Richard Wolff: It's time for a powerful unified left organization in the United States

[Demeter]

8. There are Two Kinds of Power: Coercion, and Empowerment

People who opt for Empowerment don't go in for Coercion.

And yet, a powerful, unified Left organization would in fact be coercive either by intent, by structure, or both. Empowerment doesn't work in a Win/Lose game environment, which is what our political system is built to be.

Anyone who works at empowerment is taking the risk that their labors will enable others who didn't believe in "universality" to coerce their fellow man.

That is why public education, which uses coercion for promoting empowerment, is getting canned. It's one or the other, not a balance between the two, or rapid seesawing between, like a bipolar illness.

That's why Obamacare is so despised. Too much coeercion, too little empowerment, and too great a cost.

That's why the Bill of Rights was so important to the first Americans, and why it is under relentless attack by the NSA, FBI, CIA, the Supreme Court etc.

I don't know the solution to this....we've never had a successful Empowerment movement in history, to my knowledge. Look at how Occupy got slammed...the best example of Empowerment I've ever seen. I can only hope that the yeast of Empowerment is building up enough pressure and ferment to blow Coercion out of the water.