PSL's Socialist Reconstruction: An Informal Review

The Party for Socialism and Liberation is a communist party in the United States. In August 2022, they published Socialist Reconstruction: A Better Future for the United States. The book serves, basically, as a party platform and onboarding document for potential members. It’s written for general audiences, not assuming that the reader has any previous knowledge about Marxism or general theory.

The pitch is: what will the first ten years of socialism look like in the United States? The title recalls the promised Reconstruction era after the American Civil War, which was supposed to have rebuilt the South and integrate black ex-slaves into a more modern economy (it didn’t happen). By this, the book promises a plan to make the United States egalitarian and sustainable through a socialist revolution of the economy and government which will reorganize society to meet people’s needs.

What does that plan look like, and is it any good?

PSL’s Ten-Year Plan

I took notes of what I felt like were the major points of PSL’s platform. The ones I think are questionable have question marks, and I’ve colored them red. I also feel like my notes were more intensive towards the end of the book, once it occurred to me that it would be actually useful to take them (originally, I didn’t take any notes on Chapter 3 at all because originally I was just writing down the things that made me go, “Hmm”).

Government (Ch. 2)

• No salary for politicians? p. 26
• Multiple political parties? p. 29
• Bicameral legislative branch? p. 36
• Representatives for social sectors? p. 36
• Assembly of Nations? p. 37

I know I'm red-lining this chapter like a motherfucker. Like I said, this was before I started taking more extensive notes, and I didn't go back and add more to this one because it felt just like a mess all over.

With regards to not compensating politicians (or assembly members or whatever): legislature either needs to be extremely efficient like jury duty, or legislators need to be compensated so it’s not just those who are comfortable who volunteer for the task (especially in the transitional stages of the economy). Now that I say that, jury duty structure is not a bad idea for local or regional legislature, especially if you can vouch for whoever is in the pool of voters. You could even integrate a kind of direct democracy, say that the random voters must vote but that others can vote outside the chamber if they choose. This is total bullshittery lmao, but it could strike some balance between efficient representation and direct involvement. Higher levels of government should definitely be waged, though, if it requires upending your life and moving to a different place for a while.

With regards to there being multiple political parties: it would be kind of easier if there weren't? What's nice about a single-party state is that it's kind of like a zero-party state, in the same way that monotheism is to some extent like atheism (see Paul Was Not a Christian: The Original Message of a Misunderstood Apostle, which reads early Jewish monotheism and anti-idolatry as almost a proto-materialism). Party membership in this context would serve to gatekeep certain social functions and socialize individuals into the new state of things. Think about citizenship and naturalization exams, where prospective citizens take courses on American history, civics, and values in order to become an American citizen. It's less joining a faction than becoming a citizen of the new society. By extension, if there is formal factionalism within the state, it wouldn't be for any good. Within the current bourgeois coalition government, factionalism is along the lines of social wedge issues. What good is it to represent racism, sexism, homophobia, et cetera in the government? What other issues do we foresee factionalism about, judging from our current politics?

With regards to the other points: a potential problem I see is that by formalizing interest groups, you risk institutionalizing them into cogs of a political machine rather than organic, emergent expressions of those interests. Keep in mind that even if politics isn’t a career for individual politicians, there still need to be organizations dedicated to finding and promoting candidates. At the same time, opposed interests could push minorities out if they outnumber them. What’s worse, even an assembly that accurately represents the demographics of the country would be 60% white; do we really trust them like that? So I’m not necessarily opposed, I’m just wondering how it would play out and hope it wouldn’t be too much overhead. Also relevant is Stalin’s Marxism and the National Question, which precisely criticizes ideas like this for how messy they become upon closer inspection. How do you even formally define a nation and who belongs to it, on the level of culture alone and without an associated region? Lol, Stalin.

With regards to women being represented in congress proportionally, in the current political environment, I foresee discourse about whether non-binary people (probably a fraction of a percent of the population) should also be represented in a separate quota from women and men. I dread the possibility that women and non-binary people are grouped together as non-men, out of fear for how men could take advantage of that situation, so here's my half-joking proposal: phrase the quota so that at least 50% of the legislature should be women, so that the remaining percent can be whatever else. We just need there to be less men lmao!

