Developing a Socialist Vision is Crucial to the Success of the Left
by Will Froberg
When trying to convince people that capitalism needs to go in order for humans to truly flourish — and for that matter just avoid extinction — I always get back three main types of questions, in this order:
- Can’t we just reform what we have now, without actually overthrowing capitalism, until it works for everyone?
- Okay, I’m convinced that capitalism is unsustainable, but what would you even replace it with?
- All right, I see how that vision could possibly work, but how would we get there? The rich control our political institutions, making a task as big as replacing capitalism impossible.
Broadly, what they are asking me to provide is a critique of the current system, a vision for what I want, and a strategy for how to get there. These are all fair questions. I believe the left has been quite successful in recent years, and at other times throughout history, in convincing many people that capitalism has enormous flaws that cannot be fully resolved through reforms. My mother, a very apolitical person, recently remarked, “If there was a way to make capitalism work for everyone, they (the powerful) should have been able to figure it out by now.”
I don’t need to provide you with a bunch of polls to convince you that beliefs like this are becoming more common; you have probably heard similar remarks. But while socialist critiques of capitalism are becoming more palatable, many people are still not quite willing to identify as socialists. They may be stuck in the belief, most famously summarized by Margaret Thatcher, that there is no alternative (TINA). “Sure, things suck, but what is the other option?”
This is where vision comes into play. Vision goes beyond short-term goals. It’s the end result we are fighting for. For socialists, this means being able to describe the features of a post-capitalist economic system that will fulfill our values. It doesn’t have to be a blueprint. It could just provide the basic features and institutions of the system, making it more of a scaffold than a blueprint. And of course, vision does not apply only to the economy; it also applies to the political system and other spheres of life, like community or kinship.
The left, as a whole, has not done well in the present or the past in offering a concrete vision of what we ultimately want to replace capitalism with (that is not to say concrete visions do not exist, they do). We may call for great reforms, like universal healthcare, or promote worthy values, like equity and liberty, but most of us have not been able to describe the institutions that could be used to make sure these values get fulfilled and sustained. It is at this point that the left is currently stuck, and it is one of the main reasons we cannot garner enough support to replace current systems of oppression, yet.
The rest of this article argues why vision is important. The point is not to convince you to subscribe to one vision or another, but simply to convince you that thinking about vision is crucial.
First, vision gives people hope. It can be draining to hear how terrible the world is and that organized human life could be over within this century. While it is important to be honest about these admittedly horrific problems, focusing too much on them can depress us and cause us to fall into a nihilistic attitude. It also isn’t very attractive to many people we are trying to bring into our movements. They may feel that getting involved is going to take too much of a toll on their emotional wellbeing: “If everything is going to end anyway, why not just try to enjoy my life and not worry about it?” But what if we can give them something positive to believe in? A vision that allows them to have a clear goal that they can strategically fight for and believe they can eventually achieve, or at the very least say, “Even if we don’t end up winning, at least I can go down fighting for something I believe would have made the world a truly better place.”
Developing a vision also clarifies your goals. Research is clear that having clear goals helps people be more productive and contributes to well-being. And while much of this research focuses on short-term goals, it is also important to have ultimate goals. Personally, having a socialist vision makes me feel less overwhelmed. It gives me a focal point to aim for, allowing me to relax, knowing that all I have to do is keep moving toward that point while making strategic decisions that get me closer.
Having a vision also informs a good strategy, helping you to orient your activist activities in a way that will ultimately lead to your desired goal. For example, you may try to incorporate elements of the vision into the work of activist organizations you are a part of.
You can figure out whether a certain policy, say raising the minimum wage, will get you closer to your ultimate goal or not. Does raising the minimum wage one time ultimately help you reach your true goal? Not really, if you win and then everyone goes home. But what if you fight for the minimum wage increase while at the same time realizing you need people to stay involved to win not only more wage increases, but a host of other policies that will bring the ultimate goal closer to fruition?
With this expanded perspective, you are more likely to incorporate political education into your movement and make use of the energy around raising the minimum wage to introduce concepts relating to your ultimate vision. As one example, people who support the vision of “participatory economics” support what they call “equitable remuneration”: the idea that people should get paid for effort, sacrifice, and need, which includes how long they work, how hard they work, the unpleasantness of their work, and their basic needs. This is opposed to getting paid for bargaining power or for simply already having property, which is how people are remunerated in capitalist markets.
If you want to learn more about vision, I recommend the Next Systems Reader. It consists of essays by many socialist visionaries. Topics include Gar Alperovitz’s vision of a pluralist commonwealth, David Schweickart’s vision of economic democracy, and Michael Albert and Robin Hahnels’ vision of participatory economics. The organization Real Utopia and the podcast RevolutionZ have also taught me a lot.
Detroit DSA has a socialist vision group. Past projects include a night school on participatory economics hosted by the Detroit DSA political education team, articles for the Detroit Socialist, and an interview with Michael Albert, co-creator of participatory economics, for the Detroit Socialist Podcast. The group meets roughly every two weeks, usually in -person.
If you would like to get involved email Travis F. at travis.w.froberg@gmail.com or join the socialist-vision-group channel in Detroit DSA’s Slack workspace. If you are a member of Detroit DSA but not on Slack yet, you can figure out how to join by emailing membership@metrodetroitdsa.com.
If you are not a member of Detroit DSA but would like to be, you can go to dsausa.org/join to become a member. Send a copy of the dues receipt to: membership@metrodetroitdsa.com in order to get plugged in to our activities!
The Detroit Socialist is written and produced by members of Detroit DSA’s Newspaper Collective.
