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So I don’t particularly agree with this article, but I feel like a lot of the conversation around it is off base.
I do think dues are a better model than fundraising. I’ve worked in and around fundraising for about 8 years now, & it’s structural logic is bad, folks. https://twitter.com/cpn_dsa/status/1356664369795465216
I do think dues are a better model than fundraising. I’ve worked in and around fundraising for about 8 years now, & it’s structural logic is bad, folks. https://twitter.com/cpn_dsa/status/1356664369795465216
Dedicated grant writing/solicitation is time consuming, expensive, & leads towards the same petty diplomacy that we criticize progressives/socdems for cowing to. There’s a reason that the nonprofit industrial complex is structurally incapable of challenging capital & the state.
HOWEVER, I think the article gets it wrong by not going far enough. Yes, money is a vital resource for a union or a fighting group, but it is a terrain that we cannot compete with capital on. “Poor People’s Movements” does a good job articulating why this is wrt unions.
Before unions legalized, Strike funds & mutual aid were incredibly important to winning demands. The second the unions legalized, however, those funds become hostages of the state. Union strikes when the contract says they can’t? Assets frozen.
Union uses its placement to make demands on other employers? Assets frozen. The legal restrictions/framework that unions exist in is meant to prevent them from being anything other than what they are: appendages of capital meant to ameliorate working class demands.
I dont mean that unions are bad, but we’ve seen what petty diplomacy they fall into when the only thing that matters to them protecting the war chest. That powerful tool can & does become an albatross around our necks. An overemphasis on the war chest in any group leads to NGOism
We will never have more money in the bank than capital & the second we have enough they will change the rules. Our game is not one that is played on that field.
So yeah, we should not be reliant on fundraising/grants (they should be used sparingly), but treating dues like a replacement for what is actually important, a conscious and fighting working class, is falling into the same traps. Revolutionary consciousness is not in a bank.
