Cosplay Socialist Fires Staff for Starting a Workers Co-Op

[Milchshake]

Does the Left have a problem that some of it biggest online platforms were colonized by the failSons of wealthy people?
How much is their allyship worth when its time to unionize and collectively bargain?

The majority of the staff at Current Affairs magazine, the leftist bimonthly magazine started by colorful suit fan Nathan J. Robinson, has been fired by their boss, a man who wears cravats and allegedly has a fake British accent. They announced the news in a public statement Wednesday morning. Here’s how it starts:



We, the former full and part-time staff, write to you with deep sadness and disappointment about recent events that have occurred at Current Affairs, On August 8th, editor-in-chief Nathan J. Robinson (author of Why You Should Be A Socialist) unilaterally fired most of the workforce to avoid an organizational restructuring that would limit his personal power. Yes, we were fired by the editor-in-chief of a socialist magazine for trying to start a worker co-op. (emphasis theirs)

The statement, which you can read in full here, goes on to describe how the staff gathered for a Zoom meeting on Aug. 7 to discuss the new work model. At the meeting, the staff writes, there was a “palpable shift” in Robinson’s “demeanor and he behaved in a hostile manner throughout the rest of the conversation.” The next morning, he started removing people from the company slack and sent letters “requesting resignations, eliminating positions and in some cases, offering new ‘honorary titles,’ which would have no say in governance.”

In a foot note, the staff clarify that Robinson “technically asked most staff members to resign,” rather than directly fire them. But following the editors’ removal from Slack and an announcement from Robinson that he would “hire new staff members to replace” them, Managing & Amusements Editor Lyta Gold asked if he was firing her. He replied: “Yeah.”

Editor-At-Large Yasmin Nair, who spoke to Gawker earlier this week and is not a salaried member of the staff, claimed that the magazine had been operating as a workers co-op “but not formally.” Mainly, she said, all salaried members were paid the same amount: $45,000 a year.

“It's an organization that is co-op-y and not to formally instituted as a co-op,” Nair said, “but I think that is something that we're all working on — trying to understand how do co-ops work exactly? You know, Current Affairs became very successful, much to our surprise. We did not go into this with a structure that said ‘this is what we are’ and ‘this is who's in charge’ and so on.”

But when pushed to make that informal co-op model more formal, Robinson — who once wrote a critique of convenient liberalism titled “I Support Unions, Just Not This One” — sent this email:

The organization has been heading slowly for some sort of reckoning where it was going to have to be made clear once and for all what kind of authority I wanted to have over it. And I was in denial about the fact that the answer is I think I should be on top of the org chart, with everyone else selected by me and reporting to me. I let Current Affairs build up into a sort of egalitarian community of friends while knowing in my heart that I still thought of it as my project over which I should have control.


To his credit, Nathan Robinson did write a snarky essay about Ben Shapiro.
Stalin and Mao also had issues with sharing power.

The entire pop left media network is shit & should be dismantled.
When Young Turks crushed theirs staff's union effort.
Remember when Bhaskar Sunkara bought a UK magazine then fired all the staff?

[Theodarzna]

So what is a not-cosplay Socialist? David Frum?

[Milchshake]

You think firing people for organizing a union is in any way aligned with socialism. Seriously?

Cosplaying-as-a-member-of-the-teachers-union, also a thing.

[Egomaniac]

So what is a not-cosplay Socialist? David Frum?

I mean, the guy who literally wrote an article criticizing convenient liberalism called "I support Unions, just not this one" is himself a convenient liberal that supports unions...just not this one.

[kasuke06]

Four legs good, two legs better.(Sure, it's from a critique of communism, but it's apt here.) As it always is with the left and power, suddenly we have a big need for elites to be running things right when you're asked to hand over the reigns...

[Theodarzna]

You think firing people for organizing a union is in any way aligned with socialism. Seriously?

Nathan J Robinson hates Marxism and Marx, is he even a Socialist? His thing is "Sheep dogs for the Democratic Party and dresses like a freak"

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I mean, the guy who literally wrote an article criticizing convenient liberalism called "I support Unions, just not this one" is himself a convenient liberal that supports unions...just not this one.

Nathan is a freak who hates Marx, that is why he isn't a Socialist.

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Cosplaying-as-a-member-of-the-teachers-union, also a thing.

I suspect for you Socialism means "Voting for Democrats, the more you support the party, the more Socialist you are".

[Endus]

Nathan J Robinson hates Marxism and Marx, is he even a Socialist?

Not to defend the guy, because this was a shitty move, but if you think "socialism" means "Marx", you have literally no idea what you're talking about.

Marx did not in any way originate the concept of socialist theory.

[Theodarzna]

Not to defend the guy, because this was a shitty move, but if you think "socialism" means "Marx", you have literally no idea what you're talking about.

Marx did not in any way originate the concept of socialist theory.

