Unions have relied on staff to encourage members to build the union through new organizing at non-union workplaces, but they could be doing much more.

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2024 COMMITTEE PLATFORM UPDATES

Proposed Platforms

• Administrative Committee (Standing Committee)
• Climate Justice Committee
• Electoral Committee (Standing Committee)
• Housing and Homelessness Committee
• Labor Committee
• Mutual Aid Committee
  • Proposed Amendment to Mutual Aid Committee Platform
• Political Education Committee

Language updated and/or added to the platforms as of October 28, 2024, are noted with red colored text.

You can review more details and information about the 2024 Committee Platform Updates Plan and Process here.

Finalizing the Committee Platforms

The ratified Committee Platforms and Contested Amendments will be presented, debated, and voted on at the November Chapter Meeting on Saturday, November 9th.

Each platform and proposed amendment will receive a 2 minute motivation, followed by arguments for and against to conclude with a vote by show of hands. Each argument for and against will not exceed 75 seconds. Each debate block, which covers both the motivation and arguments for and against, will not exceed 9 minutes. Contested floor amendments will not be permitted given there was a formal process to submit amendments that concluded on October 28, 2024.

Committee Platforms must receive a two-thirds supermajority vote of the meeting attendees to be adopted and finalized. Proposed Amendments must receive a 50% + 1 vote of the meeting attendees to amend a Committee Platform.

The above set of rules are the same set of rules used for the 2024 DSA-LA Chapter Convention.

Administrative Committee

(Standing Committee)
admin@dsa-la.org
Ratified at October Branch Meetings

Administrative Committee (AdCom) is a standing committee of DSA-LA that exists to fulfill core administrative work and assist elected leaders in making the chapter run smoothly by adding capacity to Steering Committee & building institutional functions. The committee is to work according to the direction of Steering Committee and its appointed liaisons.

Membership – AdCom members are to be appointed by Steering Committee by simple majority . Eligible candidates must attend at least two meetings of the committee followed by a written recommendation from Administrative Committee to Steering Committee on the appointment. Appointed members should be highly capable members who know how to develop projects and delegate tasks. Members will serve at the pleasure of Steering Committee or until resignation.

Chair – Per the bylaws, as a standing committee, a chair should be elected annually by the chapter from among committee’s membership.

Working Groups – Appointed AdCom members are given a mandate to lead approved Working Groups made up of volunteers who have been onboarded and trained to handle specific tasks. Working group meetings will not be posted on the calendar, but there should be clearly advertised opportunities for interested members to learn how to get involved. Working groups should not launch their own large-scale projects without guidance from a Steering Committee liaison, although they are empowered to use discretion when it comes to implementing directives given to them.

The currently approved Working Groups include:

• Operations (supporting the Recording Secretary via chapter tech projects and issues related to member data)
• Events (supporting Steering-At-Large via chapter meetings and other events)
• Comms (supporting the Communications Director via external and internal communications)
• Finance and Fundraising (supporting the Treasurer in maintaining the financial health of the organization)
• Growth & Development (supporting Steering-At-Large via member recruitment, capacity development, & recommitment)

Voting Facilitation – AdCom members will support internal elections/voting within the chapter by facilitating the formation & training of the Nominations Committee, performing the logistical tasks associated with internal chapter votes & sharing the results with Steering Committee, & aiding leadership transition by sharing access information & documentation.

Climate Justice Committee

climatejustice@dsa-la.org
Ratified at a Committee Meeting

Introduction
At DSA-LA Climate Justice, we believe capitalism is the root cause of the climate crisis. Capitalism requires continuous growth, but you can’t have infinite growth on a finite planet. Capitalism tells us that our personal consumer choices are the only way to express our values, but the climate crisis demands a systemic, institutional overhaul. Capitalism tells us that market forces optimize outcomes, but the invisible hand chokes, smashes, and steals. Decades of denial, deception, and exploitation show how capitalism consolidates power at our collective peril. Capitalism pits workers against each other, but protecting ourselves and the planet requires solidarity. We can truly address the climate crisis through collective action, where workers and communities unite. Capitalism foists “negative externalities” on people who never had a say in decisions to extract our planet’s natural resources or exploit workers. While billionaires, the wealthy, and corporations contribute the most to the climate crisis, the ones who bear the brunt of the consequences, such as low-income workers and BIPOC communities, are often the ones least responsible.

The climate crisis is not a standalone issue; it intersects with all parts of DSA’s work. Will we allow market forces to hasten our descent into cruelty and injustice, or will we seize this opportunity to reshape our economy and way of living? The socialist response is clear: solidarity, organizing, and action. We refuse to be disheartened by the challenge of the climate emergency, and instead, we stand in unity with our fellow workers and inhabitants of this planet. As stated in DSA’s Green New Deal Principles, We can no longer tolerate an extractive system that siphons wealth from nature, communities, workers, and vulnerable communities while burdening them with all the costs. We will no longer accept corporate monopolies and their political puppets dictating the resources we need and the course of our lives. We demand justice and power for The People to shape our future—one that is inclusive, equitable, and just for everyone today and future generations.

