What Economism is and What Economism is Not

The sign of a brain warped by the infantile disorder of ultra-leftism is refusing to do the base building work that lays the foundation for the bringing in of the thousands of cadre that we need to build a Marxist-Leninist-Maoist party in the United States. The party-building formation to which I belong and played a role in founding (MCP-OC aka Organizing Committee for a Maoist Communist Party), our mass organizations, along with various Maoist leaning/base building groups oriented around Marxist Center, such as Silk City Socialists, are actively in the process of developing base building institutions that can develop dual power in our areas over a period of years. What is dual power? Essentially, it is a situation where a network of Communist led institutions and mass organizations such as tenants’ unions, militant labor unions, self defense groups/militias, student organizations, unemployed unions, teachers’ unions, and various other organizations wield power, meaning that the masses of a given area have begun to take concrete steps towards controlling their own destiny. Mass is not 40 people in a city of 4 million. Mass power is the ability to make demands and make them felt. Mass organizations are not social clubs, they are instruments of class struggle, participants in the United Front, guided by the Party. Mass organizations are wellsprings of new cadre, the very best cadre hardened in the furnace of militant class struggle. To build these organizations, it is necessary to provide concrete and correct leadership informed by theory and unite with the masses in their economic struggles.

Why do people join organizations such as tenants’ unions and labor unions? Because these things provide bases of support for them and their family and have the ability to fight and, most importantly, win. A copwatch organization gets members and the trust of the community by running off the cops. A tenants’ union gets support and new membership by getting rent reductions and repairs. Before we can talk to people about protracted people’s war, we need to be able to organize and see through a successful protracted rent strike. This is what guarantees people that we are sincere in our commitment to serving the people and that we aren’t just idlers full of shit. People must see results, people must see things that we have accomplished. Running off neo-nazis from some concert is well and good, but a 45 year old black janitor doesn’t give a damn. The juvenile nature and orientation of many elements of the modern day “Communist” movement in the United States, wanting to put the PPW before the base area, is simply leading to defeat and disillusionment, and a reorientation towards base building and away from ultra-leftist obsession with “militarization” is necessary. Indeed, it is important to train and develop oneself physically and mentally for combat, but even more important is to expand beyond groups of 5–10 people. Individualism, focusing on the cultivation of oneself for some mythical dual to the death with “fascists” is not winning a mass base. Furthermore, even after all the militarization, if you get your ass kicked in street fights (hello, medical bills) or busted by the police (hello, court costs, legal fees, and time spent sitting in prison), you’re actually losing prestige among the people who are tired of you begging for money for your own adventurism instead of serving them and helping them. It’s good to fight fascism, mind you, but it’s better to build a solid base of people who will respond by the thousands instead of the dozens.

So, economism. One of the irksome complaints of the shrinking ultra-left set is that serve the people programs, tenant work, copwatch, etc. is “economism/productivism”, which essentially means that politics are on the back burner, and providing material gains is in the front. There is definitely economist/productivist practice present on the “left”, mainly among Trotskyist formations such as Socialist Alternative which seems to have liquidated politics (what little they had left) and focused on tailing various electoral campaigns and Fight for $15. This is incorrect and is proven by the fact that many who enter these types of organizations quickly get burnt out by the cynicism and pragmatism and the washing out of revolutionary politics for the sake of the “movement”. This is wrong. We must be upfront about our politics, we must represent ourselves as Maoists, and, most importantly, we must make others into Maoists. Ultra-leftists seek out dazzling, media attention catching things such as breaking windows, street fights, getting arrested, setting fires, parading with guns, rioting, etc. If these things aren’t in their immediate future, they leave them to others. This is the mindset of a 16 year old insurrectionary anarchist, not an adult Communist, nevermind a Maoist. Meanwhile, the masses are still starving, crushed under high rents, abused on the job, and beaten by the police. Where were you between the riots? Politics definitely must be kept in command, yes. But, if your politics leads you to sit out the day-to-day struggles of the masses and wall yourselves off into your sectarian tower because an individual or a formation you personally dislike is present or active, you are Wang Ming, not Mao. If people need an attorney, why would you not help them get one? If people need medical treatment, why would you ignore this as economist? You obviously don’t give a damn.

Dogmatism and sectarianism are the main killers in the “Red Guard” oriented wing of the American Maoist movement. This is why many people compare it to the cult-like formations of the NCM, or, even worse, the People’s Temple. Their obvious degeneration from what they were in the aftermath of the NCP-LC collapse has demonstrably been a brake on the further development of this movement and, thankfully, it has no future. Many have already learned this through practice. If they see building fighting tenant organizations that can actually get results (yelling at a cat cafe for almost a year while Austin continues to be gentrified to all hell is not ‘results’), providing for the material needs of class siblings, developing broad coalitions and united fronts, developing tactical unity with comrades with which we have reason to do so while reserving our views on questions of line which have nothing to do with the purpose of the coalition or united front, and generally putting into practice what we have learned from the Chinese experience as being opportunist, liberal, and economist, so be it. The simple fact of the matter is that until Maoists in the United States can prove, through practice, to millions of people that we are capable of leadership and that we know what the fuck we are doing through provision of leadership in economic struggles that people actually care about and consistent, patient agitation and propaganda that, along with our leadership, convinces people through practice that we deserve to lead and be paid attention to, we will continue to be fringe. We did become Maoists to be popular, and my comrades and I, so far, are quite popular, economist or not. Politics is in command, a politics informed by the concrete conditions of the masses of people. This rational politics, not the not-so-Red anymore Guards’ blathering about economism, revisionism, productivism, and other words that they seem to have very little concrete understanding of due to their own limited and inferior practice mainly consisting of wrecking, picking fights with Canadian Maoists in Facebook groups, and threatening to throw dynamite at members of PSL to the uproarious applause of the FBI, is that which will inevitably carry the day.