This post will probably piss people (especially Americans) off. Here, I talk only about supporting socialist revolution in the USA, and do not care much for the morality or treatment of Americans in order to get there.
The US’s position as the dominant capitalist power founded on settler colonialism means it will be the one of the last countries in the world to have a communist revolution. For the sake of all people of the world, it is also the most important country to have one in. The US would need to first lose its empire and have all Americans live as semi-feudal cyberpunk slaves before the possibility of communist revolution. Even then, Native Americans will probably still be treated like shit.
Because of this, revolutionary socialist parties have a difficult dilemma in the USA. They must fight for reforms that make life better for Americans in order to build public support, but because reforms are ultimately compromises by ruling capitalists, doing so makes US bourgeois ‘democracy’ appear responsive to worker demands and delays the future date of revolution.
Are there ways we can support revolution while circumventing this dilemma?
I think socialist-sympathetic petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie can fill such a role by playing the ‘bad cop’ to socialist parties’ ‘good cop’ role.
In the USA, power as an individual depends almost solely on money. Thus the most effective way for any person to shape US policy is to found a startup to get rich, then use it to bribe politicians to do shit. Of course, this approach is fundamentally not socialist, and anyone who gets rich enough to do so probably won’t hold socialist views anymore. For the sake of discussion, let’s say one of us socialists founds a company and gets rich.
The more ruthless a capitalist you are, the more successful your business will be.[1] Businesses run by ‘softies’ with morals always lose market share to (and are ultimately bought out by) competing businesses with none. This means there is a natural pressure under capitalism to make life worse. If a socialist starts a business with the goal of providing an alternative to this, they are fighting a losing battle which ensures future irrelevance.
In this US capitalist environment, should socialist-sympathetic businesses accelerate the revolution by instead deliberately making Americans’ lives worse? Doing so would produce more profit, which would ensure their continued existence and allow them to expand market share to make even more Americans’ lives worse, thereby accelerating the revolution further. Of course, said businesses should also funnel a portion of profits to covertly supporting socialist parties.
Of course, this approach walks a fine line. Socialist founders must be vigilant that their business strategy ultimately helps revolution rather than just becoming another part of the capitalist system. Founders must also be extremely careful not to get found out, as that would jeopardise both their business’s attractiveness to capitalist investors, and look very hypocritical to the public.
accelerationism (someone else did mention in their reply)
lelouch vi britannica is an anime character and someone the likes of him doesn’t exist irl (intended tone:light)(sorry, couldn’t resist)
“socialist-sympathetic petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie” don’t exist in the US at least not in any meaningful or organized capacity, and you more or less described why a hot mess contradiction would mean they self-select for “extinction” under a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, but they (well, at least the national bourgeoisie) exist in the PRC. Obviously the difference is that the PRC is a dictatorship of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are not the ruling class, however, the national bourgeoisie are permitted and encouraged to cooperate in building the nation and the socialist project. One such guy [who’s shown up in english-language media from time to time] is a venture capitalist Eric Li 李世默, who I recall describing his venture capitalist role as “willing to take on more risk than the government normally would [in supporting/funding new businesses new tech new fields]”, but he’s just one example. I urge those curious to independently research the topic further, but keep in mind that the conditions, particularly historic and social, in the US are vastly different from those in the PRC.
(edit:I must note that all citizens in prc benefit from social goods and relevant conditions such as relatively affordable quality healthcare, with access still expanding to more rural areas, and relatively unprecarious housing. as such, there’s less pressure compared to both workers and capitalists in the US to scramble, squeeze, and cutthroat-compete, or blame others of their class or blame workers/immigrants [I can’t say non-existent tho. esp re:bigotry towards immigrants in places like hk]； well, for the blame game, there’s also some difference in political education [again not perfect… chinese liberals do exist and many are proletariats tho plenty are wannabe-bourgeois])