Essay:Design thinking applied towards communism

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by CriticalResist
Published: 2023-09-19 (last update: 2024-09-04)
5-15 minutes

If we hold that Marxism-Leninism is a wide, all-encompassing framework, then it follows that we will see it in action in some fields (at times more in some than in others), and that there is something to be learned from these fields to apply them to Marxism.

In other words, we can further our understanding and practice of Marxism by integrating things -- which may not seem Marxist at first -- into it.

Design thinking has gone through its own dialectics and what was once a very niche term privy to only a select few has gone through its pop science phase through relatable 21st century bourgeois like Steve Jobs to finally become, in its current incarnation, a very rational process.

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If we hold that Marxism-Leninism is a wide, all-encompassing framework, then it follows that we will see it in action in some fields (at times more in some than in others), and that there is something to be learned from these fields to apply them to Marxism.

In other words, we can further our understanding and practice of Marxism by integrating things -- which may not seem Marxist at first -- into it.

At the basic level, if Marxism exposes the objective truth behind our material reality, then everything around us is Marxist whether that distinction was explicitly made or not.

“ Theory without practice is only words thrown in thin air, and practice without theory is adventurism.

Design thinking has gone through its own dialectics and what was once a very niche term privy to only a select few has gone through its pop science phase through relatable 21st century bourgeois like Steve Jobs to finally become, in its current incarnation, a very rational process.

So what is design thinking?

Thinking like a designer?

Design thinking is best summed up as the identification and subsequent resolution of problems.

A problem is anything that causes an issue or, if we want to be abstract, anything that can be solved; anything that has a solution.

Do you see the proximity to contradictions?

When hearing "design", we often think of graphic design: creative logos and other artful creations. But even those, though they use the creative side of the brain, can be understood as the resolution of problems. Even ProleWiki could not escape this reality when designing our logo. Problem: we want people to know we are a communist project, not tied to any particular country or party. Solution: use communist symbols (specifically Soviet) -- the wheat laurel, the red star and the colors red and yellow -- as well as international symbols -- the globe -- in our logo.

This is one example of design thinking. Everything can be made into a problem and subsequently solved by relying on two very important things: data (which we derive from our capacity to reason and think) and practice. By data, I don't necessarily mean big data as we've come to understand it in the 2020s. I mean data as relevant, meaningful information that helps us veer towards the right decision.

Design thinking is actually a misnomer that its inventors did not take into account: the process is incomplete without one actually being able to solve the problems they identified. "Thinking" only implies one half of the equation.

Let me put it this way. Everyone has ideas. Everyone is able to have ideas. But not everyone will turn their ideas into practice, carrying out a vision from start to finish.

Theory without being backed up by practice are only words thrown in thin air, and practice without theory is adventurism and a game. Both are needed and inform each other to create results.

Design thinking, perhaps due to its simplicity over the application of Marxism (being to an extent a much lighter and focused framework), is something I find more conducive to focused change. That is to say, breaking everything down into smaller problems and then solving them one by one into a whole.

Going from thinking to doing

For example, we've had a pervasive problem on ProleWiki since the early days: while most people understand they need an account to edit pages, they are not aware they are allowed to request an account and join the editing team. This is the problem.

This problem is informed by data: why exactly is this a problem? Or in other words, why do we consider this something we need to solve? Obviously because we want more editors to write for ProleWiki and join our team.

Why exactly are people not joining? What do we know, and what can we reasonably infer (or sometimes just guess)? Our data shows that the account request page is not visited very often. Not as much as we'd like, anyway. Few visits to this page turn into conversions (people taking an action, in this case requesting an account, after visiting the page).

“ While we are facing the capitalist hegemon, all comrades need to pull their own weight and not only find where they are skilled, but then put their skills to work as well.

We know how many requests we get in a month on average. We also know how many of those requests we accept and how many we deny. If we deny more than we approve, although that is another problem different from the one we're studying, we need to ask: why is that?

Once a proper screening has been done, we can start thinking about solutions. One solution was to bring up the edit button at the top of all pages. Except when you click on it, you are not taken to the editor interface, but to the account request page. This solution has several advantages: the button appears on all pages and looks native to the site (it looks exactly like the edit button editors see on their end), therefore people will see it. It also cuts the problem at the root, or so we think (only time will tell): we expect that most people, during an average browsing session, will visit a few pages and then eventually try to edit a page. A prominent button captures them before frustration can set in; the moment, in this case, where they look for the edit button but cannot find it.

Just one solution, though? Out of how many?

The iterative process of the scientific method

There are likely countless solutions to a problem. But you can only pick one at a time. How do you know which one is the most appropriate, i.e. will get you closest to your established goal?