Our long-term goal is implementing a real Green New Deal in Los Angeles. This includes:

• Energy — let’s decarbonize and democratize the grid and create good-paying green union jobs.
  • Cap and clean all oil industry sites and polluted brownfields with union workers setting aside ample land for green space and mixed-income public housing.
  • Offer a “just transition” for all workers currently employed in fossil fuel industries to unionized jobs in clean energy.
  • Create new public programs to ensure equitable climate adaptation. Ensure that no Angelenos are left behind during climate instability, such as drought, heat waves, etc
• Robust Public Transit & Pedestrian Safety
  • LA is ramping up public transit projects in the lead-up to the 2028 Olympics. Any new projects should focus on city residents rather than just visitors.
  • Newly built and created transit lines should provide restrooms, shade, and expanded housing & crisis intervention services.
  • Transit should be fare-free for ALL riders.
  • Bike lanes, sidewalks, and pedestrian crossings should be upkept and expanded with funds for Measure HLA.
• Land use — let’s prioritize people and nature instead of private profit.
  • Protecting local biodiversity by planting trees and promoting drought tolerant vegetation is one of the best ways to combat the urban heat island effect. In addition, we oppose sprawl as a way to build more housing, and supporting inclusionary zoning and infill affordable housing development allowing folks to live close to where they work and go to school.
  • All people should have access to robust public spaces such as parks and green space as a means of building strong communities.
• Protecting our water resources
  • Water conservation practices such as: stormwater capture, utilizing drought-tolerant and native plants in open spaces, gardens, and front yards are essential to decreasing our reliance on imported water to Southern California
  • Reduced reliance on plastics is essential to reduce pollution in our oceans.

Leadership Structure

The DSA-LA Climate Justice Committee is led by two chairs and two coordinators, elected for one-year terms during the chapter-wide elections held at the beginning of each year. Committee Chairs are responsible for formulating agendas and facilitating regular meetings accessible to the general DSA-LA membership. They help maintain focus and move forward on the program and priorities that were established by the committee. Committee Chairs also direct an onboarding process for new members to the committee and to the local chapter. Committee Coordinators are responsible for staying updated on ongoing work and opportunities to collaborate and share resources across DSA-LA’s internal resources and other issue-based committees. Coordinators will also send reports and communications to steering as required by the local’s bylaws. Any DSA-LA member in good standing is eligible to run for Climate Justice Committee chair or coordinator.

Near-Term Goals

1. Agitate towards escalating climate strikes in coalition with other climate groups, Palestine human rights groups supporting BDS, and organized labor.
2. Work to elect leaders who believe in the Green New Deal project, and utilize the DSA SIO program to work continuously with them post-election to fight for a real Green New Deal.
3. Lobby legislators and administrators for climate justice. This includes ongoing efforts to shut down dangerous gas facilities such as Aliso Canyon, Playa Del Rey, and the Chevron refinery in El Segundo and supporting statewide efforts to bring private utilities under public control.
4. Host regular meetings focused on the political education of committee members and DSA-LA members to encourage the growth of new leaders trained in ecosocialist organizing.
5. Ensure that LA City Council and other relevant bodies fully fund and enact Measure HLA and the 2035 Mobility Plan and other opportunities to improve pedestrian and cyclist safety.
6. Ensure that a viable successor to Proposition K (a measure that provides tax funding for parks and recreation facilities, which expires in 2026) is written, passed, and implemented. Utilize the SIO program to shape a new city project aligning with ecosocialist principles.
7. Organize transit ridership and transit labor around opportunities to improve public transit safety, cleanliness, and reliability in Los Angeles. Prioritize providing fare-free transit to all, building and improving amenities to serve riders and workers, demilitarizing Metro security and intervention, and improving working conditions for all Metro workers.
8. Coordinate with local union leaders to encourage adding GND principles to union contracts during collective bargaining, similar to the GND4PS demands that UTLA won in 2023.
9. In coalition with other community partners, demand that city leaders green public spaces such as the LA River and areas affected by the Urban Heat Island Effect. Engage in direct action by planting native trees, flowers, and other foliage, as well as cleanup projects and invasive species removal; utilize such events as outreach & recruitment opportunities.
10. Implement city-wide programs to systemically increase tree canopy to fight the urban heat island effect.
11. In conjunction with SIO, push city council and county officials to effectively utilize Measure W funds to create more stormwater capture programs for residents.
12. Push for developing more distributed generation solar/clean energy production & storage in communities most affected by pollution, creating green jobs, especially in communities of color.

Electoral Committee

(Standing Committee)
electoralpolitics@dsa-la.org
Ratified at a Committee Meeting

MISSION STATEMENT
A democratic socialist world will only be possible when the multiracial working class — the vast majority of society who live off a wage, not wealth — is organized and united in struggle against the capitalist class that rules over our workplaces, our political system, and our lives.

The Electoral Politics Committee of DSA-LA exists to build power through endorsing and developing winning candidates, and by developing member campaign skills to likewise grow capable organizers able to serve in and staff a socialist candidate’s office, to truly bring socialist policy to the municipal halls of power. Key to this is a coherent political analysis held by our membership, and membership buy-in to chapter electoral campaigns. As part of this strategy we will also work with unions, community groups, allies, and other coalition partners to identify organizers outside of DSA-LA who we can recruit into our chapter and run as candidates. The end goal of these actions is to create an enduring political organization and be able to run a slate of DSA-LA developed candidates to seize local offices on a large scale and begin controlling the pathway to larger regional and national offices.

LEADERSHIP STRUCTURE
The Electoral Politics committee is composed of 5 committee members with one designated as a Chair by a formal vote. The role of the Chair is to set the agenda every meeting and to serve as the primary point of contact for Steering. The Committee also selects a member of the body to serve as the point(s) of contact for the Chapter’s Communications team.

Additionally, the Committee helps to appoint members to liaise with representatives of elected offices per the Socialist in Office (SIO) program, while also acting as liaisons during the term of the Committee.

If a committee member faces a conflict of interest, for example as a staffer of an elected office or involvement in an Independent Expenditure committee for an endorsed candidate, the committee member will recuse themselves from discussion and decisions making as needed.

COMMITTEE GOALS
Elections are one of the primary avenues through which ordinary working people experience politics. We run class-struggle electoral campaigns that appeal to the interests of the vast majority of Americans, foregrounding issues like housing, healthcare, education, racial justice, international anti-imperialism, and environmental justice. These campaigns create opportunities to bring our communities, our neighbors, and our unions into a united struggle against capitalist-backed candidates and corporate political interests.