Energy Production & Distribution (Ch. 3)

• Nationalize energy producers and transform energy into a public utility; p. 47
• Assist refugee populations fleeing the effects of climate change by opening the border and helping relocate them p. 48
• Help other countries with climate change by providing material resources, and abolishing intellectual property in order to freely share technology; pp. 48-9
• Study indigenous conservation practices, and reduce the environmental footprint of Americans; p. 49
• Place a cap on the production and import of fossil fuels, increasing by 10% each year, while transitioning towards green energy sources; pp. 50-3
• Reduce energy consumption by 60% to 95%; pp. 55-6

Abolishing Debt & Finance Capital (Ch. 4)

• Abolishing debt as part of socialization; pp. 65-9
• Dissolution of stocks and bonds; p. 70
• Ending government handouts; p. 70
• Wage and price control; p. 72-3
• Abolition of landlordism; p. 73
• Right to not be evicted; p. 74
• Rent as distribution mechanism for luxury housing; p. 74-5
• Socialization will free 6-7 million people from finance, insurance, and advertising industries; p. 76
• Socialization of shared responsibilities, including childcare and goods delivery; pp. 77-8
• Postal banking integrated into national development banks; pp. 78-9

Most of my comments are to criticize the text, but I want to say that I specifically enjoyed this chapter because it points out so many of the contradictions of advanced capitalist society. Namely, that (1) the big industries are not actually profitable and rely on vast government subsidiaries and buyouts, (2) debt serves the function of constant proletarianization by leeching endlessly off of people's livelihoods, and (3) debt is extremely centralized. By ceasing government subsidiaries and abolishing debt, you liberate so much of society's members from the predatory forces of American capitalism (in particular). This feels like the clearest chapter of the book with the widest-reaching, most immediate, and most specific implications; the other chapters describe more gradual programs.

Agriculture & Food Industry (Ch. 5)

• Nationalization and socialization of major food companies; pp. 90-1
• New agroecological approach to food production; p. 92

Housing & Transport (Ch. 6)

See previous points in Chapter 4 on abolishing landlordism, introducing the right to not be evicted, and using rent as a mechanism for distributing luxury housing.

• National transport and housing agencies; p. 101
• Public housing projects designed to raise the standard of living; p. 105
• Socialization of transport on regional and national levels; p. 112
• Public transport designed to carry passengers between essential places; p. 112
• Buses within and high-speed rail networks between population centers; p. 112
• Traffic enforcement reoriented towards safety rather than revenue (and racism); p. 113
• Generally end mass reliance on personal automobiles; p. 114

Healthcare (Ch. 7)

• Reorient healthcare industry from profit to helping people; p. 117
• Make medicines and medical procedures free to access; p. 118
• Nationalize pharmaceutical industry; pp. 118-9
• Free day care for children and adults (elderly?); p. 122
• Include naturopathy and acupuncture in nationalization of healthcare? p. 124
• Eliminate food deserts; p. 128
• Treat addiction as a “biological phenomenon”; p. 128
• Subdivisions of national health administration for the elderly, the disabled, women, and LGBT individuals; pp. 130-2

The point about naturopathy was a one-off sentence, and it caught me off-guard. It's funny because when you make it illegal to own a private practice, you necessarily have to deal with "alternate modalities" of medicine and whether to continue supporting them. My partner's studying to become a doctor (I'm really, really proud of her), so I asked her about whether public healthcare should support naturopathy and other alternative medicines.

Western medicine doesn't know everything and disregarding certain practices can be part of white supremacy. It's important to respect the cultural values of a patient as part of their healthcare, but also it's irresponsible to support people that encourage these procedures instead of known medical treatments. While some practitioners are genuine, others are just scam artists.

In general, the rule of thumb is as long as it's not disrupting regular care, it's the patient's choice, but they should be aware of the limitations and possible side effects. [...] Stuff like naturopathy and Chinese medicine can in some ways be good as methods for encouraging holistic body health and healthy lifestyle practices, which are big parts of preventative medicine.

However, that being said, I'm skeptical about ever putting my full weight behind it. Western medicine works; the scientific method is there not just to prove efficacy but also to protect people. A lot of people want to take advantage of people's mistrust or uncertainty when they're in need of help, and I think that's unforgivable.

Thank you, a ton, to my partner for her patient and nuanced explanation! That clears up a lot my questions about the relationship between public healthcare and alternative medicines, and it makes sense to me now why a public system should encompass those practices as well, i.e., if only to regulate them and encourage holistic health practices without allowing charlatans to take advantage of the ill.

