[This post is part of a series on 1-on-1 organizing conversations.]

As socialists we spend most of our time talking about socialism with other socialists, whether in our radical book groups or with our activist friends. When it comes time to talk to non-socialists about socialism, we often stumble as we apply our activist-talk to our neighbors and coworkers who aren’t part of the radical scene. Rather, we should adapt our conversational strategies to the needs of the current context and moment.

Socialism in the Workplace

As with all union conversations, when talking with coworkers about socialism it’s best to start with what is immediate, concrete, and strongly felt. Rather than bring socialism up out of the blue over lunch, bring it up when talking about some problem at work that you and your coworkers are dealing with. Imagine it’s winter and ice on the stairs and sidewalk at the worksite has led people to fall and injure themselves and the boss hasn’t prioritized shoveling and salting the walking surfaces. This is a workplace problem but also a capitalism problem.

Oftentimes you’ll want to explore the more practical sides of this problem, like how the problem arose, why the boss isn’t fixing it, and what you’re going to do about it together as coworkers. But sometimes there will be space to connect grievances to larger political questions.

“Why do you think the boss isn’t fixing this?” “If the boss isn’t fixing problems to make work safe and go smoothly, what are they even there for?” “What would it be like to work somewhere where the workers actually had real input on what they did all day?”

You don’t want to hit your coworker over the head with a lecture on capitalism every time they complain about something. But if they respond to these open questions, you can find ways to gradually zoom out from discussion of the specific grievance to the larger systems that created that grievance. Follow their curiosity and provide opportunities to think through the grievance in larger and larger terms. If your coworker is genuinely interested in not only fixing the immediate problem but also in having a better workplace and living in a better world, as many people are, this kind of conversational expansion can come quite naturally. 

Even if you set it up well, introducing the big -isms of capitalism and socialism into these conversations will always be a little awkward at first. Whatever issue you want to discuss, it can be less presumptuous to pose it in the form of a question first. “Well, that’s capitalism for you. Do you think this would happen under socialism?” Socialism is such a loaded term that people might respond to this question in a thousand different ways, but there’s no other way to get into the big political questions without confronting these terms.

Rather than get lost in the weeds about the reasons for the collapse of the USSR or what their uncle told them about Marxism, I prefer to try to keep the discussion of socialism focused on the matter at hand. If you start with all the baggage, you’ll spend all of your time wrestling with people’s deeply ingrained, preconceived notions about socialism rather than opening up new lines of inquiry. Rather, use the issue at hand to prompt them to think through the question of socialism as it relates to them in the here and now. 

At some point they’ll get confused about what socialism has to do with the icy sidewalk, and they’ll ask you, “What do you think socialism means?” That’s when you can give a workplace-level definition of these terms. Capitalism is when the boss has total authority to tell the workers what to do. Socialism is when workers discuss, make decisions, and then carry out together what they think is best. In other words, socialism is worker democracy.

Then tie this definition directly to the problem at hand. “Capitalism is workers getting injured because the boss won’t prioritize clearing the sidewalks. Socialism is workers discussing and deciding what’s safe and taking action to demand the boss fix it.”

Then invite them to respond. “Or at least that’s what I think socialism is. What do you think?”

Common Reactions to the Idea of Workplace Socialism

Before people agree with an idea that’s new to them, they need to go through all of the objections that come to mind. People objecting is a natural way of processing their thoughts about a new idea, so do your best not to get defensive. When you listen and show respect to people then they are more likely to be open to new ideas.

“If we had a competent boss, they’d understand how important this issue is and they’d deal with it and then we wouldn’t have this problem. It seems a lot more practical to get a better boss than to overthrow the whole economic system.”

The hope for a benevolent boss is the most common response I run into when trying to tie immediate grievances to larger economic systems. 

Try to gently challenge what they say and prompt them with questions about what it would be like to think about this differently. The method of affirming their concern, answering the question in my own terms, and then putting the question back to them (Affirm-Answer-Redirect, which I blog about here) is useful for these kinds of conversations.

I could reply with, “[Affirm:] Yea, that does sound like a tall task. [Answer:] The way I see it, it’s socialism when we as workers get what we want. So whatever it takes to get what we want, I’m for it. If we cause a stir and they give us a new boss who fixes the icy sidewalks, good for us. But I don’t think a new boss will fix the other problems we’re facing, like increasing healthcare costs. [Redirect:] What if we started small and achieved a small degree of socialism by getting the sidewalks fixed, then we fought for more socialism in getting a decent raise, and then fought for even more socialism by getting an affordable healthcare plan, and we just kept fighting for what was good for workers?”

“Ok, but if we let the workers decide everything we’ll just give ourselves huge raises and then the company will go broke and we’ll all lose our jobs.”

Good, we’re making progress now. They’ve temporarily conceded that workplace socialism is a good thing for workers. Now we just need to address the reasonable concern about what this means for larger economic structures and how it contrasts with capitalism where bosses have all of the formal authority. I would respond by tying what’s good about workplace socialism (aka, democracy) to what’s good about the idea about larger scale applications of socialism writ large (aka, democracy). 

“[Affirm:] Surely, socialism isn’t some land of make-believe where we all declare ourselves millionaires. [Answer:] Instead of having a small clique of rich people decide what’s best for everyone, what if everyone had a say in these decisions? I think people making decisions based on their own needs and sense of fairness, while far from perfect, is a better idea than letting rich people make decisions for everyone based on how much personal profit it will bring to them. If workers making decisions together at work is socialism for the workplace, then workers making decisions together in society is socialism for everyone. [Redirect:] Do you think that’s possible?” 

There’s a million different directions this can go, but whatever direction they decide to take this conversation, it’s worth tying it back to some idea of worker democracy. One reason worker democracy seems so foreign at first is that workers are typically given so little influence over decisions. You don’t want to get stuck trying to imagine every little detail about what organizational structures would make a workplace or society more democratic. 

But you do want to emphasize that people making informed and collective decisions is actually pretty natural. When people have done the hard work to build the power to demand their voice be heard, then setting up forms of democracy is the easy part. It’s straightforward to imagine workers at a staff meeting deciding that safe sidewalks are important and directing the boss to fix the issue. While how this process works at larger scales can require a little creative thinking, in my experience it’s pretty easy to piece together some basic ideas of how worker democracy might operate logistically. Whatever the scale and whatever the issue, socialism is the idea that people should have democratic control over decision-making. 

If someone challenges that what I’m talking about isn’t really socialism, I can refer back to the foundational slogan that, “socialism means workers’ control over the means of production.” To me, workers’ control means democratic workers’ control. Certainly, different people have different visions of socialism. But if we find the idea of worker democracy appealing, we can seize the concept of socialism for our own uses and sculpt it to satisfy our own desires for justice, equality, and freedom.

Conclusion

Expect to finish the conversation without them agreeing with you. End it on a light or positive note instead of a sour one. Undoing a lifetime of propaganda about capitalism and socialism will take a lot more than a single conversation. Your short-term goal is to stimulate enough curiosity that they want to have this conversation again in the future. Hopefully as your union organizing makes gains your conversations about socialism will too, and these things will reinforce each other as theory and practice develop together. 

We’ll overthrow capitalism when we’ve transformed our minds and our social relations and not one second before. It’ll take at least a lifetime to get there, and each step along the way is essential. Rather than aim for immediate victory in these conversations, play the long game and enjoy the ride.