His co-workers know him as a bookkeeper, but AU students recognize him as the man who stands at the Tenleytown-AU Metro stop on weekday afternoons, holding flyers and wearing a sign that says, "Ask me about revolutionary socialism."
Jeff Elliot, who said he has been doing this for about a year and a half, chose Tenleytown as a place to share his viewpoints because it has a diverse mixture of people, especially students.
"I'm targeting younger people," he said. "I'm interested in young people for the same reasons that all the AU departments are interested in young people."
He said that he sees in youth the potential to be very serious about communicating ideas over a long period of time.
"I'm looking for people who are really absorbed by ideas and by an intellectual life," he said.
Elliot feels these people can aid in the socialist cause, which he says can eventually succeed.
"If we haven't managed to overthrow capitalism in 150 years, that doesn't bother me too much," he said. "Capitalism took hundreds of years to overthrow feudalism. I think class societies were overthrown by revolution, so I think it's a possibility to build a shared society. I don't think humanity has ever met a problem it can't solve."
Elliot said he would like to live in a society where "class identity" is nonexistent. He described his goal as finding people who will look very seriously at class society and bring Marxist ideas to the working class.
"I think in the end, it's the working-class movement that can change the world," he said.
According to Elliot, technology could make a shared society possible by letting the entire population work fewer hours and have more time for meaningful, chosen activity, which he said is only available to some today. He blames the problems he sees in current society on the capitalist culture.
"They know that it takes more misery to make more profit and they're competing," he said. "I think all people were born with an intellect and talents, capable of having a dream. And I think that what holds modern society back from using our technology to free everyone to realize their dream is the profit motive and class division."
Nevin Nurse, a D.C. resident who stopped to talk to Elliot, agreed.
"The only way we have been able to sustain our society is by creating this illusion of power," he said.
In addition to talking at the Metro stop, Elliot has also taken part in activism with high school students he has met in Tenleytown. He said he went with these students to marches against the war in Iraq last March.
"I think they inspired many more people than just me, including the soldiers who were against the war and couldn't go," he said.
Despite these positive experiences, Elliot believes he still hasn't convinced enough people of the need for change.
"I think in this time period, it's only possible for a small number of people to become convinced of the need for revolutionary socialism," he said. "I think it would take a mass movement for that to change"
