Herschel Hardin howler
Re. "Herschel Hardin" Does anyone bother reading this portentious thread? Or are people posting without reading? A few days ago, a correspondent from British Columbia corrected the original correspondents, pointing out that they were talking about *Garret* Hardin, not Herschel Hardin. The difference is not without significance. Garret Hrdin was a brilliant biosociological writer of the late 1960's and early 1970's, who essentially developed sophisticated arguments against conventional approaches to social-economic amelioration. One admired his brilliance, but at the same time suspected that he was modernizing some of the "tooth and fang" arguments of 19th century biological determinists and their neo-conservative social brethern (Malthus, Spencer, Sumner. Calvin Coolidge). The world being what it is, nothing can be done except by drastic methods; drastic methods being too horendous to actually implement, we'd better accept the world at it is; having proven intellectually how deadlocked we actually are, we can and must resign ourselves to accepting not just the biological world as it is but the social-economic world as well. Nothing can be done -- c'est la vie -- faut de mieux, enrichez nous et apres nous, la deluge. This is terribly clever stuff, don't you think? Herschel Hardin, on the other hand, was a somewhat less clever (at least in his writings) but dedicated, and original, West Coast democratic socialist whose most significant work, A NATION UNAWARES, appeared in the early 1970's. He basically attempted a rewrite of Canadian economic history in terms of the possibilities of a society using its resources and traditions to try to shape its own destiny. Whether this is a forelorn hope, or not, in the period of apparent globalistic "triumph of the will" (in which we take the Sukarnos, Saddam Husseins, and Li Pengs more seriously as co-determiners of our destiny and the future of our economy and working people than the Chretiens et al.), it is hard to say. But, recalling Hardin (Herschel, that is) reminds one of the point that Shelley made early in the history of English socialism: that Prometheus must keep trying to help the people, no matter how often he is cast down from the mountain, no matter how gruesome his personal fate. I will reread Herschel Hardin, because I think he was/is very much in this latter tradition: keep trying, keep fighting, no matter what the odds and no matter how brilliantly you can argue yourself out of it. (I don't know Herschel Hardin personally, and don't really know what he has written since the 1970's, but heard recently that he was still active in Vancouver-area NDP politics and activism). So let's keep these two approaches separate, even if it takes a bit of care in our correspondence. Orwell (another "golden oldie") often wrote that, to begin with, it is necessary to be clear in one's view of society, to try to be scrupulously accurate, and to write in a manner that conveys this to others. Perhaps we might begin to apply this to the Internet age. S. Silverman
Re: FW - Why don't the poor vote?
Elinor Mosher wrote: Mr. Lunde has asked the question: Why do the poor not vote? Pollsters have said that it is because they feel it is futile. They believe that their vote will not make any difference. In a little book he published two or three years ago, The Good Society, J.K. Galbraith begged and cajoled for that very thing. (He also back in the '50's warned of the problem of overproduction.) As a short answer, this is largely true. But there are other important elements involved. At various times, the poor (particularly the working poor) have had a larger degree of participation in voting. One thinks of this particularly in the U.S., and, if memory serves correctly (relative to previous levels of voting, rather than to an ideal level): in the 1820's and 1830's (when Jacksonian party organization emerged, in areas where elections were opened up and the elecorate expanded; in the 1930's and 1940's, when the Democratic Party under Roosevelt allied with the emerigng industrial union movement; and in some states in the 1960's, where blacks were mobilized for civil rights and to qualify as voters). In each of these cases, organizations emerged whose interest/ideology involved regular work to create a mass electorate (with or without corrupt practices involving some phantom voters). The poor were not left to their own resources. The American practice of registering voters on a voluntary (rather than a universal) basis, from election to election, created an impetus to go out and work with the poor (and others) to create a larger active voting mass. In some cases, where there were artificial barriers to voting, governments were lobbied (e.g. lobbying of the U.S. Federal government to put pressure on states to reform their voting laws), lawyers volunteered services in taking cases to court, and young people helped train poor people to pass basic literacy and civics tests (this leaves out the fact that some states artificially raised what was required in a civics test to make it very complex for poor people or blacks, and relatively easy for people with more income and/or white). The general point is that the question of whether people voted was not left up to the individual to decide, including taking on big burdens to exercise civil rights. People went ot work to broaden the actual electorate and, while this was not by any means a perfect system, this waas often linked to some measure of group politics to ameliorate the condition of the poor and/or implement measures that tried to help them fight for their interests. I think there are at