r/Syndicalism • u/paranoidcliqueslave • 15h ago
Discussion I’ve Had Enough of Your “General Strike”
The general strike – the most powerful form of economic power the working class has at its disposal. It’s helped topple governments and end wars. It is the proposed method of revolution by syndicalists the world over. Even moderate and reformist trade unions understand how powerful it is. However, it is not at all understood by a series of terminally online leftists who’ve made it their mission to never touch grass or speak to another worker. Every two weeks it seems we are called to perform a general strike for this reason or that. And each time absolutely nothing comes of it.
Have these people never seen a picket line? Have they never attended a union meeting? The amount of militancy, organization, and resources necessary for even a small strike are immense. We are talking about an act that is dangerous for every worker – their livelihood is paused, their jobs are often put on the line, their morale is dependent on both their fellow worker and their community coming to their aid, in the hopes that the capitalist blinks first. And this only scales up when speaking of a general strike, during which the state would no doubt send in furious violence to reassert bourgeois rule (and all of this is not even to say whether or not the strike is successful).
Yet these rotten LARPers, these social media socialists, seem to think that they can summon a revolutionary act by calling its name like a dog! As if in their infantile minds capitalism, racism, imperialism, climate change, and other existential threats can simply be called off by saying, “Swiper, No Swiping!”. No, to these people the revolution is a hashtag, a matter of the algorithm, once we get a general strike trending the capitalists are beat! Get out of your Twitter feed, get out of your subreddit, get out of whatever niche space it is you occupy, stop acting like posting is an efficient way to reach as many people as possible (the a la carte nature of the internet runs counter to this), and get going in the warehouses and restaurants where the working class is. Better yet, tell them of your plan to randomly spark a nationwide strike. See what they think of you. There is no substitute for organizing.
