I like the idea of a government shutdown, rather than a General Strike. A Strike hurts us, a shutdown hurts them. Strikes might work in other countries, because they don’t have a mechanism to shut down the government , but we do.
I was all for keeping it locked down last Fall, and all through 2026, and making the Midterm Election Campaign a giant national Food and Health Care drive. Show the nation who really cares, while MAGA loses their minds.
But as soon as the shutdown hit the airports, and the Donor Class couldn’t move their operatives around the country, the MAGA comedy act of Schmuck & Jeffries surrendered. We were winning that battle, but we got literally NOTHING in exchange. No wonder MAGA has such disrespectful disdain toward the weak cowardly Democrats. They deserve every bit of MAGA derision.
They aren’t going to care if we go on strike and get fired from our jobs and go homeless. But they’ll care if we shut down the MAGA government and hurt THEM.
A general strike absolutely hurts the owning class because the value their companies produce is created by the workers. When the workers stop working, then production stops and that is the single most direct way to hurt capitalist interests.
Again, workers take the hit. I don’t want self-inflicted wounds, and hope that the Sociopathic MAGA government will take pity on us, and change. They won’t change, they’ll just laugh at our morality.
I want to hurt MAGA, not citizens, and the best way to do that is take away their money, which is the ONLY thing they really care about.
Like I said, most countries don’t have a mechanism to shut down their nation’s government, so they have to default to a General Strike. But we have an alternative strategy that truly hurts them where they care the most, with less damage to the Citizens. Shouldn’t we start there?
We can always start with a Government Shutdown, and add the General Strike to it if we need to tighten the noose.
Again, you should read the history of the US because mass strikes and militant labour organization was precisely how workers wrestled concessions from the ruling class in the past. The idea that most countries don’t have a way to shut down their government is also nonsense. That’s just a strike carried out by government workers. Any country can do that.
Meanwhile, the type of a government shutdown you’re talking about can only be carried out by the politicians and it’s entirely out of the hands of the workers.
The labor strikes of the 30s were a almost a century ago, against a different kind of enemy, with different objectives. That was to obtain better wages, conditions, and workers rights. That has to be directed at the corporation that supplies those things.
But today, our first, and biggest beef is with the government. If we want to force them to react, we have to hit them directly. And remember, it’s MAGA, and they are really stupid. They require a 2x4 across the face, just to get their attention.
The government represents the class that holds power in society, and that’s been capital owning class both in the 30s and today. There’s been no fundamental change in how the system functions.
I think you may be focusing a bit too much on MAGA. Like yeah its a movement that is enacting change now but workers rights have been continuously stripped even before MAGA was even thought about. The reason why is because the workers have not organized a general strike for their own rights. (caused by a variety of factors; lack of support, distrust of others, union busting, union leaders betraying for capital interests, etc) but ultimately striking DOES hurt companies and demand better concessions within America. Many politicians are deeply invested in companies as well, take for example AI. If we had an organized general strike to prevent the use of AI in a majority of industries, we don’t even need the law to be passed to enforce it. This would tank investments in it and directly hurt capitalists. It would also empower workers to fight for more of their rights.
A disconnect you might be having is this idea that the majority of profit doesn’t come from the workers. While yes most capitalist wealth comes from speculative ventures and investments allowing them to use as collateral on loans. Those are primarily backed BY the excess value that is extracted from the labor force.
Capitalist forces workers to make chairs for 1$/chair and sells them for 10$. He uses another 1$ to pay for materials. He pockets 8$. (Lets assume he simply sells 1 a day for ease of math) An Investor buys a portion of his business for 10$, expecting the growth to pay off. So now the Capitalist, uses this as proof of growth and takes a loan for 18$ to buy more materials and pay for more workers. Now he has enough workers and materials to make 10 chairs a day. (10 workers make 1$/chair with 1$ cost to materials per day) Now the companies profits has grown and the Investor’s share, which previously was purchased for 10$ has now grown 10 times that and is worth 100$. Instead of selling, he stays invested and uses it as collateral to take out a 200$ loan.
By exploiting the workers of 90%~ of their true value, the company has enriched the Capitalist, and the Investor, despite them contributing nothing to the process. But has enriched the worker. The Capitalist could hire more workers to grow, or could pay the workers less, or use cheaper materials to make the chair, etc. But ultimately the WORKER is the sole source of value.
