"More hierarchical organizational forms, such as parties or traditional union organizations, continued to entrench the predominant patriarchal and sexist social relations prevalent in the broader society. Considerable experimentation was therefore conducted to produce new organizational forms that could work against this social oppression. This included the use of consensus decision-making and horizontal debating strucures that would later come to worldwide fame with the #OccupyWallstreet movement."

The thing is, I've read a few books fairly critical of the #occupywallstreet "experiments". They were noble in ambition, but consensus based decision-making allowed the loudest voices to govern decision making. At one point the movement was on the verge of pulling in Congressman John Lewis to speak, but a minority within the gathering didn't want it. They missed an opportunity to make a critical ally for the movement.

Sigh... encountered my third reference to #Keynesian economics in this book - let's look it up:

"Keynes advocated increased government expenditures and lower taxes to stimulate demand and pull the global economy out of the depression. Subsequently, Keynesian economics was used to refer to the concept that optimal economic performance could be achieved -– and economic slumps prevented – by influencing aggregate demand through activist stabilization and economic intervention policies by the government."

"One particularly important approach to [right wing forces'] approach to political-economic strategy was to link the crisis of capitalism to union power. The subsequent defeat of organized labour throughout the core capitalist nations has perhaps been neo-liberalism's most important achievement, significantly changing the balance of power between labour and capital."

Never really understood this perception of #neoliberalism before - this explains a lot.

"Goldman Sachs doesn't care if you raise chickens." - Jodi Dean

Three big tendencies that Srnicek and Williams argue weaken leftist movements:

- horizontalism
- localism
- generally reactive decisionmaking

Huh. Interesting term that keeps popping up. "Alter-globalization" is the name of a social movement whose proponents support global cooperation and interaction, but oppose what they describe as the negative effects of economic globalization, considering that it often works to the detriment of, or does not adequately promote, human values such as environmental and #climateprotection, economic justice, labor protection, protection of indigenous cultures, peace, and #civi liberties."

Horizontalism has, according to the authors, four major commitments.

"1. A rejection of all forms of domination
2. An adherence to direct democracy and/or consensus decision-making
3. A commitment to prefigurative politics
4. An emphasis on direct action"

Prefigurative politics, by the way, are "the modes of organization and social relationships that strive to reflect the future society being sought by the group."

We must become the change we want to see in the world, I guess.

For those who are curious, I'm researching this book because I want to learn about what happens when automation really gets going and our current economic structures need to altered dramatically. I'm not a frothing anti-capitalist but I do think the system currently favors the wealthy over the poor.

"Prefigurative politics, at its worst... Ignites the forces aligned against it the creation and expansion of a new world. The simple positing and practicibf of a new world is insufficient to overcome these forces, as the repression faced by Occupy demonstration."

Oh boy, this book is now taking local food politics to task. Locally and inefficiently grown foods are not necessarily better than globally and efficiently produced foods.

Way to take the thrill out of my farmer's market, guys.

"Our problems are increasingly systemic and global, and they require an equally systemic response."

"...by every available measure the big US banks are larger today than at the beginning of the [2008 financial] crisis, holding 67 per cent of all assets in the US banking system."

"The systemic problems with the financial system can only be properly dealt with by taking apart financial power, whether by means of broad regulation (as was briefly achieved under post-war Keynsianism) or more revolutionary methods."

"We do not resist a new world into being; we resist in the name of an old world."

I appreciate this argument. Resistance doesn't build anything, it just seeks to stop something from happening. We can do better.

"While it can be important in some circumstances, in the task of building a new world, resistance is futile."

So is retreat to a commune, the authors argue. Such systems only limit, and not eliminate, the connection to capitalist structures. They use the Spanish town of Marinaleda as an example.

"If our era is dominated by one hegemonic ideology, it is that of #neoliberalism. It is widely assumed that the most effective way to produce and distribute goods and services is by allowing instrumentally rational individuals to exchange via the market. State regulations and national Industries are, by contrast, seen as distortions and efficiencies holding back the productive dynamics inherent to free markets."

@Argus localism certainly is a big problem, imo. For a lot of left leaning people, they're forced to move around a lot in cities and so on. In locality based political environments they're basically without representation as a group.

@Argus I think there are some other big problems, like preferring physical, real-time meetings - this ultimately must weaken the representation of those who have, for instance, difficult shift patterns and dependents - these are people the left must be trying to include as much as possible but (at least in the UK Labour Party) are excluded for all but a handful of national-level votes.

@Argus Ultimately, saying that you need to have free time, a reliable mode of transport and otherwise the means to attend meetings entrenches those who already have these privileges.