You iterate. That is to say, you try something, see how it works out, and try again differently with what you have learned. This is something we employ all the time in ProleWiki, without even realizing it. Our wiki pages, on virtue of being editable by any editor, are an iterative process: we start often from a short stub page, adding sections as time goes on. Eventually, with time and iterations, a full article is made.

Our account request questions also follow this iterative process. When we started asking questions to vet potential new users, we had only a few and didn't really know what to ask aside from the usual: what is your ideology? Do you agree with our principles? What do you think of this and that country? Over time, we refined this process. We added more questions. We refined them to be more valuable based on what previous prospective editors answered. To this day we are still having discussions about these questions: what should they screen for? What do we want to get out of them? What about the answers, what do they tell us? What do they not tell us?

We will do the same with the "fake" edit button, which has only been released as these lines are written. We will try it out, and compare with what existed before it. Based on the feedback we get, we will either improve or abandon this mechanism that aims to convert more visitors into prospective editors.

It's no surprise that I called this section the iterative process of the scientific method. This is the basis of the scientific method: we diagnose an issue (emit a hypothesis), we test it out, and where the scientific method would either confirm or refute the hypothesis, we iterate on it, refine our test until we can confirm the hypothesis (in a scientific context, you would design and run other tests). If after several iterations we still can't confirm the hypothesis, then it may be time to abandon it and move on to something more productive.

Some would even recognize this as the dialectical method, and it is. But again I think that thinking of it in simpler terms, in a narrower scope as an iterative process instead of entire dialectics helps focus our attention to what matters and stay on the productive path: the one that gets results.

I am partial to pilot projects: small-scale projects that are deployed only in a limited capacity or for a limited time. They allow us to gather feedback and, importantly as well, pull the plug on the project without bothering people too much. Then we can take our time to analyze the data, gather the right conclusions, and decide how to proceed from there. It might come as no surprise that the PRC is a proponent of such projects as well, which particularly make sense with their large population -- where a wrong decision brought nationwide could be disastrous for hundreds of millions of people.

No matter what, carry it through

We've seen that doing is just as important as thinking. But often, people end at the thinking half of the process.

Communists, thankfully, less so.

As was said, everyone has ideas. Everyone has something to complain about. Actually finding solutions and carrying them out is another matter entirely.

But I still find my comrades and sometimes even myself prone to think "someone else will take care of it".

We cannot think like that as communists, not while we are facing the capitalist hegemon. All comrades need to pull their own weight and not only find where they are skilled, but then put their skills to work as well. We each need to take initiative in our collective, common goal.

The only reason ProleWiki is equipped with an organized library of texts, an essays feed, and 3000 pages of content is because we went from thinking about doing it to actually doing it. Every day is a challenge with new problems appearing, and others being solved. But to start moving forward, you have to take a first step.

Remember: the best solution is the one that can be realized. Knowing your limits, i.e. managing your resources efficiently, is an important part of design thinking and being pragmatic, and therefore efficient and productive. Doing something is better than doing nothing but endlessly talk about what ifs. Are we ultras, or do we hear the good advice of Lenin and set out to do what is to be done?

It's important to be realist and understand our limitations; the cards we are dealt at any time. To that end, it's important to commit your resources to the right goals and prioritize correctly. There are hundreds, perhaps even thousands of things we want to achieve on ProleWiki. There are hundreds of things people want us to achieve on ProleWiki. But we are only so many editors with only so much free time to commit. As such, we have to decide what is more important at the current given time and move projects higher or lower in the waiting list, even if we very much want to be realized.

I firmly believe that everyone has the capacity to achieve things they didn't think themselves capable of. Like everything, one's abilities depend on the material conditions they find themselves in. People who might not have thought of themselves as leaders or fighters suddenly prove very capable when thrust into that situation. It's sink or swim. When people depend on you, you have to do the best you can, even if you initially lack the experience or knowledge. You swim: you accept your responsibilities, you learn on the spot and you adapt, or you sink: you let everything fall around you and fail.

Nothing is set in stone

And that is a very important conclusion of marxism itself. We've seen that design thinking is really a process. And you shouldn't think of the design process as rigid. While there are some logical steps to the process (identify a problem, design a solution and carry it out, take feedback, iterate) the end goal is, well, the solution to the problem you are facing.

This is what the whole process is for: finding a solution to a problem. That is to say, we are dealing with very pragmatic and material things.

The word solution itself, in fact, is very interesting. It comes from the Latin solvere, which means to loosen (which is also where we got dissolve from). Much like one loosens the gears of a machine which have seized up after years of use, to keep it running and producing.