Methods of Social Reproduction

Any social group needs some way to maintain social cohesion. This is just as true of progressive groups as any other sort of group.

A group may be run in a top-down way and with little progressive consciousness and still be more or less progressive in effect. A scientific vaccination program to prevent childhood diseases might be such a program.

On the other hand a progressive group or organization may be united by common values and political beliefs. It might be argued that a group which is united because of values and politics is genuinely progressive while the other kind of organization, based on pay or a draft or some involuntary participation is not. Of course outcomes need to be evaluated not just levels of political consciousness. Organizations often operate with some democracy. Of course some do not.

I tend to think that political consciousness is crucial in determining whether an organization is progressive or not. Political consciousness determines whether an oppressed group simply accepts a slave mentality, usually forced upon it by the oppressor elites or develops a revolutionary mentality to achieve liberation from exploitation and abuse by those elites.

Of course progressives are more and more thinking about the better society they seek. What would it be like? So that is important as well, but I still shy away from detailed Utopian solutions as general prescriptions. Still, we can hardly overthrow rulers without someone else or some group of people ruling in their stead. What is a substantially liberating way to do that?

Currently I am a lot more interested in whether those we are studying are progressive in their current ideas and current actions. As always the struggle for survival competes with the struggle to create a new world. Of course if we conclude that the problems of our survival both economically and ecologically are the result of an antiquated and destructive system called capitalism then we have to substantially overthrow whatever is bad in that system.

LIBERATION STRUGGLE SPACES

We assume that there are such things as social oppression whereby people, or at least some
group of people, the oppressed, are seriously taken advantage of or otherwise exploited by generally a relative few, the oppressors. These egregiously unequal or exploitative relationships
are enduring and persistent or they are something else, something less than social oppression because it is something less than a broad social phenomenon.


Of course there are different spheres of social oppression at any given time in any given place. We can readily list the oppression of labor, the oppression of women, the oppression of racial or ethnic groups, the oppression of gays, bisexuals, lesbians and trans folks, etc..

Social oppression takes place at numerous levels in society. Sometimes it is what a person
does to herself, within her own head! Sometimes we live by the rules the oppressive relationship expects of us, sometimes we have little choice, and in those circumstances we
will find the oppressor developing all sorts of ideas representative of his social situation as the
oppressor and that the oppressed may develop, does to some extent develop the oppressed point of view which is generally one of discontent unless the oppressed individual accepts the oppressed role and basically "stays in her place".

Other times it is one-on-one oppression with no one else directly involved.

Then there is that whole universe of small group based oppression within or between groups.

Moving in the macro direction we have institutional, more culturally global mechanisms of oppression which can have many working parts include legislation, judicial and law enforcement, how resources are distributed, opportunities provided and wealth ultimately consumed.

Depending upon how history unfolds we may see nations either befriend or antagonize one another.

Some even imagine a worldwide clash of Islamic and Christian cultures, one wonders where the huge portion of the world's population who are neither Christian nor Islamic fit into that story.

Of course we cannot fail to note the ultimate oppression, the destruction of our own ecosystem
basically because of irrational and market driven economic decisions and reactionary, backward, social institutions that stymie the rational management of worldwide, national, regional, and local development.