Either Win With an Egalitarian Class Framework for Activism that Creates Unity of the Have-Nots, or Lose Without This Unity By Accepting a Divisive Non-Egalitarian Framework.
The ruling class remains in power today by censoring and suppressing the egalitarian/class framework
Here’s the egalitarian framework that is what it takes for the have-nots to win even good reforms not to mention revolution:
The chief conflict in the world is between the values and aims of the have-nots—the vast majority of people—versus the contrary values and aims of the (currently) ruling haves.
The have-nots value equality (in the sense of no rich and no poor in an economy based on “From each according to reasonable ability, to each according to need or reasonable desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need” as described here), mutual aid (concern for one another, working class solidarity), fairness, truth, and freedom (in the sense of being able to act freely in a society based on these values) and they would LOVE to shape all of society by these values (which is what egalitarian revolution is all about.) I call these values and aims egalitarian values and aims and the people who have them egalitarians whether they have ever heard that word or not. Most people are egalitarians!
Genuine democracy is when egalitarians, not anti-egalitarians, have the real power in society. One way to make a genuine democracy is for the sovereign power (no higher authority) in any given community to be the local assembly of egalitarians open to all adult egalitarians in that community and only to such people, as described here.
The haves value inequality (some rich and privileged and some poor and treated like dirt), domination of the many by the few, pitting people against each other to control them, lying to people in order to control and dominate them, freedom only insofar as one does not challenge the wealth and power and privilege of the ruling haves.
The have-nots routinely try to shape the small corner of the world over which they have any real control with their egalitarian values, usually with just personal—not large collective—actions, and without thinking of this as political but just what a decent person does. These routine acts nonetheless are implicitly revolutionary because they reflect values and aims that, were they to shape all of society, would mean an egalitarian revolution: the abolition of class inequality and oppression and, of course, the removal of the haves from power.
When the have-nots carry out collective actions to win some reform, it is invariably the case that the REASON they want this particular reform is because they believe it will make society at least a little bit more like the egalitarian way they want ALL of society to be. But the have-nots typically don’t tell the general public of their larger egalitarian revolutionary aims because they wrongly believe that if they did it would turn the general public (other have-nots) against them. They have this wrong believe because the haves work VERY HARD to censor any expression or egalitarian values and aims, as discussed here.
The haves know that if they don’t somehow prevent it, the have-nots would remove them from power. To prevent this the haves use the strategy of divide-and-rule (especially along race lines in the Unites States, as described here and more recently along other lines also as described here) and also by pitting “one’s own” have-nots against a bogeyman enemy as described in detail here. The haves aim to make the have-nots believe that they are essentially all alone in wanting an egalitarian revolution, by hiding the fact that this is what virtually all the have-nots really want and by making it seem as if the have-nots were each other’s enemies, and thereby making the have-nots feel hopeless about the possibility of making an egalitarian revolution so that they will not even try.
In order for have-nots anywhere to win even a substantial reform, never mind an egalitarian revolution, they need to have the support of as many have-nots in their own locality and also of have-nots elsewhere as possible. The way to gain this support is to make all the have-nots (i.e., the general public) understand the above facts and thus to see that the have-nots fighting for some particular reform are aiming to make the world egalitarian, exactly the same goal as the have-nots eleswhere want so very much. I discuss this in connection with the Amazon Labor Union here. I discuss this in connection with the struggle against Zionism here.1 I discuss this in connection with the struggle against CRT here.
When the egalitarian/class framework is not used, and when people instead wage reform struggles without explicitly aiming for egalitarian revolution and thus accepting as given the anti-egalitarian nature of our society (capitalism, some rich and some poor, buying and selling instead of sharing according to “From each according to reasonable ability, to each according to need or reasonable desire with scarce things equitably rationed according to need”) then inevitably the have-nots who are not waging the reform struggle will have understandable reasons (that the ruling haves will be sure to point out!) for believing that the reform in question will make their lives worse, not better, and that therefore they should oppose, not support, the have-nots fighting for the reform.
Here are some examples of how using a non-egalitarian framework is divisive and leads to defeat: a) When have-nots fight to raise the minimum wage but otherwise accept the capitalist status quo, then the haves point out that if the minimum wage is raised then many have-nots will lose their job because it will no longer be possible for their employer to hire them profitably. b) When the have-nots demand rent control, the haves point out that if landlords cannot raise their rents then they will no longer have sufficient reason to make the repairs and usual upkeep and maintenance for their buildings and renters will suffer, and furthermore developers will no longer have sufficient reason to build more housing except for the very wealthy and so many have-nots won’t be able to find a place to rent at all. c) When non-white have-nots demand reparations without using the egalitarian framework, the haves EASILY turn many good have-nots against them, as I discuss here. d) When have-nots make any demand on the grounds that something is the right of ALL (instead of on the grounds that the economy should be based on egalitarian economic principle of “From each according…”), then the haves point out that this demand means that people who work (i.e., other have-nots) will be taxed and thereby forced to pay for providing something to people who could, but refuse, to work (freeloaders), which means essentially making the people who work slaves of the people who refuse to work. I discuss this here and here and here.
