------Original Message------ From: [email protected] To: [email protected] ReplyTo: [email protected] Subject: Why the US Left is Weak - and What to Do About It Sent: Aug 4, 2009 11:28 PM
Why the US Left is Weak - and What to Do About It by Barbara Epstein (With thanks to John Sanbonmatsu for helpful criticisms and suggestions.) Z Mag / ZNet.org - July 14, 2009 http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/21992 Contribution to the Reimagining Society Project hosted by ZCommunications <http://www.zcommunications.org/zparecon/reimaginingsoc iety.htm> The topic of my essay is the current weakness of the US left, by which I mean those of us who want a democratic and egalitarian society, a demilitarized world, and a respectful relationship between humans, other creatures, and the natural environment, those of us who are convinced that this will require a massive redistribution of power and wealth, within the US and internationally. This is hardly the only possible definition of the left. Some on the right use the term in a way that includes all Democratic office holders, and anyone who votes for them. Some use the term to include anyone who favors a firmer challenge to corporate interests than the Obama administration is willing to countenance. Those who fit this description might be called left liberals, or progressives, and they are like leftists in many ways: they support changes that leftists also support, and collectively, like the left, they are fragmented, disorganized, and have less impact than their numbers would warrant. The difference is that they tend not to see the need for fundamental, structural social change. My essay is concerned with those of us who do see such a need. I believe that as long as capitalism holds sway our ability to achieve the social order described above will be at best partial and tenuous. The profit motive is not a basis for a society that could be counted on to promote peace, demoracy, equality, or a viable relationship between humans and the rest of the planet. The neo-liberal form of capitalism is more destructive of human society, other species, and the environment than any previous form of capitalism. It would be difficult to consider anyone who is not critical of capitalism part of the left. But hardly anyone, even among those of us who consider ourselves socialists, thinks that socialism can be achieved any time soon. If we were to pose the quest for socialism as the most urgent aim of the left, or, worse, to pose it against reforms short of socialism, we would find ourselves ignored, by progressives as well as the mainstream and the right. Probably the best we can hope for, for the foreseeable future, is a form of democratic socialism in which capitalism is severely regulated, and some redistribution of wealth and power is achieved through regulation of corporations, the expansion of state spending on social programs, and a dramatic increase in popular participation in politics. If such a shift could be achieved, it would alter the balance of power between the corporate elite and the rest of us, and would constitute a step toward socialism. But making socialism the most immediate issue on our agenda would be self-defeating. Another reason not to make socialism our central issue is that there is a large sector of the left that rejects capitalism but is at least ambivalent about socialism. Anarchism is the dominant orientation among young radical activists, and while the vast majority is anti-capitalist, many look forward to a decentralized and stateless society that they would not describe as socialist. While I can't see how a society can function without some governing structure, the question of what form that might take in a post-capitalist society seems to me a legitimate question. One legacy of the left's past that I think we need to avoid is readiness to define those whom one disagrees with out of the left. I envision a left that includes anarchists, Marxists, and everyone in between, or perhaps approaching the left with a different vocabulary altogether. There remain ethical boundaries: Stalinism should have been rejected in the past, and support for repressive and authoritarian movements, or states, remains alien to a democratic left. But it seems to me that there should be room for debate about the relationship of the left to the state. The problem with debating the fine points of a left vision is that, in the US, we barely have a left. The first question, it seems to me, is, why is the left so weak, and what can we do about it? The movements of the sixties had a great impact on American society, shifting many people to the left, and leaving a legacy that has shaped the views of large numbers of young people. But most of the left organizations of the sixties collapsed as the movements that they had sustained lost their impetus. The central ideas of those movements were social equality at home and an end to US wars of aggression and the aim of US world domination that lies behind them. These ideas drew a large sector of a generation into political activity; they were, and remain, enormously compelling. But they came to be intertwined with other ideas that were considerably less persuasive, most of them connected with the illusion, widespread among left activists of the late sixties and early seventies, that revolution was around the corner. Though hardly anyone on the left still thinks that revolution is imminent, many of the ideas that arose in connection with this view continue to plague the left, and to narrow its appeal. Perhaps these ideas hung on in part because the mass participation organizations of the movements of the sixties disappeared, and with them any arena for collective reconsideration of which of the ideas of the movements of the sixties were valid and should be carried forward, and which had done damage and should be abandoned. The left organizations of the sixties and early seventies were, on the whole, not designed to last. This was partly because the movements of the time were youth movements, and thought of themselves as such. Very little thought was put into the question of what the left would look like when we ceased to be young. For many of us, our left politics and our youth were so intertwined that we avoided confronting the possibility that one day we would no longer be young. For some left activity may have been a youthful fling, to be abandoned, ultimately, with a certain relief. The