Committee members are first and foremost tasked with carrying out the chapter’s electoral strategy as referenced in the Mission Statement as well as formalized in the 2021-2022 DSA National Electoral Committee Strategy. This includes identifying races and candidates where DSA-LA can make a meaningful impact on the electoral structure of Los Angeles County, supporting the working groups of Chapter endorsed candidates/campaigns, and coordinating directly with endorsed candidates around Chapter priorities. It is with this strategy in mind that we aim to become an incubator for democratic socialist candidates that carry a shared theory of change not just as a “progressive” campaign to get the most votes, but one that can organize with DSA-LA a working class base far after election day ends.

DSA’s model of electoral organizing is based on selecting races, making endorsements, winning elections and using the platform of public office in ways that advance class struggle by building a working class political movement. It is critical to avoid the trap of membership being understood as purely a volunteer base for campaigns to pull from. Rather, our membership engages in and shapes campaigns to run elections in the service of a transformative democratic socialist movement, not as an end in itself. That requires class struggle campaigns that develop a message and platform that speaks to working people’s needs and aspirations, and forces political actors to answer the question “which side are you on”. DSA campaigns should identify not just specific reforms that we want, but help polarize people against the corporate and capitalist interests that actively work to disempower them.

COMMITTEE PROJECTS
1-2 Year Goals

• Revise the Democratic Socialist Program. The DSP is a written assessment of what we believe we can achieve legislatively in Los Angeles County in the next several election cycles. The first iteration of DSP was written in 2021.
• Expand the DSA-LA SIO bench with strategic endorsements that support organizers running for office, engage DSA-LA members in class struggle elections, and bring new members into the chapter.
• Defend the 2022 wins by supporting the re-election campaigns of Eunisses Hernandez, Hugo Soto-Martinez, and Rocío Rivas
• Engage bases in SIO districts to defend against attacks from the right or establishment
• Power map Los Angeles at the city-wide level, and build up chapter capacity to get involved in strategic city-wide races.
• Identify municipalities outside City of Los Angeles with conditions and building blocks that provide avenues for running candidates to advance socialist policies, building organizing power, and other strategic opportunities
• Begin to build a roster of DSA-LA members who can staff council offices, particularly leadership roles, and other various jobs within city departments
• Complete other projects assigned to the Electoral Politics Committee through the 2024 Socialists in Office: Advancing a Program of Mass Politics resolution. Namely, interviewing other chapters with an SIO program to learn from their structure, compare progress, and bring areas of growth back to the chapter

3-5 Year Goals

• Run cadre DSA-LA members for office in viable and strategic campaigns
• Collaborate with labor and other coalition partners in identifying and developing candidates
• Create a training program to develop members for upper-level campaign and elected office staff
• Elevate members to non-elected impactful roles within municipal government, such as departments, commissions, or other bodies with key influence
• Expand our capacity to write legislation in partnership with sitting DSA-LA electeds
• Continue producing the DSA-LA voter guide for primary and general elections, and increase clicks and readership to expand the influence of recommendations

Housing and Homelessness Committee

hnh@dsa-la.org
Ratified at a Committee Meeting

Mission Statement:
Shelter is a fundamental requirement for human survival and a basic means of subsistence. As socialists we affirm that housing should be a human right for all. We reject the capitalist system which creates and allocates housing as a commodity on the basis of its ability to generate surplus value for capitalists. We recognize that the capitalist class creates housing precarity and scarcity as a way to coerce us into laboring for them.

Because capitalism is the root of our varied housing crises the only solutions lie outside the capitalist market for housing. We will pursue both tenant organizing and “non-reformist reforms” which improve the existing power imbalance between land owners and tenants/the unhoused. We support the decommodification of existing housing and the development of new, decommodified housing which provides residents with a safe, sound, clean, healthy, environmentally sustainable, and permanent place to live, in proximity to jobs, under the direct control of residents themselves, which is not predicated on the displacement of other residents, which provides remedy and restitution for our history of racist housing segregation, and which is not created or allocated on the basis of residents’ ability to pay or to generate rent.

Leadership Structure:
DSA-LA’s Housing & Homelessness formal leadership structure requires a minimum of two co-chairs to be elected on an annual basis by chapter members in good standing.

Committee Goals:
DSA-LA’s Housing & Homelessness Committee goals for the 2024-2025 year are listed in the 2024 Power to the Tenants Priority Campaign Resolution. Future projects and goals will be proposed and assessed by committee membership, to be based in analysis of specific and current struggles, informed by socialist theory of change and the historical context of the struggle, and evaluated on the criteria of whether such goals contribute towards either the decommodification of housing, the explicit reduction of surplus value being extracted from housing assets for the benefit of the capitalist class, and/or the decriminalization, defense, and/or aid of those who have no choice but to try to survive without housing.

Labor Committee

labor@dsa-la.org
Ratified at a Committee Meeting

INTRODUCTION
The Labor Committee (Committee) of the Democratic Socialists of America, Los Angeles (DSA-LA) is dedicated to developing workplace socialist organizers in order to strengthen the workers’ movement across Los Angeles County. The Committee is central to DSA-LA due to the role of labor organizing in our broader project of advancing the socialist movement. In addition to our local work, the Committee coordinates with the National Labor Commission (NLC) and other DSA labor formations.

As socialists, the Committee’s core philosophy is rooted in the conviction that the workplace is vital in the struggle for democracy and human dignity. Our work should empower DSA members to fight the struggle against capitalism and injustices broadly. Therefore, the Committee is invested in moving our members toward action by training them to organize in their workplace.

LA IS A UNION TOWN
Los Angeles has historically been a hotbed of worker militancy, including the concerted efforts of immigrants, women, and people of color workers over time. We see a link between this history and a resurgence in labor activity when the city became an epicenter of strikes in 2023. The combination of a tight labor market and an open devaluing of workers’ health and lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as an ongoing housing affordability crisis, produced the conditions that jolted many Angelenos to walk out of their workplaces. Entertainment, service/hospitality, education, and healthcare sectors led our city and the nation in worker activity last year. At the same time, Los Angeles politics is also now changing, with socialists in office on city councils, school boards, and more. Thus, our Committee has focused on strengthening relationships with unions in these sectors.

