True Goals

Where do you end, and the team begin?

Radoslaw told me, “you can never win” as he was describing the constant struggle to do the right thing. We were in his office at the union, where, on the wall—out of character for the offices there—hung a poster of Muhammad Ali with the caption “Impossible is nothing.”

Radoslaw was a very adept field representative, especially at getting union members to contribute extra money, voluntarily, to the union’s political efforts. He was a natural salesman, but he was adept because he had the quality that makes all great salespeople: he was genuine. And on top of that, he didn’t bullshit.

He’d look a guy in the eye, explain why the money mattered for their families, and mean every word. That’s the rare quality that separates the naturals from the hustlers.

The union had made demands on their representatives to raise quotas of money for politics, and it proved very effective. The problem a lot of the representatives and members would reiterate to me was the issues were becoming increasingly social, not economic. They really wanted, as they repeatedly told me, to be focused on their wages and benefits — but they found that only one party was getting the attention.

I was their political director, a staunch Democrat who worked with both sides as best as possible, and that was the union’s stated strategy: “we have no permanent friends and no permanent enemies, only permanent issues.” But privately I knew better.

Both that the permanent friends would only be on the far left and the permanent issue would only be to dismantle capitalism.

When Radoslaw told me he could never win, he described how as soon as he attained his quota for political money, they would raise it — almost arbitrarily. I have come to regard this moving of the goal post to be somewhat Orwellian. But that may just be a style choice. What was most apparent was the fact that he was absolutely correct: it didn’t matter what he did, he could not ever succeed.

Radoslaw saw it clearer than most. Added to his experiences and views, his Catholic faith gave him a moral compass that clashed with the escalations—like confessing the same sin only to have penance doubled each time.

Radoslaw was dead right: no matter the effort, success was engineered to be impossible. In that moment, I glimpsed the deeper trap—not just for him, but for anyone bending to the collective will. You chase the horizon, convince yourself it’s noble, and end up exhausted, forever short of the mark. That’s not agency. That’s surrender disguised as struggle.

I was political director, but as a capitalist I worked instinctively and intentionally on the merit system. I tried to implement recognition ceremonies for when representatives hit their goals. And these ceremonies were accepted in part, so long as I managed everything about them.

And then I learned the reason for the reluctance to highlight the achievements of individual reps when the union’s leader told me in no uncertain terms, “they should do it because they believe in the cause, because they want to do it.” It stung, mostly because I believed in individual achievement — but now I realize what I found truly painful about this admonition.

It was about control.

The strategy was to force them to believe so intensely in the Cause they would attain quotas that increased arbitrarily, at the leaders’ whim, without any differentiation of their own individual will. This intention, one in which a loyal soldier could not ever conceivably—objectively—win, certainly lined up with the true goal being imposed upon the soldiers.

That was the moment my efforts to shine a light on individual team members’ contributions stopped feeling like incentives and started feeling like sabotage. You can’t hand out trophies if they’re all the same. The goalposts weren’t just moving—they were being dismantled in order to build one driving, non-dissenting aim.

An outcome which the leader stated to me with crystal clarity not long thereafter: “The revolution is coming, David. We are almost there.”