The Dangers of Pragmatism

Transparency and accountability operate within real constraints. Movements face constant pressure: compromise principles for tactical advantage, centralize decision-making for efficiency, accept resources that come with strings attached, and make alliances that require softening positions. These pressures are genuine, not imagined. The question isn’t whether movements will face them, but how they’ll respond when they do.

This is where pragmatism becomes dangerous. Pragmatism itself isn’t inherently problematic; movements must be strategic, adapt to circumstances, and make difficult choices. But there’s a crucial difference between strategic flexibility that maintains core principles and unprincipled compromise that abandons them. This section examines that difference and explores how movements that sacrifice their values for short-term gains often end up replicating the very systems they sought to dismantle.

Understanding the Tension: Pragmatism and Principle

First, we must be clear about what we mean by pragmatism and why it poses dangers without creating a strawman argument that dismisses all strategic thinking.

Pragmatism in organizing means being realistic about constraints, making strategic decisions about timing and tactics, choosing battles carefully, and adapting methods to circumstances. This is necessary and valuable. A movement that refuses to adapt to changing conditions, that insists on ideological purity at the expense of effectiveness, that cannot make strategic decisions about when and how to act, won’t accomplish much.

The danger arises when pragmatism becomes the justification for abandoning core principles. When movements accept hierarchy because it’s “more efficient,” when they exclude marginalized groups because it’s “politically difficult” to include them, when they ally with oppressive forces because it offers short-term gains, when they use means that contradict their ends because it seems “realistic.” This is unprincipled pragmatism, and history shows its consequences.

The distinction matters because movements must navigate real dilemmas. As we saw in Section 2.3, Cooperation Jackson must decide whether to accept foundation grants that come with restrictions on political activity. The MST must balance immediate food production needs with long-term soil regeneration practices. Worker cooperatives in Argentina must compete economically with capitalist enterprises. These aren’t simple choices with obvious right answers. They require strategic thinking, careful weighing of trade-offs, and sometimes difficult compromises.

But some compromises cross a line. When the compromise contradicts the movement’s core values, when it requires abandoning the people the movement claims to serve, when it means using oppressive means in service of liberatory ends, when it creates organizational structures or precedents that will persist beyond the immediate situation, that’s when pragmatism becomes dangerous.

History provides sobering examples of movements that sacrificed core principles for pragmatic considerations, with lasting consequences.

The AFL’s Exclusionary Pragmatism

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) under Samuel Gompers made a calculated decision: exclude Black workers, women, and immigrants to strengthen the bargaining position of white male skilled workers. The reasoning seemed pragmatic. Employers often used racial divisions to break strikes, hiring Black workers as strikebreakers when white workers walked out. Gompers argued that racial segregation within unions would prevent employers from using this tactic and strengthen organized labor’s power.

The result was the opposite. By accepting and reinforcing racial divisions, the AFL weakened the entire working class. Excluded workers had little choice but to accept strikebreaking roles, not out of opposition to unions but out of economic desperation when unions barred them from membership. Employers continued exploiting racial divisions, now reinforced by unions themselves. The labor movement split along racial lines precisely when solidarity across those lines was most needed.

The AFL’s pragmatism wasn’t just morally wrong; it was strategically foolish. Racism doesn’t strengthen worker power; it divides workers to capital’s benefit. But the decision seemed pragmatic at the time to those making it. White skilled workers did gain some short-term advantages through exclusionary tactics. The problem was that these short-term gains came at the cost of long-term working-class power and contradicted the fundamental principle that workers’ liberation requires solidarity across all divisions capital creates.

This pattern repeated. The AFL supported racist immigration restrictions, arguing these protected American workers’ jobs. They excluded women from many trades, claiming women’s participation lowered wages. They organized only skilled workers, ignoring the masses of industrial workers. Each exclusion seemed pragmatic in the moment. Each weakened the movement in the long run.

The Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), formed in the 1930s, took a different approach. They organized across racial lines, included women and immigrants, focused on industrial workers regardless of skill level. This wasn’t just more principled; it was more effective. The CIO’s solidarity across differences built stronger unions that won significant gains for all workers. When workers organize together rather than dividing along lines of race, gender, or skill, they build real power.

The Bolshevik Progression: From Emergency Measures to Permanent Dictatorship

The Bolshevik experience in Russia provides another example of how pragmatic compromises, justified as temporary necessities, became permanent features that transformed the movement’s character.

Following the October 1917 Revolution, the Bolsheviks faced immediate crises: civil war, foreign intervention, economic collapse, famine. In response, they implemented what they called “temporary” measures: banning other socialist parties, centralizing economic control, suppressing workers’ councils (soviets) that challenged Party decisions, creating the Cheka (secret police). Each step was justified as necessary for defending the revolution during emergency conditions.