UNIONS ARE UNDER ATTACK
The recent wave of strikes nationwide and higher favorability about unions within the general U.S. population have led to a sense of optimism amongst socialists. While hope is an important force in our movement, we remain aware of the emerging threat of a right-wing that not only seeks to perpetuate the exploitation of workers, but is intent on weakening the power secured through unions and other struggles. More so, the capitalist class and the right-wing overlap in their insistence on the neoliberal and now, authoritarian order. For example, Donald Trump and his revanchist allies signal a turn toward a program that would decimate union membership rates, gut the National Labor Relations Act, and consecrate power in the bosses. DSA-LA, through the work of the Committee, prepares our members to establish a left pole in their unions and by extension the local labor council, in order to bridge the gap between the socialist and labor movements. We see this as connected to local and federal legislation, like the fight to pass the PRO Act, one of the most consequential labor legislation proposed in decades. The vision of this legislation translates beyond the policy: we value increasing union density, especially in the private sector, and we also value meeting the moment with strategy. We also recognize the call for a General Strike on May Day 2028, in part through our members’ unions and contract negotiation timelines, as another parallel tool to build the fight for working people. Last, we emphasize the intersectional nature of workplace struggles. Millions of workers fighting for a dignified life are counting on it.

STRUCTURE
Leadership Structure and Responsibilities:
The leadership body of DSA-LA’s Labor Committee is composed of two co-chairs and two coordinators who serve for a one-year term. This leadership body develops, implements, and maintains the chapter’s labor program. In addition to leading the chapter’s labor program, the leadership body is responsible for building and maintaining relationships with local unions, worker centers, and other labor organizations. Co-chairs are also responsible for formulating the goals, strategy, and priorities for DSA-LA’s labor program, including supporting the Labor Circles. This is done in partnership with the committee’s coordinators; the coordinators can co-advise on committee goals, strategy, and priority, as well as on opportunities for committee leadership development and liaising with DSA-LA branches and priority campaigns.

Labor Circles Responsibilities:
A Labor Circle is a formation set by the DSA-LA Labor Committee to group DSA-LA members based on their sector, employer, or union affiliation. These Circles consist of members with shared work experiences, enabling them to collectively advance their interests and develop the Labor Committee’s program. The Labor Committee’s role is to facilitate the creation of these Circles, regardless of whether the Circle’s members are formally part of the Labor Committee, attend Committee meetings, and/or are primarily involved in other chapter activities.

Labor Circles are based on the current employment or union membership of DSA-LA members. Current information on who our members are, where they work, and their role in their unions (or in organizing their unions) by and large determines our labor strategy and priorities.

The objectives of the labor circles are to:

• encourage DSA-LA members to lead their coworkers in unionizing their workplaces
• encourage DSA-LA members who are already union members to take leadership roles in their unions, as stewards, bargaining committee members, and elected officers
• guide DSA-LA members who seek to find specific employment with the primary purpose of organizing
• guide Labor Committee’s orientation toward issues regarding their sector/employer/union
• aid in developing a recruitment strategy for other workers in their sector/employer/union into DSA-LA

Our active labor circles are: K-12; Higher Ed; Hollywood Labor; Nonprofit; Starbucks Workers’ Solidarity; and Transit.

POPULATION
The Committee focuses on rank-and-file union members, union staff, and unrepresented workers. It seeks to promote and strengthen the role of women, people of color, immigrants, LGBTQ+, and bi/multilingual workers within DSA-LA and the labor movement. We also organize strategic clusters of industries in the region, including but not limited to: Entertainment workers; Game industry workers; Grocery, retail workers; Food service workers; Hotel workers; Higher Ed workers; K-12 workers; Nonprofit workers; Rideshare drivers; Strippers and sex workers; Transit Workers; Warehouse workers.

DIRECTION & SUCCESS
The Committee will work towards supporting its labor circles, strengthening and creating new relationships with the labor movement, supporting striking workers and worker campaigns, and holding labor-oriented public programming.

We know the committee is successful when we have achieved:

• Programming on the state of LA’s labor movement and current strikes, currently called “Strike Hype” at least three times a year;
• Regular socials to bring together workplace organizers and socialists in the chapter and in the labor movement to forge a connection between DSA-LA and workers’ organizations
• Active labor circles with leadership development and workplace organizing support infrastructure
• New labor circles by analyzing the data collected in the Socialist Workplace Survey
• An ongoing relationship with the NLC and the LA Labor Movement
• Increased participation in the Socialist Workplace Survey by integrating the survey into the regular activities and communications of the chapter
• Active role in electing DSA-LA endorsed candidates to office and ensuring they are pro-labor and understand labor issues.
• Continued and deepened relationships with major unions such as Unite Here Local 11, UTLA, UAW to establish a left-labor political pole in Los Angeles that DSA-LA can actively coordinate and organize with on major political projects and campaigns.

Mutual Aid Committee

mutualaid@dsa-la.org
Ratified at a Committee Meeting

What is Mutual Aid?
Mutual aid is a voluntary exchange of resources and services for the mutual benefit of all people involved. It involves people coming together to work as comrades and equals for the common good by addressing what people need and what people can provide. Mutual aid projects come from and are run by the community rather than nonprofit workers, foundations, or charity programs created by the ruling classes. No one is made to feel inferior for receiving help, as it is fundamentally an organic and egalitarian social relationship, not a material one based on hierarchy, and everyone provides what they can rather than separating into “givers” and “receivers.”