Education (Ch. 8)

• Free public education socially reoriented towards the new society; pp. 134-5
• Reorient student examinations towards reflection and opportunities for growth; pp. 137-8
• Free education for and promotion of manual, trade, and craft labor; pp. 138-9
• Integrate education into industry so that people do not graduate without employment, and so they can immediately work for society’s needs; p. 140
• Teach languages in public schools based on local linguistic diversity; p. 142
• New curricula for topics of history and social movements; p. 142
• Counseling for students; p. 143
• Abolish private university systems, and socialize higher (adult) education with the goal of eliminating competition between schools; p. 143
• Universal architecture fully inclusive of disabled people, not just e.g. requiring elevators; p. 145

Rule of Law (Ch. 9)

• Replacement of police departments with a participatory public safety model to be implemented in living communities; pp. 155-6
• Change mass media culture to reflect pro-social values? pp. 155-6
• End the so-called war on drugs, especially by treating addiction as an illness rather than a crime; pp. 156-8
• “Massive people’s campaigns” to eradicate patriarchal violence, which will be helped by socializing women’s work; pp. 158-60
• Abolish private prisons and mass incarceration, limiting confinement only to anti-social and violent individuals; pp. 160-1

I just thought the bit about mass media was kind of amusing lol. Like, true, I guess.

Ceasing Imperialism (Ch. 10)

• Shut down the Pentagon and all foreign military bases; p. 174
• Withdraw from international imperialist military alliances; p. 174
• Cease space military operations; p. 174
• Demobilize military and re-integrate personnel into the regular economy; p. 174
• Arm and organize the working class to defend the revolutionary state; p. 174-5
• Deploy assistance fascist and far-right governments (and, one would hope, capitalist ones?); p. 174-5
• Redirect vast military expenditures into social needs; p. 175
• Grant independence to U.S. colonies? p. 175
• End economic sanctions and blockades; p. 177
• Create new state department for humanitarian aid to other countries; p. 177
• Contribute to forming a socialist multilateral/international organization, similar to the UN (you mean, an International?); p. 178

My family is Puerto Rican, and I have kind of mixed feelings about political independence? Like, it's obviously a colony, and my family members are at the very least bitter about it. The conflict is that I don't think anyone really wants Puerto Rico to become a state or retain its second-rate status, but it is so dependent on the U.S. that statehood seems necessary. After all, statehood means that Puerto Rico is equal in status to every other state, and it is entitled to the same representation and resources from the federal government. It also means, though, being fully integrated into the American nation, which flies in the face of all that Puerto Ricans have fought for.

I think that the U.S. owes Puerto Rico (and the other colonies) more than independence: it also owes reparations for independence to be sustainable and worthwhile. That should also involve, in the interim, political representation on the federal (i.e. national) level, as if Puerto Rico (et cetera) were also a state. Over time, if we expect national borders to erode, one case we could expect is that the relationship between Puerto Rico and the U.S. would become like the relationships between them and other countries, all of them slowly fading into an international community. To reiterate, though, that requires active efforts towards collaboration, development, and equity.

Conclusion

I feel like Socialist Reconstruction is pretty optimistic. Maybe it has to be, considering that the point is to present a grand vision for America and convince readers that it's both desirable and possible. It identifies all the problems of our advanced capitalist country, it offers high-level solutions, and that's really all it can do and needs to do. I guess my recurrent reaction reading the book is, "Can we really do that?" It assumes that the government has already been revolutionized, and that there will be a mass movement which does not really exist right now.

Am I too cynical? I guess for a while, my thought has been that the U.S. will be the last place to socialize. If it won't be because of its population—I guess it is about 32% black and Latin—it'll be because it sits on top of the world and maintains the entire international capitalist system. It might take the rest of the world either collapsing or revolutionizing for the right conditions to appear inside the U.S. across the board, since it relies so much on everywhere else. I don't know, though, 32% and then some is not too bad?

That being said, the platform is not bad on a high level. Maybe I expected some more about specific firms, especially looking at Amazon and Walmart as a basis for a distributive network (see The People's Republic of Walmart, which goes into great detail about the socialist/socializing potential for such firms, although the authors seem to have "anti-degrowth" tendencies). But, again, on a high level it's not bad. It just requires a lot of mass coordination, which in itself is a pipe dream for now. If they had a chance against the bourgeois coalition parties, I would vote for them. Lmao.

I'll see you when we get there. If we ever get there.