least four areas that should be considered relative to a decline (apparently) of such activity in North America in recent decades: (1) Up till recently, political causes have splintered into a great many worthy, but competing groups, each of which is making claims on volunteer workers. This is a part of the shift that occurred from socio-economic politics to cultural politics, seeking the advance in the rights of self-defining communities (the various "liberation" groups). As part of this process, oppressed groups could occur within the middle classes and to some extent people were drawn into such groups, suiting their own itnerests and perceptions, and away from a general struggle oriented to working with, and in suppport of, the poor and their rights. (2) Poverty was seen as a complex issue, more than as an issue of economics and policy, and increasingly (in the 1970's and 1980's) there was a tendency to "blame the victim" and to believe that the poor should essentially "do it for themselves." (3) Some reforms, or changes, or differences from the American system essentially moved to a system of automatic registration of voters, thus creating a large, potential electorate and reduction of the level of interaction from election to election. Thus the Canadian system, which never had the registration imperative in and within political parties, has moved to an almost completely automatic system. (4) Working elections now involves much more use of media and less door to door canvassing. The first elections I was aware of were in the North End of Winnipeg, in the 1940's. The old CCF socialist party tried to enlist just about everyone it could find (including non-voting high-school kids) and did very thorough canvasing of the constituencies. The rule of thumb was to canvas 3 times during the election and, if possible, to engage people in conversation and feed back information to more responsible and experienced people in the organization. Polls were few and far between, and, not only the CCF, but other parties as well, had little access or funds for media (the CBC's free political broadcasts were a godsend). Now, use of media in elections has expanded greatly and reformed campaign financing provides matching public funds that enables much more use of media to take place, even for the NDP. (From time to time, the NDP -- in terms of declared
Sovereignty and Economic Development/resource
The most recent "Community Reinvestment" newsletter (Winter, 1997) of the Community Affairs Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City deals with sovereignty and economic development." This provides general background on sovereignty, specific discusssion of the historic and contemporary use of sovereignty (at various levels) as an economic development tool, and specific application to economic development of communities within the Indian Nations that are part of the FRBKC's geographic area (particularly New Mexico, etc.). This should be a useful resource to those on either side of discussionns, on this list, of various issues involving sovereignty and job creation, including the MAI, etc.. The URL for this publication is: http://www.frbkc.org/publicat/commrein/U97toc.htm Saul Silverman
Suggestions on improving list -- was Arthur's : email etiquette (please explain #8 more fully)
Dear Arthur: Thank you for forwarding the "E-Mail Etiquette" note -- it is a handy summary of suggestions for the good of the list (this one and others), many of which we may know but a useful reminder nevertheless. You draw particular attention to suggestion #8: 8. If you are unhappy with the direction of the list, start a thread on a subject that interests you (keeping in mind the constraints outlined in #8 above). The list will become what you make of it, nothing more, nothing less. I don't want to quibble, but there is an incomplete reference here on a point that the authors of the summary think important, i.e. (keeping in mind the constraints outlined in #8 above). To me, this seems to point to another #8 in a different part of the document you are using as your source (perhaps a FAQ or guide to the list). Can you please check your document to find a point #8 that comes earlier and post it to this list so we have an idea of what these constraints may be. Still referring to this useful document, can you check point 7 in these etiquette recommendations. I'll quote it here for convenience of fellow list-readers: 7. As much as possible, stick to the topics of the list which have been outline[d] in the welcome statement. I could be missing something, or forgetting something: where is the mandate or list of topics for this (or these) future work lists? Some of this seems evident by the mainstream of discussion, but the empirical evidence of using this list suggests more of a diffuse, fuzzy approach (perhaps a good thing, but often frustrating). If there is, in fact, a formal statement (whether as a welcome statement, a FAQ, a mandate statement, or whatever), can it be posted to the list as a matter of course, at regular intervals (perhaps the first of each month). If not, would it be a good idea to start an organized discussion of a list mandate, central topics, etc., at least as a guide to posters? Perhaps, in this case, the list conveners (Sally and Arthur, maybe others that I am not aware of) could post something on what they thought, or now think, the list was/is about and we could discuss this freely for some period of time, and then try to draw things together in this kind of set of guidelines. I am not trying to constrict the list, but to suggest that some broad points re. focus might be useful. Saul Silverman