It is with this in mind that we maintain that mutual aid is not charity. While charity often has altruistic motives and can be helpful to people’s material conditions, it reinforces hierarchies rather than undermines them, and often is delivered with the explicit or implicit aim of control or conversion. We are deeply committed to organizing mutual aid networks that allow people with material needs to organize the solutions to their own problems. By doing so, we reject a charity framework which would limit the scope of our work to aiding only those deemed “worthy” by the capitalist class.

Re-Establishing the Connection Between Politics & Reality
During the past few decades, the fissure between the ruling elite and the rest of us has widened dramatically. As politics has divorced itself from providing material results to working people, many have become disengaged and disillusioned.

The Mutual Aid Committee addresses this disengagement by strategically attending to certain material concerns of working people inside and outside the organization. We seek to re-establish a connection between politics and reality by reframing working people’s notions of what politics can be. Through material interventions of mutual aid, we intend to dismantle the notion that political power is the sole domain of a class disconnected from our struggles and interests. Political power is the control of the distribution of resources; taking charge of our own resource distribution empowers others and ourselves to further engage in the struggle for political power. We want to move beyond the ballot box and invoke the centrality of politics in our every act of mutual care.

The long-term strategic goal of Mutual Aid with regards to socialist organizing is to create lasting connections between organizers, communities, and other activist institutions; these connections will form networks of support that address the needs of communities neglected by a disconnected elite class.

A Radical Transformation of Social & Material Relationships
The violent structures of capitalism alienate us from one another and from our collective struggle; we bear the weight of capitalism alone as individuals. We are taught that competition and scarcity are the natural conditions for our species.

Our committee aims to overcome this alienation through the radical transformation of our relationships with one another. Mutual aid is a liberatory practice rooted in the social and the material, working towards a radical shift in our relationship to one another and to capital. Engaging in this kind of work is transformative, and changes everyone involved into a political actor that can better envision a world in which working people take collective power and ownership.

Inside and outside DSA, we have the potential to create alternatives to the gendered and racialized capitalist model of reproductive labor. We seek to disrupt the transactional nature of this work within our communities while we work to create the world we imagine. We radically adopt egalitarian social relations in our actions and interactions.

In our political practice, we will embody the forms of social relations that are our goal: We must act now as we wish to act in our ideal world, for it is only by doing so that we will be able to create it. Our means and ends must therefore resemble one another, because each will shape the other. How will we know socialism if we do not model it within our own communities and relationships with one another?

Fostering An Internal Mutual Aid Network
We approach internal mutual aid with an eye towards fostering group cohesion, ensuring a high quality of life for all our comrades, and creating social safety nets for all in our organization in order to better equip ourselves for our chapter’s work. We do this with the goal of identifying and meeting both the specific needs of the chapter at large and of members individually. Some possible internal mutual aid projects include but are not limited to: Support infrastructure for children and parents, self-defense trainings, carpooling systems for DSA events, and direct action preparedness.

Our work is grounded in a recognition that it’s important to not only help people in the community, but also to help ourselves because we can transform our own lives most comprehensively.

Additionally, without systems in place, we know that women and nonbinary people will by default take on a disproportionate amount of undervalued but necessary labor. By making this labor visible and elevating it to the importance of other organizing work, we can change our own members’ relationship to traditionally devalued and invisible labor and ensure that it is shared equitably — especially among people who otherwise might not think to take it on — and that people are recognized and appreciated for their work.

The Importance of External Mutual Aid Projects
Within DSA there has been considerable conversation regarding the role external facing projects should play. At its core this Committee believes that external mutual projects are guided not only by a desire to relieve the material pressures of a capitalist system but also help inspire those we serve to “[imagine] radical alternatives for a new social, economic, and political reality.”[1]

External mutual aid projects spring forth not only from a socialist critique of capitalism, but also a vision of a world beyond capitalism. While we believe that there is an inherent value in external mutual aid, it is important to note that these sorts of projects can often require a large number of committee resources. With that in mind, any external facing mutual aid project is subject to material and political analysis in accordance with our Committee rules.

To ensure our committee’s work is sustainable it is important that external mutual aid projects consider soliciting external support. This support can take many forms, including but not limited to fundraising, forming coalitions, and engaging members of the community for help. That said, the committee will adhere to a “no strings attached” fundraising model and will follow the “Strategic Partnerships” guidelines laid out in the DSA-LA Mission Statement & Organizational Priorities.

Mutual Aid As Recruitment Opportunity
As DSA attempts to build a mass socialist movement across the United States, we believe that mutual aid is an essential part of that effort. Mutual aid can serve as a visible illustration of theory in an act that improves someone’s material reality.

Internal mutual aid programs demonstrate the power of collective ownership and responsibility in a clear and intuitive way and will make joining us a more attractive proposition on strictly material grounds. In addition to this, external mutual aid programs greatly increase our public profile and make the work of our organization integral to people’s daily lives, making us a reliable resource for communities and reaching and helping more people. Our actions themselves will carry the socialist message we wish to spread.

Proposed Amendment to Mutual Aid Committee Platform

Submitted by: Marc K
Received at least 25 signatures by members in good standing to qualify for debate.

What is Mutual Aid?
Mutual aid is a voluntary exchange of resources and services for the mutual benefit of all people involved. It involves people coming together to work as comrades and equals for the common good by addressing what people need and what people can provide. Mutual aid projects come from and are run by the community rather than nonprofit workers, foundations, or charity programs created by the ruling classes. No one is made to feel inferior for receiving help, as it is fundamentally an organic and egalitarian social relationship, not a material one based on hierarchy, and everyone provides what they can rather than separating into “givers” and “receivers.”

It is with this in mind that we maintain that mutual aid is not charity. While charity often has altruistic motives and can be helpful to people’s material conditions, it reinforces hierarchies rather than undermines them, and often is delivered with the explicit or implicit aim of control or conversion. We are deeply committed to organizing mutual aid networks that allow people with material needs to organize the solutions to their own problems. By doing so, we reject a charity framework which would limit the scope of our work to aiding only those deemed “worthy” by the capitalist class.

