NYC & The Battle for the Left

A statement from the members of NYC-LSC

A Center for Capital & Its Socialist Opposition

During the 21st century, NYC has intensified its role as a center for capital and real estate speculation to the detriment of its working class. This has led to contradictions in its governance as real estate and financial interests have placed their own in the position of Mayor (Michael Bloomberg) and deepened development and displacement with the help of co-opted representatives.

The city transformed from an ostensible New Deal social-democracy at mid-century, if never one that was fully progressive or racially integrated. What were typically reformist unions mediated power relations between corporate and governmental forces while more militant left and autonomous/community groups like the Black Panther Party intervened in them in a more ad-hoc and disruptive way.

NYC’s subsequent emergence as a capital of neoliberal finance and restructuring reflects deep economic and political forces. From the mid-century campaign by elites to eliminate manufacturing in favor of real estate to the aftereffects of the city's bailout and the Reagan austerity and various Wall Street Boom and Bust cycles, these have transformed the city into a haven for oligarchs and their capital.

Our formal and electoral politics are constrained by these forces. Notably, this transition has occurred despite opposition from POC communities and some Democratic Party representatives. The growing socialist wing of the party in the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn represents a force that has won increasing numbers of seats since 2016, partly in response to frustration with establishment politics and the cost of living. But it has had mixed success in passing transformative legislation after initial successes on housing and climate/energy bills or expanding beyond a minority in legislatures, even when allied with “progressive” politicians and factions.

A growing social crisis, thus, has played out across multiple economic and financial crises, political movements, as well as increasingly repressive social and governmental responses in the outskirts of the Metropolitan area and on the state and federal level. The anti-globalization and anti-war movements, Occupy Wall Street, the George Floyd uprising, and the Movement for Palestine were partially successful projects that have shifted the methodology and intellectual and organizing armature for the left toward a more autonomist practice and vision of the future.

But we face renewed austerity, a crisis of social reproduction represented by a cost of living crisis, and a situation of declining capitalist profit outside of technology and finance bubbles. Rather than resolve dynamics that threaten renewed economic and social catastrophe, the state and factions of the elite classes have repeatedly interfered with elections, universities, and social movements and are now turning to openly genocidal imperialism and ideological and social repression along the lines of a Third Red Scare. While our ranks are growing, the crisis of the liberal state has fomented corresponding trends toward directly fascist and nihilistic ideology among disengaged people–not all older or white–outside NYC and to some extent within it.

Social movement struggles, notably, have led to useful but also opportunistic and counterproductive political interventions and strategies. Among a progressive political class associated with NGOs, the limitations of their base and a top-down and non-participatory strategy of internal coordination are becoming clear. Setting aside the role these groups have played in counterinsurgency since the New Left, they have failed to advance successful candidates or policy programs. But they remain vulnerable to the whims of donors, executive/appointed leadership, and potentially entryists. In effect, they have disorganized social movements while failing to develop independent political power.

By the same token, political clubs and ersatz party formations have failed to win legislative seats or connect with an atomized social base. The Working Families Party, significantly, has failed to advance its goals as a movement leader rather than a part of a left coalition dominated by NYC-DSA.

Meanwhile, aspects of horizontal and participatory coordination such as working groups, direct democracy, and federations between autonomous groups remain part of the common sense of activists. They reflect the only viable path for all elements of the left to achieve their goals and to prevent the ossification and attrition of experienced members from left organizations.

NYC-DSA and the Road to Reform

These conditions suggest how necessary it will be to engage with the internal structures of our social movements and institutions if they can serve as a forum for counterpower against reaction. The NYC-DSA has grown exponentially since the Bernie Sanders 2016 campaign and resistance to the first Trump Administration. At the time, the local convention involved a few dozen participants in the basement of a church. It has evolved into what is the most significant political club–perhaps even a machine–in NYC despite the power of oligarchs. The growth has not ameliorated tensions between internationalist or autonomist social movements and the chapter, however. Unlike other DSA chapters, it lacks member meetings or adherence to rules of procedure standard in political and non-profit organizations. It has adopted a form of virtual polling associated with failures and crisis in multiple contemporary left and populist parties like Podemos and the Italian Five Star Movement. The chapter, while broadly aligning with different reformist factions, has posed and continues to present obstacles toward autonomous organization and projects from mutual aid to tenant organizing.

The chapter more recently has taken down its democratically passed policy platform from its website. It has repeatedly overridden the will of its members, as expressed through branch votes on the Break the Chain campaign and a more holistic approach to organizing with and engaging in deliberation with the Zohran Mamdani campaign. It has also repeatedly raised tensions over national electoral endorsements for Congressional candidates Jamal Bowman and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, held its own international events, and even appeared to contest the definition of membership.

The chapter's trajectory appears to mimic the insider gamesmanship and crisis following the purge of syndicalists and communists from the Socialist Party of America, New York Chapter one hundred years ago.

