Let me respond to the lengthy and interesting comment by the
reader with the ridiculous blog name concerning the potential role of unions in
a progressive movement going forward. My skepticism about the possible role of
unions was fed by two considerations: first, the dramatic decline in the
proportion of the labor force that is unionized, a decline that has brought
that proportion down from roughly 1/3 to perhaps 15% in the past 50 or 60
years. I can recall, as I think the reader can as well, when the AFL/CIO was a
bedrock of the Democratic Party. The deliberate and successful effort of Ronald
Reagan and his followers to weaken unionization in the United States could to a
considerable extent be reversed by a progressive Congress and president. But
structural changes in capitalism in the United States in the past half-century
place significant obstacles in the way of a real resurgence of labor union
membership. I am, of course, thinking of the decline of manufacturing as well
as the cultural and employment divide resulting from the increase in the
proportion of the population having college degrees from five or 10% to roughly
33% today. The ritual repetition by Democratic politicians of the phrase “middle
class” and the absence of the phrase “working class” in the rhetoric of all but
Bernie Sanders and a few other politicians is one reflection of this
fundamental change in American capitalism.
However, I am convinced that a progressive movement will
have to adopt the strategy of the United Front if it is to be successful and in
that Front I would certainly hope that unions would play an important role.
I would be very interested to hear from other readers whose
experiences give them insights into other sources of movement strength in the
years to come.
Bob, My point of reference is the 1968-74 period. Four differences between then and now give me hope.
ReplyDeleteOne is that, today, electoral politics, all the way down the ballot, is taken seriously by the Left. In the earlier period, it wasn't: it was uncool. This means that Bernie's suspension of his presidential bid is in no way analogous to McGovern's loss in 1972. There was no Squad in Congress to look to, to add to. What we got in the 70s was opportunists like Pete Stark, and a wave of Democratic congressmen (mostly men) who dismissed the New Deal as old hat. Today, the Left recognizes the New Deal as the hill we have to recapture first.
Second, the issues that galvanized the youth movement in that era were civil rights, Vietnam and the draft. Desegregation and the Voting Rights Act relieved some of the pressure for civil rights. Nixon cannily ended the draft, and with that took much of the wind out of the sails of the New Left. The War ground down, but when it ended, and Nixon had resigned, many were exhausted and, in a way, vindicated, yet no structural change had been won. Today, there is a thanked-and-forgotten mercenary army fighting endless wars. Abolishing conscription is no longer a move available to the ruling class. White illusions about Black progress are dissolving. The unpopular president's retirement, in 1974, satisfied masses of people that "the system worked." Obviously, that will not be the case in November this year--whether Trump is re-elected or not. The social structure has been exposed as rotten. Ending needless wars and canning a rotten president won't fool anybody as showing that this system works. We're way past that now.
Third, In 1965, SNCC decided blacks should not organize and campaign together with whites. Today, DSA is solidly interracial and diverse in almost every imaginable way, and shows no fractious tendencies of the kind that blew up SDS in 1969. Even if DSA blew up, it would not matter. The Weathermen absconded with the SDS mailing list that year, effectively destroying internal communications. Today, there are social media that can recreate any organization, at any scale, almost overnight.
Finally, I don't remember much mirth on the Left fifty years ago. There were funny people with political views, like Lenny Bruce, Mort Sahl, and who can forget General Waste-more-land in Grant Park in Chicago? But there was nothing to compare to Chapo Trap House, or even to Colbert, Jon Stewart, et al. Today, it is a delight to listen to Millennials riff on what a stupendous mess my generation has left them to sort out. To be able to laugh sanely and fight on at the same time is the most hopeful sign of strength
Bill, Thank you. On this Saturday morning when the news is all of the passing of John Lewis, your hopeful words are a balm to my soul. Let it be.
ReplyDeleteIn an earlier thread I commented on how the huge protest movement which arose last year in Chile was the product of social media, without any leaders, without any manifestos, without the direct participation of any political parties, even the left wing parties which do exist in Chile. Of course the right wing government blamed it all on "outside agitators", on foreign influences from Venezuela, but that's bullshit.
ReplyDeleteI don't see why that couldn't happen in the U.S. I keep in close contact with 4 people in the U.S., my sister and three old friends, all of them on the left. All of them go to demonstrations, donate money to different movements depending on their personal priorities, one to environmental causes, one to anti-war causes, one to pro-immigrant causes, one to racial justice causes. All supported Sanders, although none of them were active in his campaign. Now it could be that I'm so weird that people who bother to keep in contact with me are just not a cross-section of the U.S. left, but let's suppose that they are fairly typical.
None of them belongs to a political party or a movement or a union. For many people things don't work that way anymore. All of them are fed up not only with Trump, but with the whole greedy system. They've all read a little of Marx, although none could be called "a Marxist". If they are typical of a lot of people in the U.S., given the right spark, one day they may well explode as happened in Chile. The spark in Chile was a 5 cent subway fare hike. Yes, people are poor in Chile, but still almost everyone can pay 10 cents more a day in the subway. The high school students started protesting against the subway fare hike and most everyone thought "there they go again, these kids are always looking for a pretext to cut school and demonstrate", but all of a sudden millions of people were in the streets demonstrating, some peacefully, some not so peacefully, but that's life.
Isn't that how the French revolution began, with a minor spark? Isn't that how the first Russian (in February) began? Why can't that happen one day in the good old USA?