Re-Establishing the Connection Between Politics & Reality
During the past few decades, the fissure between the ruling elite and the rest of us has widened dramatically. As politics has divorced itself from providing material results to working people, many have become disengaged and disillusioned.

The Mutual Aid Committee addresses this disengagement by strategically attending to certain material concerns of working people inside and outside the organization. We seek to re-establish a connection between politics and reality by reframing working people’s notions of what politics can be. Through material interventions of mutual aid, we intend to dismantle the notion that political power is the sole domain of a class disconnected from our struggles and interests. Political power is the control of the distribution of resources; taking charge of our own resource distribution empowers others and ourselves to further engage in the struggle for political power. We want to move beyond the ballot box and invoke the centrality of politics in our every act of mutual care.

The long-term strategic goal of Mutual Aid with regards to socialist organizing is to create lasting connections between organizers, communities, and other activist institutions; these connections will form networks of support that address the needs of communities neglected by a disconnected elite class.

A Radical Transformation of Social & Material Relationships
The violent structures of capitalism alienate us from one another and from our collective struggle; we bear the weight of capitalism alone as individuals. We are taught that competition and scarcity are the natural conditions for our species.

Our committee aims to overcome this alienation through the radical transformation of our relationships with one another. Mutual aid is a liberatory practice rooted in the social and the material, working towards a radical shift in our relationship to one another and to capital. Engaging in this kind of work is transformative, and changes everyone involved into a political actor that can better envision a world in which working people take collective power and ownership.

Inside and outside DSA, we have the potential to create alternatives to the gendered and racialized capitalist model of reproductive labor. We seek to disrupt the transactional nature of this work within our communities while we work to create the world we imagine. We radically adopt egalitarian social relations in our actions and interactions.

In our political practice, we will embody the forms of social relations that are our goal: We must act now as we wish to act in our ideal world, for it is only by doing so that we will be able to create it. Our means and ends must therefore resemble one another, because each will shape the other. How will we know socialism if we do not model it within our own communities and relationships with one another?

Fostering An Internal Mutual Aid Network
We approach internal mutual aid with an eye towards fostering group cohesion, ensuring a high quality of life for all our comrades, and creating social safety nets for all in our organization in order to better equip ourselves for our chapter’s work. We do this with the goal of identifying and meeting both the specific needs of the chapter at large and of members individually. Some possible internal mutual aid projects include but are not limited to: Support infrastructure for children and parents, self-defense trainings, carpooling systems for DSA events, and direct action preparedness.

Our work is grounded in a recognition that it’s important to not only help people in the community, but also to help ourselves because we can transform our own lives most comprehensively.

Additionally, without systems in place, we know that women and nonbinary people will by default take on a disproportionate amount of undervalued but necessary labor. By making this labor visible and elevating it to the importance of other organizing work, we can change our own members’ relationship to traditionally devalued and invisible labor and ensure that it is shared equitably — especially among people who otherwise might not think to take it on — and that people are recognized and appreciated for their work.

The Importance of External Mutual Aid Projects
Within DSA there has been considerable conversation regarding the role external facing projects should play. At its core this Committee believes that external mutual projects are guided not only by a desire to relieve the material pressures of a capitalist system but also help inspire those we serve to “[imagine] radical alternatives for a new social, economic, and political reality.”[1]

External mutual aid projects spring forth not only from a socialist critique of capitalism, but also a vision of a world beyond capitalism. While we believe that there is an inherent value in external mutual aid, it is important to note that these sorts of projects can often require a large number of committee resources. With that in mind, any external facing mutual aid project is subject to material and political analysis in accordance with our Committee rules.

To ensure our committee’s work is sustainable it is important that external mutual aid projects consider soliciting external support. This support can take many forms, including but not limited to fundraising, forming coalitions, and engaging members of the community for help. That said, the committee will adhere to a “no strings attached” fundraising model and will follow the “Strategic Partnerships” guidelines laid out in the DSA-LA Mission Statement & Organizational Priorities.

Mutual Aid As Recruitment Opportunity
As DSA attempts to build a mass socialist movement across the United States, we believe that mutual aid is an essential part of that effort. Mutual aid can serve as a visible illustration of theory in an act that improves someone’s material reality.

Internal mutual aid programs demonstrate the power of collective ownership and responsibility in a clear and intuitive way and will make joining us a more attractive proposition on strictly material grounds. In addition to this, external mutual aid programs greatly increase our public profile and make the work of our organization integral to people’s daily lives, making us a reliable resource for communities and reaching and helping more people. Our actions themselves will carry the socialist message we wish to spread.

Committee Leadership
Elections for the Committee Officer roles of Chairs and Coordinators, will be held in conjunction with chapter-wide elections as established by the DSA-LA Chapter Bylaws, and are subject to standard Chapter procedure.

Any member in good standing is eligible to run for a Committee Officer role and to vote in the Committee Officer election.

Any number of members may run for either the Chair or Coordinator positions, and up to two chairs and three coordinators may be elected to constitute the Committee Leadership.

Voting will be done by an approval system, by which each candidate is either approved or disapproved individually. All candidates with a simple majority of approvals, up to five members, are elected.

Filling Committee Leadership vacancies will be handled according to Article VII, Section 5 of DSA-LA Chapter Bylaws.

Political Education Committee

politicaleducation@dsa-la.org
Ratified at a Committee Meeting

Mission Statement
Capitalism has taught us that a society structured around an endless quest for profit and the pursuit of individual self interest is natural and transhistorical; as socialists, we identify capitalism as a historically specific set of relations & imperatives that can be overcome. The Political Education Committee seeks to challenge what is understood to be “common sense” under capitalism and offer ongoing opportunities to expand our collective understanding of socialist concepts, histories, and strategies.