It doesn’t matter how complex the chain becomes, the workers are always the ones with all the power and value that is being taken from them. If the workers strike and stop producing chairs, the profit of the company drops, its value drops, the shares drop and the investor and capitalist are unable to pay back their loans.
This is the basic idea, in America there are tons of bail outs for corporations that use government funds to prevent companies from going under but the money used to do this is primarily taxed from people’s pay and spending within the country. It always affects them and the oppression is not just from MAGA but from the ruling bourgeoisie class as a whole. ICE existed way before trump and was STILL killing people in detention and putting families in camps.
Overly simplified and also sorry for using the chair example again i just really like it. Pls anyone send corrections if i got something wrong with the theory.
While government funding shutdowns do hurt more, the difference is that a general strike is an expression of the power of the Proletariat, while a government shutdown is an expression of the power of the Bourgeois parliament.
The Bourgeois parliament can be a progressive force when it is at odds with even more reactionary forces, but it will never be in the direct interest of the worker.
Valid perspective. It’s just that in America, we have NO worker protections, so if someone joins a General Strike, they can, and will be, fired, and there is NOTHING that they can do about it. I doubt they’d even be able to collect unemployment benefits.
I’m self-employed, if I don’t work, my family goes homeless and hungry. Nobody hates Trump and MAGA more than me, but I’m not destroying my family over something that simply won’t work. MAGA doesn’t care if people go on strike. They’ll fire them all, and there will be an endless line of scabs willing to take their place.
They’ve driven Citizens to the brink, and we have to constantly fight the pressure, or we’ll go over the edge. A General Strike is asking people to voluntarily jump off the cliff, to force MAGA to behave.
MAGA will NEVER behave, they’ll just watch people jump off the cliff, and laugh.
That’s why people organize. Black people with job insecurity fought against worse odds in the civil rights movement. You build community and mutual aid so you can afford to strike and get the concessions you need, and then keep organizing because the struggle doesn’t end there.
I like the idea of a government shutdown, rather than a General Strike. A Strike hurts us, a shutdown hurts them. Strikes might work in other countries, because they don’t have a mechanism to shut down the government , but we do.
I was all for keeping it locked down last Fall, and all through 2026, and making the Midterm Election Campaign a giant national Food and Health Care drive. Show the nation who really cares, while MAGA loses their minds.
But as soon as the shutdown hit the airports, and the Donor Class couldn’t move their operatives around the country, the MAGA comedy act of Schmuck & Jeffries surrendered. We were winning that battle, but we got literally NOTHING in exchange. No wonder MAGA has such disrespectful disdain toward the weak cowardly Democrats. They deserve every bit of MAGA derision.
They aren’t going to care if we go on strike and get fired from our jobs and go homeless. But they’ll care if we shut down the MAGA government and hurt THEM.
A general strike absolutely hurts the owning class because the value their companies produce is created by the workers. When the workers stop working, then production stops and that is the single most direct way to hurt capitalist interests.
Again, workers take the hit. I don’t want self-inflicted wounds, and hope that the Sociopathic MAGA government will take pity on us, and change. They won’t change, they’ll just laugh at our morality.
I want to hurt MAGA, not citizens, and the best way to do that is take away their money, which is the ONLY thing they really care about.
Like I said, most countries don’t have a mechanism to shut down their nation’s government, so they have to default to a General Strike. But we have an alternative strategy that truly hurts them where they care the most, with less damage to the Citizens. Shouldn’t we start there?
We can always start with a Government Shutdown, and add the General Strike to it if we need to tighten the noose.
Again, you should read the history of the US because mass strikes and militant labour organization was precisely how workers wrestled concessions from the ruling class in the past. The idea that most countries don’t have a way to shut down their government is also nonsense. That’s just a strike carried out by government workers. Any country can do that.
Meanwhile, the type of a government shutdown you’re talking about can only be carried out by the politicians and it’s entirely out of the hands of the workers.
The labor strikes of the 30s were a almost a century ago, against a different kind of enemy, with different objectives. That was to obtain better wages, conditions, and workers rights. That has to be directed at the corporation that supplies those things.
