A set piece for organizing

 I hope to name a juncture that occurs every so often in organizing, and from this point advances a narrative that I think we can retrieve from a wayward path and put to use for good purpose.  It is shown by such things as how recently a teachers’ movement in Chicago presented both of these facets of the core issue of our time, a pairing of issues that is often seen, but presents an opportunity that I think slips away in most cases. However, I hope we can seize the moment with this moment.  First, let me say that what I describe is best understood to be covered within the social paradigm of one group’s energy and motivation being matched by another’s out of sympathy, excitement, or solidarity.  So for instance, when the Chicago Teachers Union president called for raising more revenue for schools with a tax on the rich, while at the same time student groups organized around the principle that green schools are a budget solution, that is an example of that type of social paradigm that I’m talking about.  

You could say that both groups essentially agreed, but both groups having similar views and organizational capacity, and this could be generalized to society at large, decided one after the other to attack the problem as a comprehensive one with a comprehensive solution.  The alliance between the two is implied by their mutual tacit agreement that the issue is a comprehensive one that requires comprehensive analysis, and having done the analysis, with each having decided to do slightly different but complementary things.  

This happens a lot in solidarity efforts, but it runs counter to some people's expectations because it relies on the network theory of relations and a left libertarian paradigm, and the libertarian nature of this is hard for leftists who have a more centralized preference in government and human relations to immediately get the hang of.  So I think we can do something here to illustrate and tease out the strands of reasoning that lead to and from this important juncture. Maybe we can make it easier for people to understand why these sorts of solidarity efforts work and are important.  

Moreover, these types of political social and economic reforms tap into a radical spirit of cooperation amid resistance, and people want to show their approval of the radical inclusivity by launching parallel efforts, and furthermore, these stress the intersectionality of the struggle at hand.  So for instance, when students are calling for green schools as a budget solution it is because it is a false choice between advocating for that and for social justice.  I think we should look to these sympathy actions as indicators of progress.  

When taking a look at the organizing situation where it appears that economic justice in education always coincides with climate justice demands, I’m thinking about situating what’s happening within some political economy.  First of all, there’s physiocracy; in particular, I’m thinking about the just price theory of grain and noticing how the just price theory for grain applies in the same way relative to education.  See Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (P. 343).  The first similarity is that in both cases you let it cost an amount commensurate with the labor put into it, and when you do, you reduce scarcity of food or knowledge.  And all in all, they are very similar logically if not pictorially.  If someone agreed with that and wanted to take it to the next step either because they had the capacity or for generational independence, that would be social credit.  Which to clarify because the name has become problematic this is the work of C.H. Douglas that we are referring to, not to social media from Mainland China.  Also, while we're at it, I will take social credit, but I will not take distributivism notions.  Social credit says basically that citizens deserve everything that they need rather than, for instance, a set amount of certain things.  Or you could say people deserve what they need and not to a standard.  Essentially, this is very wise if it keeps to that path.  To the extent that this needs to be known, I would say the preceding is why we see economic and education justice coinciding with climate justice so often, with these particular narratives of Tax the Rich and Green infrastructure coinciding peculiarly often.