I mean you are free to be some utopian or any of the others whom he rather effortlessly and mercilessly destroyed. But yeah, I'll plant my flag firmly on Marx is the only thinker that matters in that arena and can produce anything of substance and actually explain anything.

[Corvus]

Who would have though power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. I'm sure I've heard that said somewhere....

[Endus]

I mean you are free to be some utopian or any of the others whom he rather effortlessly and mercilessly destroyed. But yeah, I'll plant my flag firmly on Marx is the only thinker that matters in that arena and can produce anything of substance and actually explain anything.

Then you've got a high-schooler's grasp of socialist theory.

Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, Blanc, Proudhon, all giants that Marx stood on the shoulders of in developing early socialist theory.

Marx did not "destroy" any of what these men produced. That's absolute steaming nonsense. Their works formed the basis for Marx' own work and helped inform the way Marx' own approaches developed. Among others.

Speaking of Cosplay Socialists, if the only name you think matters is "Marx", you fit that bill to a T. Hell, you bought that costume off the rack.

[PC2]

That's funny that Nathan and Cenk got a taste of their own medicine. Even they couldn't tolerate union and co-op people. Hopefully their experience will cause them to reflect on the issue and change their mind when it comes to supporting unions.

[Yadryonych]

So what is a not-cosplay Socialist? David Frum?

True, you don't really have to call these "cosplay" socialists, most of them genuinely believe socialism is just government giving them free stuff

[s_bushido]

socialism is just government giving them free stuff

This is literally the strawman conservatives tell themselves in their masturbatory rants about how socialism will destroy civilization as we know it. Projection this hard is probably dangerous.

[Yadryonych]

strawman

Ah, so you've lost the rest of the message somewhere down the way. So bold of you to bring up the strawman arguement

[Mihalik]

I honestly don't know enough about this to have an informed opinion, but just based on what I've read in the past 5 minutes, this looks to me like another one of Milch's "Neo lib bashing everyone left of Ronald Reagan" threads.

From what I understand here is that Current Affairs is an LLC set up by Robinson who seems to be the sole owner. He created and ran a horizontal structure within his company, but nevertheless it was his company, and his staff essentially asked of him to turn his company into a worker's coop and thus make them co-owners/shareholders, that's not something Robinson was comfortable with, so he did away with the people pushing for this.

Now, if you want to criticize "leftism" or "worker coops" or "leftists" it would be nice if you'd first fucking understand what a worker's coop is, and how they emerge and how anarcho-syndicalists typically imagine the emergence of worker coops.

1. A worker coop is not a Union. I've seen several people in this thread confusing these things. A Union is a worker's organization meant to represent and protect the interests of laborers. A worker coop is a corporate entity whose owners and shareholders are its employees.

2. A worker coop typically emerges in 1 of 3 ways. 1 is a corporation that is either started through the consolidation of smaller existing businesses (like farms, or bicycle repair shops) or when a non-profit or a social purpose company switches to a for profit company structure, 2 when a group of entrepreneurs start a business that incorporates "part ownership" into the remuneration packages of new hirees, 3 when employees (typically via a Union) buy out part or full ownership of the company where they are employed, this usually happens when businesses requiring financing turn to their own employees for that financing.

Socialism and private ownership are not mutually exclusive. Most socialists, anarcho-syndicalists etc are often opposed to ideas like forced expropriations of private property. There are about 9.5 billion things we could do the encourage and assist the emergence of worker coops as a business model without recurring to forced expropriations.

I don't know enough about this Robinson person to be clear on whether he's being a hypocrite or not here, because whether he is or not is largely determined by what his past stances were on the different models for emergence and creation of worker coops.

Otherwise this is another one of those Milch threads where he goes "Socialist ate Big Mac! Hypocrite!!!!".

[jonnysensible]

twee creeps are cancelled.

[JohnBrown1917]

You hate socialists and anything left-wing, why would you care about some dude showing his true colours and thus now being hated by pretty much anybody on the online left?

[Bodakane]

True, you don't really have to call these "cosplay" socialists, most of them genuinely believe socialism is just government giving them free stuff

Literally the ONLY people who think socialism means the government gives free stuff, is you conservatives.

[Milchshake]

Literally the ONLY people who think socialism means the government gives free stuff, is you conservatives.

True that Conservatives have always distorted definitions of socialism.
But honestly, Cosplay Socialists have also distorted Socialism greatly over the past few years.

• For the first two hundred years socialist tried to create a vision of socialism that centered on industrial workers and farm laborers.
• Cosplay Socialists focus their brands around the idea of Luxury Space Communism. Everyone gets a cool job, free house, and a government issued PS5.

Online socialist seem to eat this shit up, and bristle whenever their podcasters get criticized.
Street level socialist hate that these guys dominate the information bandwidth.

[uuuhname]

Otherwise this is another one of those Milch threads where he goes "Socialist ate Big Mac! Hypocrite!!!!".

"Hasan Piker has a big house" yeah, you totally called that one.