Alex Riccio 🚩🏴

temporarily on hiatus, check out the pod on the nuts and bolts of organizing (very few exist!) @ChannelZeroNet @laborradionet

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

The most powerful tool a worker has is their ability to strike.

[Secretary Marty Walsh @SecMartyWalsh]

The most powerful tool a worker has is their voice.

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

Turns out there’s an even bigger case study of a disastrous experiment called “capitalism.” Ever heard of that massive failure?

[Steven Pinker @sapinker]

I spoke with @LaulPatricia about Marxism:

One is: What’s remarkable is that Marxism has been tried. Now, of course, defenders of Marxism say it hasn’t really been tried anywhere, but certainly the people who implemented it claimed they were implementing Marxism.

And this is a massive experiment—a global experiment—with a very clear outcome. Namely, the Soviet Union was a disaster. The imposition of communism on Eastern Europe was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Venezuela was a disaster. The imposition of communism in Maoist China was a disaster. Disaster in terms of both poverty and oppression and genocide and stupid wars. So the world has told us what happens under communism, and it’s a sign of how out of touch intellectuals can be that there are still people who defend it despite the entire world giving a very clear-cut answer.

One more is: would you rather live in North Korea or South Korea? Would you rather live in the old East Germany or West Germany? We have an experimental group and a matched control group in terms of culture, language, and geography, and the answer is crystal clear. So this is a sign of, I think, the pathology of intellectual life—that Marxism can persist.

The other is, you did call attention to one of the appeals of Marxism, though, and more generally of heavy, strong influence of government guided by intellectuals, which is that there are certain kinds of reforms that you can state as principles. You can articulate them verbally as propositions—like equality, human rights, democracy—but there’s other kinds of progress that take place in massive distributed networks of millions of people, none of whom implements some policy. But collectively, there is an order, an organization that’s beneficial.

So that can happen organically through, for example, the development of a language. No one designed the English language. It’s just hundreds of millions of English speakers. They coin new words. They forget old words. They try to make themselves clear. And we get the English language and the other 5,000 languages spoken on earth.

Likewise, a market economy is something where knowledge is distributed. You don’t have a central planner deciding how many shoes of size 8 will be needed in a particular city, but rather information is conveyed by prices, which are adjusted according to supply and demand. And you’ve got a distributed network of exchange of information that can result in an emergent benefit.

Now, intellectuals tend to hate that. They like rules of language—of correct grammar. They like top-down economic planning. They like cultural change that satisfies particular ideals described by intellectuals. And so rival sources of organization, like commerce, like culture—traditional culture—tend to be downplayed by intellectuals.

And this can be magnified by the fact that many dictatorships give a privileged role to intellectuals, which may be why, over the course of the 20th century, and probably continuing to the present, there has not been a dictator that has not had fans among intellectuals—including the mullahs and ayatollahs of Iran, but also the communist dictators: Mao and Castro, even Stalin in his day. And every other dictator has had, actually, often fawning praise from Western intellectuals.

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

A coalition of business owners couldn’t resist but remind us that they put profit over people, no matter what.

[Minnesota Chamber of Commerce @MN_Chamber]

NEW: The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce released this letter on behalf of more than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies today. https://t.co/n4x7yJGoJv

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

@VeteranRower Why is this loser showing up on my timeline?

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

@ThirdWayTweet Hilarious for this think tank that just pushes the status quo to name itself “third way”.

[Starbucks Workers United @SBWorkersUnited]

ICYMI: historic union busting is bad for business 🫣

https://t.co/itL01jJvip

[Starbucks Workers United @SBWorkersUnited]

We have officially been on our unfair labor practice strike for one month. And in that month, 1000s of baristas in nearly 150 cities have joined together with allies, community leaders, and elected officials - all to tell Starbucks with one unified voice “NO CONTRACT, NO COFFEE.”

[Starbucks Workers United @SBWorkersUnited]

Today, striking baristas are taking the picket line to Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol's office.

Instead of investing in workers, Starbucks is on a spending spree - notably, on Niccol’s sky-high compensation, his satellite office away from HQ, & a private jet for commute. $SBUX

[More Perfect Union @MorePerfectUS]

Hundreds of Starbucks baristas and labor organizers blockaded Starbucks' largest distribution center in York, Pennsylvania, halting distribution of syrups, coffee beans, and other supplies to the entire northeast.

This escalation is part of @SBWorkersUnited ongoing strike.

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

@Iamwhoismoses @SBWorkersUnited It’s the union saying it won’t be a one day strike. That should clarify it for you.

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

@James_Martell_ This means absolutely nothing

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

Meet my step-brother and you’ll instantly understand

[Path of Men @PathOfMen_]

there’s a pandemic of single men slowly hitting 30s and 40s and still unmarried. what’s going on?

[Starbucks Workers United @SBWorkersUnited]

NEW: 45+ major organizations sent a letter to Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol urging the company to finalize fair union contracts.

"We will continue to back union workers’ fight, including by not crossing barista picket lines at Starbucks if they feel striking is necessary." 🔥🔥

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

@Awake_IL @Starbucks Great job Loser, faking being bullied by a barista who’s just minding their own business. Get a life

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

Time to do a deep dive into her career since she’s quickly become my favorite celebrity

[Pop Base @PopBase]

Hannah Einbeinder on saying “Free Palestine” during her #Emmys acceptance speech:

“It is my obligation as a Jewish person to distinguish Jews from the state of Israel because our religion and our culture is such an important and long-standing institution that is really separate to this sort of ethnonationalist state.”

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

Philly pride for the win

[DiscussingFilm @DiscussingFilm]

Hannah Einbinder accepting her first-ever Emmy win — “Go Birds, Free Palestine and Fuck ICE!”

See the full winners list: https://t.co/bunHQVwB8b

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

Seriously, what are we talking about? The right will do whatever they think they have the power to accomplish, they don’t need, or care, about whether they have the narrative or pretext.

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

Genuine question. Why is the assumption that the right-wing needs a pretext to unleash political repression and violence? Why didn’t they need a pretext for any of the recent violent repression they’ve been deploying?

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

@BNONews Epstein-pilled. Calling it now

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

@DougHenwood Damn, now with this palatable narrative Israel might start doing really terrible things like committing genocide…

[Alex Riccio 🚩🏴 @LaborwaveRadio]

@GBBranstetter https://t.co/v7vzA7ku9i