These measures weren’t implemented all at once by committed authoritarians. They developed gradually, each seeming pragmatic given immediate threats. When Menshevik socialists and Socialist Revolutionaries opposed Bolshevik policies, banning them seemed necessary to prevent counter-revolution. When workers’ councils in Petrograd demanded more autonomy, suppressing them seemed necessary to maintain coordination during crisis. When peasants resisted grain requisitions, using force seemed necessary to feed cities and armies. Each decision had a pragmatic justification based on real circumstances.

But “temporary” measures became permanent. The one-party state persisted long after civil war ended. Economic centralization intensified rather than relaxing. The secret police expanded its powers. Workers’ councils lost all real authority. By the time Stalin consolidated power in the late 1920s, the structures were in place for totalitarian dictatorship. What began as pragmatic responses to crisis had created organizational forms, precedents, and concentrations of power that enabled outcomes antithetical to the revolution’s liberatory goals.

Anarchists like Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, who initially supported the Russian Revolution, warned early about this trajectory. They argued that authoritarian means (party dictatorship, centralized control, political repression) couldn’t produce libertarian ends (worker power, democratic socialism, human liberation). As Berkman wrote in 1925: “The means employed to prepare the revolution, to bring it about and to make it victorious are not just methods to achieve a certain goal… The methods and means used become part of your purpose. In fact, they determine the nature of your aim.”

The Bolshevik experience validates Bakunin’s earlier prediction: “If you took the most ardent revolutionary, vested him in absolute power, within a year he would be worse than the Tsar himself.” Not because revolutionaries are inherently corrupt, but because authoritarian structures corrupt those who operate within them. The means literally shaped the ends.

Business Unionism: When Labor Becomes a Stakeholder in Capitalism

Another form of dangerous pragmatism emerged in mid-20th century American labor through what’s called “business unionism.” Union leaders, seeking stability and legitimacy, made a fundamental compromise: accept capitalism’s basic framework in exchange for negotiating better terms for workers within it.

This meant focusing exclusively on wages, benefits, and working conditions while abandoning broader challenges to capitalist control of production. Unions gave up demands for worker control, stopped questioning property relations, and became partners in managing workers rather than vehicles for worker liberation. The reasoning seemed pragmatic: revolutionary demands were politically unrealistic in Cold War America, so unions should focus on achievable improvements.

The results were mixed at best. Some workers won significant gains through collective bargaining. But unions lost their transformative potential. They became bureaucratic institutions more responsive to employers and government than to rank-and-file members. Union leadership often collaborated with management to control workers and prevent unauthorized strikes. The relationship between means and ends was clear: by accepting capitalism’s framework, unions became institutions that reinforced capitalism rather than challenged it.

When economic conditions shifted and employers launched aggressive anti-union campaigns in the 1980s, business unions proved unable to defend even previous gains. They’d built structures dependent on employer cooperation and legal frameworks rather than worker power. When those proved inadequate, unions lacked the militant capacity to resist because they’d spent decades suppressing it in the name of pragmatic partnership.

Distinguishing Strategic Flexibility from Unprincipled Compromise

Given these dangers, how do movements distinguish necessary strategic adaptation from unprincipled compromise? This isn’t always clear-cut, but several considerations help navigate the tension.

Does the compromise contradict core values?

The MST balancing immediate food production with long-term soil regeneration involves trade-offs but doesn’t contradict their commitment to sustainable agriculture and collective control. They’re navigating how to practice those values under difficult conditions, not abandoning them.

The AFL excluding Black workers contradicted the fundamental principle of working-class solidarity. The compromise didn’t just postpone solidarity until better conditions; it actively reinforced the divisions solidarity aims to overcome.

Does it abandon the people the movement serves?

When labor unions excluded women, immigrants, and people of color, they betrayed those workers to benefit a narrower group. When the Bolsheviks suppressed workers’ councils to maintain Party control, they betrayed the workers the revolution claimed to serve.

When Cooperation Jackson accepts foundation grants, they carefully evaluate whether restrictions would force them to abandon community members or compromise their mission. If a grant required excluding undocumented residents or stopping political organizing, that would cross the line regardless of financial benefits.

What organizational precedents does it create?

The Bolsheviks’ “temporary” emergency measures created structures and precedents that persisted and expanded. Once you’ve built a secret police, centralized all economic decisions, and banned opposition parties, those structures don’t easily dissolve. They generate their own logic and constituencies with interests in maintaining them.