Today, tensions are reflected in conflict with social movements outside the organization, from the Palestine freedom struggle to mutual aid and tenant groups. The primary mode of engagement, at times, involves uniting with union and movement leadership, as part of what is effectively a popular front. In centering campaigns and mobilization, too, the chapter does not develop organic leaders or protagonists. These practices may result in short-term electoral or legislative advances but they do not build shared power, transform the common sense of disengaged and rightly cynical civic citizens (i.e. residents), or sustain independent institutions. The same challenges that non-profits face are increasingly present within the DSA chapter. The existing program will therefore face obstacles even if the goal is to defend social democratic “affordability” reforms.

For these reasons, we call for the chapter to adopt a municipalist and direct action/community program and the democratic structures associated with the post-Occupy moment and our growth as a movement: participatory and member-led collective institutions. These are able to grow rather than ossify like so many leadership cadres, Board-controlled non-profit or political organizations, and sectarian outfits before them.

The chapter should consider adopting reforms that include:

An expanded Steering Committee that's elected at large through a proportional election rather than single seats
Instituting an appointed Administrative Committee to handle technology, membership, and other specialized roles with members able to serve on committees
Expanding the subsidiary Citywide Leadership Committee, holding more proportional and at-large elections, and removing the Steering Committee from its ranks
Requiring supermajority membership support for budgeting items and approval of the citywide budget
Holding quarterly citywide membership meetings, following rules of order, with virtual attendance and branch attendance possible and employment of meeting facilitation technology such as OpenSlides
Expanding communications to include
shared and moderated chapter forum
newsletter on chapter business
historical archive
and publication featuring member positions on upcoming resolutions
Requiring branch meetings to be monthly and to follow rules of order for introduction of business
Recall process for internal officials
Ensuring working groups and membership committees follow democratic voting procedures and elections
New branches and methods of organizing to expand the engagement of POC inside and outside the Chapter
Federation of the branches into borough-sized or smaller locals that can easily operate
Incorporation of Bylaws changes to reflect requirements of national membership and in line with democracy commission resolutions
Long-Term Chapter Democracy Commission with supermajority (¾) requirements for passage of proposals to be adopted by convention, along the lines of Metropolitan Washington D.C. DSA (MDCDSA)

Libertarian Socialist Caucus - New York City: Old Struggles & New Terrain

LSC-NYC has gone through two waves, with its initial formation post-2017 alongside the caucus as a whole. While heavily engaged in autonomous tenant activity, political education, abolition, and mutual aid in its first iteration, the local caucus’ focus has always remained on contesting internal elections and participating in key efforts around political elections and policy campaigns. Caucus members continued organizing around national and local issues as part of left coalitions inside and outside party structures.

Since its post-Covid reformation in 2023 and following the revamp of national LSC in 2021 as an inside-outside group, the caucus has been engaged in fights to reform the DSA chapter, send delegates to convention and elect a representative to the DSA NPC, and efforts to extend the municipalist vision and direct action efforts within the chapter and beyond. As one of the militant tendencies within the left, we're concerned about implementing an effective vision that extends inside and outside NYC-DSA. We don't aim to preserve working relationships and present positive PR for the chapter at any cost. As we've done on the national level, we aim to unite left tendencies around a program for internal democratic reform and the class-independence of the chapter. The aim is to build a unified front for oppositional forces while participating in existing formations.

Methods & Strategies for Transformation

The possibilities that follow from Zohran Mamdani's victorious race for NYC mayor include a return to a social-democratic horizon of affordable housing, food, and renewed union power. But they also include federal military and immigration invasions and martial law. A combined attack by capitalists through their control of the press and market power to engage in capital strikes (and removing housing from the market) could undermine the mayoral administration. Similarly, a hostile federal executive; non-cooperative state executive, state legislature, and city council under the liberal-fascist syncretism of likely leader Julie Menin; corrupt and anti-rational state and federal courts; and implacable administrative (particularly police and security) state present as serious an obstacle to a successful Mamdani administration as they did to prior DSA Mayor David Dinkins or similar minority social democrats like Chicago Mayors Harold Washington and Johnson.

As such, we need to develop new popular, democratic institutions and build them into the foundation for municipalist power if we want to stand up to our opponents. We can't ignore autonomous movements in the streets that defend immigrants, tenants, workers, racial justice, or the cause of international solidarity in Palestine. We may need to ensure they operate democratically and unite with broader working class forces, as far as those criteria are possible under conditions of exigency. Autonomous movements have historically provided the spark necessary for popular power to catch fire. They can provide the scaffolding for public assemblies and independent working class institutions to develop a situation of dual power, no matter the mayor.

There will also be an increasing need for mutual aid and education as health-care, welfare, and housing funding come under attack from a hostile and increasingly erratic presidential administration. Our task is to build a response that meets people's needs and is not focused on the state but coordinates beyond the purely community-oriented and local efforts notable in these arenas. By helping to conduct popular assemblies in which demands and governing instructions are developed and uniting our efforts, we can develop a social commons while we organize beyond the scope of neighborhoods.

In this way, we can rebuild union movements and institutions from parties like DSA to solidarity and mutual aid groups as participants rather than external critics or independent actors with a narrow ideological vision. Our goal is not sectarian advancement but coordination between and social insertion within existing institutions. We aim, ultimately, to build popular power in a society that is often atomized, co-opted, and repressed.