Communist Party, and other organizations of the Old Left, were founded on the view that social change was a lifetime commitment. The movements of the sixties for the most part did not address this issue. The Old Left was built on the assumption that strong organizations were the foundation for a strong and effective left, and in the early years of the New Left the same assumption held. Members of SNCC, SDS, and other organizations of the Civil Rights movement and the northern student movement were dedicated to building and strengthening those organizations. But there was also a widespread view, especially in the northern student movement, that the enemy was "the system" and the bureaucracy entailed in it, that the movement represented spontaneity against structure. In many of the organizations of the early sixties there was enough internal agreement and willingness to compromise that a spirit of spontaneity was more a strength than a weakness. In the latter part of the sixties spontaneity remained a strength: the "let a hundred flowers bloom" mentality created room for the young people, pouring into the movement, to express their rage at the war and at the system as a whole in myriad ways. Spontaneity and the suspicion of organization also became a weakness for the movements of the sixties. These principles were taken to extremes, as in cases of radical feminist groups in which those who took on leadership roles might be attacked simply for occupying those roles. It was also a factor in the collapse of organizations that held the movement together and that might have provided the basis for a continuation of the left beyond the end of the war. In the last years of the sixties the leadership of SDS became consumed by bitter conflicts among several ideological tendencies, each arguing on behalf of a particular path toward the revolution. SDS was by this time very large: it had hundreds of chapters and perhaps 100,000 members. But most chapters functioned largely autonomously and paid little attention to the debates taking place in leading circles. When the battle among the sectarian groupings at the center tore the organization apart, there was no one to point out that keeping the organization alive was more important. In some parts of the US, as in the Bay Area, for the most part organizations of the left didn't even take hold. In Berkeley each new crisis prompted the creation of an Ad Hoc Committee, consisting of self-appointed leaders, which would call demonstrations and issue statements. Between crises movement activity would subside. Many, perhaps most of those who considered themselves part of the movement belonged to no ongoing organizations, except perhaps households consisting of movement supporters. As long as the war lasted, and especially as long as the draft was in effect, the movement remained strong. But once the war was over the movement dissipated, with few structures remaining to sustain left influence in a different period. Suspicion of organization was not universal in the movements of the late sixties. The Marxist- Leninist/Maoist/New Communist current, often called the party building movement, took the opposite approach and constructed hierarchical, tightly disciplined organizations modeled on revolutionary organizations in China and elsewhere in the Third World, intended as vanguard parties that would lead the revolution. The Black Panther Party and some other radical organizations of people of color adopted similar organizational styles. This sector of the movement had considerable influence on the thinking of activists throughout the movement, but more for their confidence that the revolution was imminent, their focus on anti- imperialism, and their identification with Third World movements, than for the structure of their organizations, which were hierarchical and often authoritarian, were at odds with the spirit of the movement and appealed to only a minority of activists. But Maoism, the dominant ideological current in the party-building movement, had a profound impact on the movement as a whole. Maoism introduced a theory of anti-imperialism that made sense in the context of the war in Vietnam: that the "main contradiction" was no longer capitalism versus socialism, but US imperialism versus the anti-imperialist movement. The view that a revolution could take place, soon, in the US, was also promoted by Maoism, along with the idea that the prospects for revolution had more to do with the discipline and dedication of a revolutionary movement than with conditions external to the movement. Maoism encouraged the view that "Third World people" in the US would lead the revolution. And it encouraged a dismissive view of democracy and human rights. The movements of the late sixties and the early seventies undermined themselves not only through their ambivalence toward organization but also by adopting perspectives that were not very credible at the time (and, to the extent that these perspectives have persisted, they are considerably less credible now). In the late sixties and early seventies it was widely assumed, among radical activists, that the revolution was around the corner. The word "revolution" meant different things in different sectors of the movement: to those in the radical core of the anti-war movement, who generally identified with one or another version of Marxism, it meant the overthrow of capitalism and the establishment of socialism; to radical feminists it meant a restructuring of gender relations; to many activists of color it meant an end to racism and whatever changes in the social order might be necessary to bring that about. To virtually everyone who adopted it, the idea of revolution was intoxicating, and few looked closely into what it meant or how it would come about. In fact there was no basis for revolution. Only a very small sector of young activists was committed to revolution. A much larger number used the word, but more to indicate the depth of their anger than out of any intention of overthrowing either the state or the capitalist system. Very few outside the radical youth movement had any interest in revolution. The belief that revolution was possible took hold partly due to the example of Third World revolutions and revolutionary movements, and partly because the approach of "working within the system," trying to induce the government to adhere to the espoused liberal, d Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