There is no GOOD reason for have-nots not to use the egalitarian framework, only bad reasons.
The egalitarian framework is the way to WIN by gaining maximum support from the general public. But the have-nots are not winning. Very seldom do struggles by the have-nots use the egalitarian framework to gain strength. Why is that?
There are several reasons. Here are some of them:
The haves do everything they can, with the enormous power they wield, to prevent anyone from expressing the egalitarian framework. I discuss how Big $ does this with respect to anti-Zionism organizations here. In 2014 I wrote about how Big $ funds almost every “progressive” organization in the United States, and thereby prevents them from using the egalitarian framework; my article is here, and over time the links in it have become broken or outdated, but you can still see from it how extensive is the control that Big $ has over “progressive” organizations. The major social network platforms such as YouTube and Facebook, etc. suppress outright or marginalize any expression of the egalitarian framework. For example, YouTube took down my video titled “Israel’s Government Is Controlled by Israeli Billionaires and Used to Oppress Ordinary Jews As Well As Palestinians” (it’s now here on Vimeo) and warned me (with its “three strikes and you’re out” policy) that if I continued to post such videos my entire YouTube channel would be removed.
The leaders of have-not reform struggles, even if they are not reliant on Big $ funding as discussed above, might avoid using the egalitarian framework because they fear (wrongly, as discussed in item #6 above) that if they did they would lose support from the general public. Furthermore, these leaders are typically under no pressure from their rank-and-file to use the egalitarian framework because the rank-and-file also fear that it would make them lose support from the general public.
Leaders of have-not reform efforts have good reason to fear what would happen to them, personally, if they used the egalitarian framework. They know that Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X were killed by the haves for expressing ideas similar to the egalitarian framework, as I discuss here. The FBI assassinated Black Panther leaders such as Fred Hampton (read about this here) who were talking about unity of the have-nots of all races. Less dramatically but nonetheless importantly, leaders of have-not reform efforts know that if they use the egalitarian framework this means they are essentially declaring class war against the haves—all of the haves and not just the “bad” ones. They know that doing this makes it more likely that the haves will retaliate against them in some manner, possibly firing them from their job or ending their career or at least never promoting them, or ending their ability to raise funds from people (the “good” haves) they otherwise could get support from, and so on. Additionally a leader who uses the egalitarian framework can expect the mass media to assassinate their character if not their physical life, to accuse them of being “pro-Hamas” or “pro-Stalinist totalitarianism” or something else just as scary.
Many have-nots just don’t know about the egalitarian framework. What they do know about is what Big $ wants them to know about: anti-egalitarian frameworks, such as the “All people have a right to X” framework that I discuss here, or the “We need a Marxist party in power” framework that I discuss here and here or the “We need to just go back to following the United States Constitution and the Founding Fathers” framework that I discuss here and here.
But if somebody chooses not to use the egalitarian framework, they cannot argue that it’s because most people don’t agree with it. In fact, most people DO agree with it, as I prove here.
The BEST reason for using the egalitarian framework, and thus building a movement that aims EXPLICITLY for egalitarian revolution is this: If one doesn’t explicitly aim to abolish class inequality, then class inequality will never be abolished. This is the lesson of the best reform movements, the ones that won the 8 hour day and abolished slavery and abolished Jim Crow and abolished apartheid in South Africa: they did indeed succeed in winning what they explicitly aimed to win, but they did not abolish class inequality because they never explicitly aimed to do so. The result: HORRIBLE class inequality today: people have to work more than one 8-hour job; slavery became wage slavery; Jim Crow became the New Jim Crow of racist prison incarceration; conditions for working class black people in South Africa today are arguably worse now than during the days of apartheid.
Read here how YOU can help build the egalitarian revolutionary movement to remove the haves from power and abolish class inequality.
By not using the egalitarian class framework, anti-Zionists in New York City have made it very easy for pro-Zionists to persuasively accuse them of being antisemites who support the killing of unarmed Israeli Jewish civilians, and thereby turn many have-nots against the anti-Zionism movement. For example, this article in The Guardian takes advantage of the stupid behavior of anti-Zionists in NYC to make this accusation of antisemitism.