety of civilization and you know that's a good starting point you have to realize that certain industries affect all of us and it's simply illogical to say that the things that affect all of us that can result in us losing our house that can result in us not having clean drinking water why should those be in anybody else's hands. They should be in the people's hands who are affected by those institutions. And a socialist perspective on banks would be that banks are, they would transition to more like credit unions, where, I mean, not exactly like credit unions, but kind of in that

direction, where the community owns it, where membership is based on, you know, investing, putting your money in the bank, and then now you have a say and how that bank is run, getting the profit mode of the fuck out of banks. Because why? Why should you take money that I have to put in the bank? there to feed my family and then you know have no firewall between taking my money and then investing it in your own pet projects something i have no control over no say over and so i think a turning point is the banking and financial institutions when those are socialized when those

are brought under democratic control we can start having that ripple effect touch all other aspects of our economic lives but that's the real crux of it and that's going to be the hardest too because that's where power is consolidated. Wall Street, big banks, those are the most powerful institutions on the planet. And they're not going to hand over their power just because out of the goodness of their heart. Right. You know, and imagine, you know, right now nobody, the whole bootstrap thing is such crap because nobody, you know, like Sam Walton didn't start Walmart on his own.

He got a loan from his, from his father-in-law. And so even in like a socialist society, going, trying to go into a venture, which is greater than what is already existing is going to take resources, whether we, whether it's, whether we still have a monetary system or not, it's going to take resources. But imagine how different it would look if instead of the way we have it right now where you have to go in front of. capitalist investors and saying and pitching your idea imagine what it would look like if you had to go in front of the community and and pitch your idea you know these these like these innovations would have to benefit the the community and society as a whole if if you're being accountable to the community society as a whole absolutely yeah the entire incentivizing game changes it's no longer about maximizing profits for these people but it's like is your idea conducive with with the

interests of the community in which it's going to operate and what a radical paradigm shift to talk in those terms about starting businesses you know um like one example of you know to touch back a little bit on technology um uh you know the omish you know love them or hate them critique them properly but a lot of people think that they're just like completely against technology which isn't true they're pro-community and they they don't want to introduce technology that that takes away from the community aspect and so their inclusion of technology has been very slow over time because it has to be like critiqued by the the community leaders you know that's and that's such a radical radically different notion than what we have in capitalism and capitalist society because

like if if we have a good idea like if it's not going to make money then that idea probably isn't going to last very long yep and yeah that's that's the that's the deciding factor far too often yeah so i think that's all extremely important i think socialists and anarchists and Marxists and leftists, even progressive, social democrats, we've got to be thinking about these things, thinking about dignity, thinking about control over our own lives, thinking about giving control back to communities, and thinking about how offering that platform of ideas

is the real solution to the ravages of neoliberalism. That's how wealth would be not like taxed, where we take from rich people and give to poor people necessarily, but once we get to socialism, it won't even need to be redistributed. people don't people forget but capitalism is already a redistributive system right it redistributes wealth from the bottom in the middle to the very top so when we're saying when really we shouldn't call them redistributive wealth programs who say re- redistributive wealth programs because capitalism's already redistributed it and it's resulted in what we've seen

now just massive mind-boggling spine tingling inequality of wealth like absurd amounts and yeah so these are these are ideas that we need to wrestle with We need to talk through, and we need to push forward. We need to stand up and realize that we need to fight for control. We need to fight for control over our own lives, over our own resources, and we need to start thinking about what benefits communities as opposed to what benefits the bank accounts of a small number of rich elite. So just about to wrap up here,

is there anything you would say to people working right now who might not work in a union or might have a job that being in a union is a fireable offense? Is there anything that workers can do either in the workplace or outside the workplace to advance their material interests? I would say in this society, one of the most radical things you can do is talk to your neighbor. Talk to your coworkers. See what are their problems, what they have problems with, and then share what you have problems with, and then take it one step further and be like, well, I will stand up with you.

You know, that right there is the union. That is, and that is the power in the union is people standing together saying, like, like, I'm not going to let you mistreat my fellow worker, and they're not going to let you mistreat me. You know, and so you don't necessarily have to get the contract. The contract is great and go for it if you can get it. But the important thing for the workplace and for society is to understand that these people are your friends and they have shared interests. Regardless of whatever background they might be coming from, whether it be politically or whatnot,

some of the staunchest Republicans can hate their boss just as much as you can. Yeah, and the skill is trying to meet them where they are. You don't go in necessarily and talk to your right-wing co-worker and talk about, you know, socialist ideas or Marxist or anarchist ideas right off the bat. But it's not even about talking down to people or telling them what to believe. Like you say, it's about establishing connections and starting to deconstruct the idea that we're here to compete with one another over the scraps that the elite toss off their table. If we join together, you know, if we lock arms across racial lines, across religious lines, across gender lines, that is when we become powerful. And the capitalist system,

covertly and overtly, tries in every way that they can to weaken us, to separate us, Trump's entire campaign, separating it, the white working class as opposed to what, you know, the different color.

I mean, come on, the working class is the working fucking class. And if we're ever going to advance as a class, we're going to have to advance as a unified front. So I really appreciate you coming on. Is there anything that you'd like to say, wrapping up, any recommendations,

maybe tell people to join their local IWW, any books, films, anything like that? Yeah, I would say if you, if you don't know where to start as far as organizing a union, like, you know, check out your local IWW, whether it's general membership branch or or whatnot, they will have the resources. I mean, that's why organizations exist to provide resources and support. I would also like to, as far as technology, there's a guy Carl Hess that some people might hiss at me for saying his name. He's one of the reasons why ANCAPs, people try to include those in the anarchist umbrella.

But he himself was very critical of capital labor relations, whether he framed it that way or not. And I think if you work, you were always critical of that. But in a film that he put out called Towards Liberty, the very last segment, there's a part where he talks about alternative or appropriate technologies. where in a participatory society, technology would also look very participatory. And technology probably wouldn't be so monolithic and so vertical, but rather it would be a lot more horizontal and would serve probably a much more direct purpose to what we want to accomplish within our societies. So even though he's coming from it from the right, he still has some nuggets of insight

that the left could take and kind of use to hard manage or to reconceptualize these things. Right. Yeah. Don't never think that the capitalists have full monopoly on good ideas. If you hear a good idea, use it. You know, how to win friends or whatever that book is called. Influence people and win friends or something. Yeah.

You know, that's, if you want to be a union organizer, maybe read that. book but like looking through it with the leftist lens absolutely well thank you very much for coming on i encourage everybody no matter where you live to um try to join the iww or look into the iww there's lots of resources online you can google and search the history of the iww um and realize you know what a powerful force it's been in the past and and hopefully what a powerful force it can be going forward so thank you again jimmy and uh yeah glad to have you on Thank you.