This is why movements must carefully consider not just immediate effects but what patterns they’re establishing. A one-time compromise to survive immediate crisis differs from building structures that will outlast the crisis.

Can it be reversed?

Truly strategic flexibility can be adjusted when circumstances change. If the MST accepts reduced diversity in crops during drought to ensure survival, they can return to greater diversity when conditions improve. If a movement uses hierarchical coordination during a specific emergency action, they can return to horizontal organization afterward.

Compromises that transform the movement’s fundamental character, create entrenched interests, or establish precedents that persist beyond immediate circumstances are harder to reverse. The AFL’s exclusionary practices became embedded in union culture and structure. The Bolsheviks’ centralization became totalitarianism.

Does it maintain agency for those affected?

Agency means the capacity to make decisions about your own life and circumstances rather than having decisions made for you. It’s the difference between being a subject who acts and an object acted upon. Someone with agency has real choices and control over outcomes; someone without agency is subject to others’ decisions regardless of their own preferences or needs.

In organizing, this shows up concretely: Do workers decide how their cooperative responds to market pressures, or does management decide for them? Do community members determine which foundation grants to accept, or does leadership make those calls unilaterally? Do rank-and-file union members vote on contracts, or do officials negotiate behind closed doors? Agency means those experiencing consequences participate meaningfully in decisions, not just having decisions announced to them.

When worker cooperatives in Argentina compete with capitalist enterprises, the workers themselves democratically decide how to navigate that tension. They maintain collective decision-making about whether to increase work hours, reduce pay, or accept certain business practices. The means (democratic worker control) persist even as tactics adapt.

When union leadership makes deals with employers without rank-and-file input or approval, they’ve abandoned democratic agency regardless of the deal’s content. The means (top-down decision-making) contradict the ends (worker power).

When facing difficult choices, movements can ask: What would we do if we took our principles seriously? If we really believe in racial justice, can we exclude Black workers? If we really believe in worker power, can we suppress workers’ councils? If we really believe in democracy, can we ban opposition?

Sometimes the answer reveals that the “pragmatic” compromise contradicts principles the movement claims to uphold. Sometimes it shows a way to maintain principles while adapting tactics. Sometimes it exposes that the immediate goal conflicts with long-term values and forces a choice about priorities.

Navigating Real Constraints Without Abandoning Principles

The critique of unprincipled pragmatism doesn’t mean movements should be inflexible or refuse all compromise. It means being clear about what’s negotiable and what isn’t, and understanding that some compromises have consequences that outlast their immediate circumstances.

Movements can:

Distinguish core principles from tactics. The commitment to solidarity, horizontal organizing, collective liberation, and alignment of means with ends aren’t negotiable. How those principles get practiced in specific circumstances can adapt. The MST’s core commitment to collective land ownership doesn’t change, but how they organize production might adapt to drought, market conditions, or other challenges.

Accept constraints without accepting the systems creating them. Worker cooperatives must navigate capitalist markets while working to transform those markets. They can make strategic decisions about pricing, hiring, and production while maintaining democratic control and working toward an economy based on cooperation rather than competition. Accepting current reality doesn’t mean accepting it as permanent or just.

Build toward long-term goals through short-term actions. This is what prefigurative politics means: each action should move toward liberatory ends through liberatory means, even if the immediate goal is modest. A mutual aid network providing food during crisis doesn’t solve hunger, but it models cooperation and builds capacity for collective provisioning. It points toward transformation while meeting immediate needs.

Maintain transparency about compromises. When movements must make difficult trade-offs, doing so transparently and collectively preserves accountability. If Cooperation Jackson accepts a restricted grant, making that decision openly and explaining the reasoning maintains their horizontal structure even when facing constraints. Hidden compromises made by informal leadership create the very hierarchy transparency aims to prevent.

Regularly evaluate whether short-term compromises are becoming permanent. The Bolsheviks justified each centralizing measure as temporary, but never created mechanisms to reverse them or criteria for when emergency measures should end. Movements can build in evaluation: Is this compromise still necessary? Has it created structures we need to dismantle? Are we maintaining our core values?

The point isn’t to avoid all difficult choices or pretend movements can function without constraint. It’s to maintain clarity about the relationship between means and ends, to preserve the principles that distinguish radical movements from reformist ones, and to resist the constant pressure to become what we oppose in the name of pragmatic realism.

The tension between pragmatism and principle manifests acutely in direct action. When movements confront injustice directly—occupying land, blockading fossil fuel infrastructure, defending communities from deportation raids—they must make immediate decisions about tactics while ensuring those tactics embody liberatory values. The next section examines the ethics of direct action: how movements take action against oppression while maintaining alignment between their means and their vision of liberation.