Through our work, we aim to revive socialist pedagogies that support the goals of the chapter as a whole. We are committed to dismantling hierarchical structures traditionally associated with education, and to providing opportunities for educating and learning to all people. As members of a multi-tendency organization, the Political Education Committee’s work will prioritize productive debate and the respectful exchange of socialist ideas and viewpoints rather than the pursuit of absolute political agreement among members.

We will work in partnership with all other DSA-LA committees and working groups to develop educational resources and programming which support ongoing campaigns, introduces the broader public to socialism, raises our own membership’s level of participation and knowledge, and expands ownership of our collective struggle for the fullest possible imagining of freedom, liberation, and power for all people.

Committee Goals
1) Ensure that all DSA-LA members have ongoing opportunities to learn about and discuss socialist theories, traditions, and practices.

In order to ground the various projects within DSA-LA in the context of rigorous socialist politics, we will support and develop educational programming and resources focused on the meaning and history of socialism, socialist analyses of power (along the lines of class, race, gender, origin, ability, and more), interpretations of pathways and solutions leading to socialism, common criticisms of socialism (and the respective rebuttals), and the current landscape of socialist and anti-imperialist politics here and abroad.

This will be made available to members in a variety of well-publicized and accessible formats, including but not limited to:

• One-time special events, such as day schools, debates, or teach-ins
• Ongoing educational series
• Thematic reading and discussion groups
• Film screenings
• Lending libraries
• Reading and discussion guides aligned with recommended readings
• Educational materials, such as newspapers or pamphlets

2) Forge strong connections across committees and working groups and work together to build and maintain emancipatory educational spaces that are welcoming and inclusive of all people—including non-members interested in socialism, members with marginalized identities, members new to socialist thinking, and long-time socialist members. We will endeavor to expand the reach of our politics towards all working Angelenos regardless of language or ability, empowering them to take ownership of their political development and analysis.

3) Build and maintain intentional and reciprocal relationships with other entities—such as leftist groups, academics, journalists, and activists—who have a focus on political education and share our broad political goals.

4) Provide ongoing opportunities to build members’ capacity to serve as educators and co-learners.

5) Maintain effective mechanisms for input from the membership to ensure educational programming and opportunities are responsive to the needs and stated interests of the chapter.

[Friedrich Engels’] three classical laws of dialectics [are]…the law of “interpenetrating opposites,” the interdependence of components; the “transformation of quantity to quality,” a systems-based view of change that translates incremental inputs into alterations of state; and the “negation of negation,” the direction given to history because complex systems cannot revert exactly to previous states.
Stephen Jay Gould (1976)

Dialectic training of the mind, as necessary to a revolutionary fighter as finger exercises to a pianist, demands approaching all problems as processes and not as motionless categories.
Leon Trotsky (1939)

More important than the specific histories and theory we read is learning how to think and how to study a problem. Analysis that hones how we understand what we read improves our strategic and tactical decision-making.

For Marxists, this is the dialectical method, rooted in Marx’s theory of historical materialism. 

Historical materialism is the simple idea that human history develops based on the ‘objective’ way that human societies reproduce themselves: how they produce the ‘stuff of life’, meaning commodities (food, clothing, medicine, housing, etc.) and the services that modify and distribute those commodities. This does not mean that our economic systems determine everything. That was rejected as an interpretation almost as soon as Marx’s method came into being: 

According to the materialist conception of history, the ultimately determining element in history is the production and reproduction of real life. Other than this neither Marx nor I have ever asserted. Hence if somebody twists this into saying that the economic element is the only determining one, he transforms that proposition into a meaningless, abstract, senseless phrase. The economic situation is the basis, but the various elements of the superstructure – political forms of the class struggle and its results, [for example]: constitutions…[legal] forms, and even the reflexes of all these actual struggles in the brains of the participants…philosophical theories, religious views and their further development into systems of dogmas – also exercise their influence upon the course of the historical struggles and in many cases preponderate in determining their form. 
(Engels, 1890)

The outlook that Engels is criticizing here is sometimes called “mechanical materialism” and sometimes “economic determinism,” and is related to concepts like “vulgar Marxism” or “class reductionism,” which ignore the dynamic way that historical materialism considers systems as a whole.

The historical materialist outlook does not deny the influence of peoples’ conscious choices. It just tries to situate those choices within what can logically develop from existing social relations. It assumes that, in the big picture, systems that come into being and survive for any meaningful amount of time must rest on a material base. In other words, human choice and ideas matter, but will be formed in part by, and be constrained by, the material basis of society.

The Method of Motion

The dialectical method takes the world as it is and tries to understand the existing (‘concrete’) structures and relations as processes in constant motion, with  ’inherent contradictions’ which will influence their behavior. 

Any given factual observation we have of the world is like a photograph: ‘34% of Americans have a bachelor’s degree.’ But a photograph is not only not the full story; to some degree, it is a lie, because the world is always in motion. Its motion defines it. Observing human beings, ecosystems, social groupings, and societies at a given moment does not tell us everything about them, and in fact leaves out the most important things, because they are in a constant state of motion or change. 

Nothing in the physical world stays in a steady state, nothing in the world is completely independent, and nothing in the world can ever completely revert to an earlier form. Everything is constantly changing – is always interdependent – and therefore will always look both similar to and different from its own earlier states, along with the world around it. Our experience that things are in a steady state is just the limit of our powers of observation. 

We treat a tree as a single object, but in fact a ‘tree’ is incoherent without soil, oxygen, and sunlight; we have labeled a particular observable phenomenon as a “tree” but in fact a tree is just a momentary expression of a physical process we happen to observe in a certain way. If we ‘saw’ in millennia rather than days, we would barely even notice a tree, or a flower, or a person, all of which would briefly flicker into and out of existence; but we could lovingly watch forests, hills, or reefs grow and take shape before they erode and disappear.