But today, our first, and biggest beef is with the government. If we want to force them to react, we have to hit them directly. And remember, it’s MAGA, and they are really stupid. They require a 2x4 across the face, just to get their attention.
The government represents the class that holds power in society, and that’s been capital owning class both in the 30s and today. There’s been no fundamental change in how the system functions.
I think you may be focusing a bit too much on MAGA. Like yeah its a movement that is enacting change now but workers rights have been continuously stripped even before MAGA was even thought about. The reason why is because the workers have not organized a general strike for their own rights. (caused by a variety of factors; lack of support, distrust of others, union busting, union leaders betraying for capital interests, etc) but ultimately striking DOES hurt companies and demand better concessions within America. Many politicians are deeply invested in companies as well, take for example AI. If we had an organized general strike to prevent the use of AI in a majority of industries, we don’t even need the law to be passed to enforce it. This would tank investments in it and directly hurt capitalists. It would also empower workers to fight for more of their rights.
A disconnect you might be having is this idea that the majority of profit doesn’t come from the workers. While yes most capitalist wealth comes from speculative ventures and investments allowing them to use as collateral on loans. Those are primarily backed BY the excess value that is extracted from the labor force.
Capitalist forces workers to make chairs for 1$/chair and sells them for 10$. He uses another 1$ to pay for materials. He pockets 8$. (Lets assume he simply sells 1 a day for ease of math) An Investor buys a portion of his business for 10$, expecting the growth to pay off. So now the Capitalist, uses this as proof of growth and takes a loan for 18$ to buy more materials and pay for more workers. Now he has enough workers and materials to make 10 chairs a day. (10 workers make 1$/chair with 1$ cost to materials per day) Now the companies profits has grown and the Investor’s share, which previously was purchased for 10$ has now grown 10 times that and is worth 100$. Instead of selling, he stays invested and uses it as collateral to take out a 200$ loan.
By exploiting the workers of 90%~ of their true value, the company has enriched the Capitalist, and the Investor, despite them contributing nothing to the process. But has enriched the worker. The Capitalist could hire more workers to grow, or could pay the workers less, or use cheaper materials to make the chair, etc. But ultimately the WORKER is the sole source of value.
It doesn’t matter how complex the chain becomes, the workers are always the ones with all the power and value that is being taken from them. If the workers strike and stop producing chairs, the profit of the company drops, its value drops, the shares drop and the investor and capitalist are unable to pay back their loans.
This is the basic idea, in America there are tons of bail outs for corporations that use government funds to prevent companies from going under but the money used to do this is primarily taxed from people’s pay and spending within the country. It always affects them and the oppression is not just from MAGA but from the ruling bourgeoisie class as a whole. ICE existed way before trump and was STILL killing people in detention and putting families in camps.
Overly simplified and also sorry for using the chair example again i just really like it. Pls anyone send corrections if i got something wrong with the theory.
-edit: formatting issues
While government funding shutdowns do hurt more, the difference is that a general strike is an expression of the power of the Proletariat, while a government shutdown is an expression of the power of the Bourgeois parliament.
The Bourgeois parliament can be a progressive force when it is at odds with even more reactionary forces, but it will never be in the direct interest of the worker.
Valid perspective. It’s just that in America, we have NO worker protections, so if someone joins a General Strike, they can, and will be, fired, and there is NOTHING that they can do about it. I doubt they’d even be able to collect unemployment benefits.
I’m self-employed, if I don’t work, my family goes homeless and hungry. Nobody hates Trump and MAGA more than me, but I’m not destroying my family over something that simply won’t work. MAGA doesn’t care if people go on strike. They’ll fire them all, and there will be an endless line of scabs willing to take their place.
They’ve driven Citizens to the brink, and we have to constantly fight the pressure, or we’ll go over the edge. A General Strike is asking people to voluntarily jump off the cliff, to force MAGA to behave.
MAGA will NEVER behave, they’ll just watch people jump off the cliff, and laugh.
That’s why people organize. Black people with job insecurity fought against worse odds in the civil rights movement. You build community and mutual aid so you can afford to strike and get the concessions you need, and then keep organizing because the struggle doesn’t end there.
Either a radlib or a fed