Thinking of things as existing in a steady state, as having an ‘absolute’ nature, is sometimes called ‘idealism.’ or ‘metaphysics”; it is a still photograph. Nothing in the physical world, that results from or acts in the physical world is in a steady or static state. Everything has to be understood by how it changes over time, and how it relates to the ongoing processes to which it is connected. 

Who are you? You are the culmination of millions of years of evolution, thousands of years of reproduction, your personal experiences, the things you’re observing and learning each day. You’re not exactly the same tomorrow as today. Defining ‘you’ by how you are on any given day actually misinforms. 

The dialectical method tries to understand the component parts of social phenomena, while also understanding how those component parts all relate to one another and to other systems. It assumes interdependence, motion, and change. It therefore never assumes anything comes into being on its own, or simply as a result of conscious decisions, but instead that it must have emerged as a result of webs of social relations, historical processes, and even dumb luck. 

Evolution and History

The historical materialist and dialectical method have a close relationship with Darwinian understanding of systems. 

For example, among the observations of ecological systems that Darwin developed was that at any given moment, any ‘new’ biological species will look, to a significant degree, like its preceding form. This is because every species, while it is ‘evolving’ over thousands of generations, still has to continue to survive in its given habitat. Every change between one generation and the next – between parent and child – will have to be small. Big leaps are unlikely to survive, because every species has been honed over millennia to fit into its ecosystem. 

Even after drastic ‘speciation’ (divergence into different species), the similarities to a common ancestor are obvious; bodies retain many of the same structures, because the body has to survive. Consider:

As different as these species are, their forelimbs share all the same parts, but developed slowly over time into different proportions and, eventually, different functions – not by accident, but because they share a common ancestor. Even if the changes happened through accelerated periods, at no point was there some ‘big leap’ where completely new internal structures were introduced. 

The dialectic method, too, studies how developments in human societies contain some elements of the systems that came before it, but honed, altered, or developed to accommodate new conditions and the ideologies that accompany those changes. One example is in legal systems. The U.S. legal system is based on the English common law system in place at the time of the American Revolution; although the U.S. Constitution and principles of bourgeois democracy changed much about the existing system, it was still built up from that system. In turn, the English legal system derived from feudal Anglo-Saxon legal concepts, blended with French traditions after the Norman conquest – which themselves came from Roman law and Celtic and Gaulish traditions. This is why legal jargon has so many French terms: mortgage, jury, larceny, parole, estoppel, plaintiff, tort, chattel, and bail are all Norman words. 

The history of revolutionary governments is, in one sense, a history of revolutionary parties struggling with how to deal with the fact that a system that currently exists cannot just be rebuilt from scratch, but needs to work with the ‘bones’ already in place. They therefore try to figure out how to apply the correct pressures to change the system rapidly. Again, this is because societies are not steady-state organisms, but systems in constant motion from one moment to the next, needing to produce and consume. They need to change while also continuing to function. Even if you want to radically redesign a creature, it must continue to eat and sleep and reproduce from one day to the next or else it will die out. 

None of this means that radical change is impossible. It just means that systems we intend to change rather than destroy will always need to be built up based on what is already there, and that we need to understand their modes of motion, their interdependence with other systems, and their internal contradictions – the adversarial pressures within themselves – so that as we apply force to change them, we are doing so in a way that will develop them in a particular direction (or, in some cases, hasten their destruction). 

In short, the dialectical method teaches us how to study the processes of change. It takes nothing for granted; it is infinitely curious about why something came into being, where it came from, what it’s made of, and where it can conceivably go based on how it is composed. It is a science of thinking that rejects the idea that a photograph can tell a whole story, and instead pushes us to study the laws of motion that explain why and how something goes from A to B – and, eventually, to C.

The post Improving Our Analysis: The Dialectical Method and Historical Materialism appeared first on Midwest Socialist.

Thorn West: Issue No. 215

State Politics

• Governor Newson called a special session to pass regulations on the oil industry, with the intention of lowering gas prices. The measure has been further discussed in the State Assembly. While the State Senate has resisted returning for the extra session, Newsom has functionally ignored any legislation on his desk that originated in the Senate.

City Politics

• Today was Councilmember Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s first day as Council President. Former president Paul Krekorian stepped down, as he will be termed out in November.

• A council motion to create protest “bubble zones” around religious institutions and other buildings (meant to curtail Palestinian solidarity protests) was agendized by the Public Safety Committee, and received unanimous opposition from over 100 public commenters. Hearing for the motion was continued to a later date.

Police Violence and Community Resistance

• A University of California regents committee has approved the purchase of “less-lethal” munitions for its campus police forces, following a summer in which they were used against Palestine solidarity protesters. The vote took place in an empty chamber after activists were removed by police.

• The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department unveiled a new policy banning deputy gangs. The policy brings the department into compliance with a 2021 state law and follows sustained activist and media pressure.

Labor

• Across Oregon and Washington, 33,000 machinists represented by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers have gone on strike against Boeing after contract negotiations stalled. Strike demands include higher wages.

Housing Rights

• Earlier this year, city council requested a report on the current formula used to calculate maximum allowable rent increases on the city’s rent-controlled apartments. LAist obtained the unreleased report via a public records request. The report finds that rental increases have favored landlords, and that across Los Angeles an average of only 35% of rental income is needed to cover landlord operating costs. Report here. DSA-LA Twitter has more.

• LA Public Press debuted a podcast series telling the story of the Hillside Villa Tenants Association, who for years have organized to resist attempts by their landlord to price them out of their homes, becoming leaders of the tenant movement in Los Angeles.

Environmental Justice

• In 2022, the city council passed a ban on oil drilling in the city limits. Last week that ban was overturned by a judge, on the ground that it conflicts with state law. However, a bill currently on the Governor’s desk might resolve that conflict.

• Firefighters have begun to gain the upper hand over several large wildfires that have burned across Southern California in the past weeks.

The post Blockbuster Report on LA Landlords and Tenants + New LA City Council President appeared first on The Thorn West.