ENDORSEMENT
n. the occarion of the first nmtingr of the gov at the time of the April 2000 meetings of the erning bodier of the International Monetary World Bank and the International Moneta11 Fund 0 Fund (IMF) and the World Bank in the 21 rt (IMF) 10 Washington, DC. DSA/YDS will par century, we callfor the immediate stupension of the poli ticipate in the Mobilizatton for Global Jusucc, a cies and practices that have ca1md widerpread pover!J week of educational events and nonviolent p:o and mfftring among the worlds peoples, and damage to tests in Washington, which aim to promote m ·c the global environment. IJ:7e hold these inrlit11tionr respon equitable and democratically operated glom rible, along with the IVorldTrade Organization (WfO), stitutions in this time of sharp incguahty. I..ar~ for an unjurt global economic rystem. transnational corporations have gotten together: We issue this call in the name of global jus It's time for the rest of us. DSA believes Uu" tice, in solidarity with the peoples of the Global this is the appropriate follow-up to the protes o: South struggling for survival and dignity in the that derailed the \VfO meetings in Seattle face of unjust economic policies. Only when the fall. coercive powers of international financial insti DSA 1s joined in this mobilizanon b m tutions are rescinded shall governments be ac other organizations, such as Jubilee 2 • r countable first and foremost to the will of their Years is Enough, Global Exchange., and Pu people for equitable economJc development. Citizens's Global Trade Watch. Only when international instituuons are no longer The Mobilization in Washington uill be pre controlled by the wealthiest governments for the ceded by the DSA Young De.mocrauc ...,..,,.._.._. •. ~, purpose of dictating policy to the poorer ones national meeung: STUDENTS, LABOR ID shall all peoples and nations be able to forge THE STRUGGLE AGAINST THE COR bonds-economic and otherwise-based on mu PORATE AGENDA, J\pnl 13th to 15th. at tual respect and the common needs of the planet the University of Delaware tn Nev.'"llk, Dela and its inhabitants. ware-roughly on the same bntude as Wa btng Onfy when the well-being of all, induding the most ton DC. Transportation will be pro\"1d d to DC vulnerable people and ecorystemr, iJ gi1•t11 priority rJt•er on Sunday, April 16th, for the b1g demonstra corporate pro.fitr, shall we achieve genuine rustainable de ttons against the IMF and World Bank. velopment and t·reate a world of.jurtice, equali!J andµace. Information or Reg1strauon: daraka DSA, Democratic Socialises of America, and @dsausa.org, Tel: (212) -27.8610, Fax: (212) its youth wing, Young Democratic Socialists, en 727.8616 dorses this statement and call for Its expression
page 2 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two these companies have any beef with ABOUT THIS ISSUE direct subsidies or tax deductions that clcome to Part Two of our accrue to their benefit-no matter the insideDL W Democratic Left lvilllennium Edi social cost. Perhaps the best that can tion, Tdeas for the New Ce11t111J" As be said for socialism now is that it is Endorsement Democratic Socialists confront the about rent-seeking for the majority 2 contradictory political landscape of greatest good for the greatest num economic boom for some, and mass ber, subject to as much democracy as practicable. Not a bad aspiration. 4 DSA and SI poverty for others-here and abroad by John G. Mason we hope to make a modest contribu There are alternatives. -THE EDITORS tion to the theoretical and practical 7 Feminism on Welfare debates abour how to make things by Mimi Abramovitz better. After all, we wouldn't be dues SPECIAL NOTE pa ying members of an explicitly In the years ahead, we want to en 10 Feminism in New Century democratic socialist organization if we sure that our members and subscrib by Barbara Ehrenreich thought that the triumph of the ers have more input in future issues much-mentioned T-1-N-A, "There Is of Democratic Left. Arucles submit· tetl by members and subscnbers will 14 Rational Hope No Alternative," wasn't subject to by David Schweickart challenge. I Iow can the present glo· .ceceive serious consideration. !rt ad dition, preference for book reviews bal economic and social arrangements will be given to DSA members and 17 Sweden to Socialism be the sum total of human aspiration? subtic.ribei:s, particularly tf the author by Joanne Barkan How can the presence of human and is willing to give us an interview. We animal misery still be glossed over by would also like DSA members and Democratic Socialism subscribers to submit photos, Jet· 19 the powerful and self-satisfied? by Paul Berman Rent-seeking, to use an old phrase ters to the editor, and notices of from neo-classical economics, is still births, marriages, deaths, and 11Dpot tant buthdays, to: Democratic 1.efl, Martin Duberman a feature of modern corporate life. 21 Editor, 180 Varick Street, 12th Floor, by Michael Lighty Large for-profit institutions have no Ne»• York, NY 10014; o.c e-mail us at problem buying elected officials to [email protected]. • I • t steer policy to their benefit. Nor do 25 . • . : .. Mo11ogj11g Editor: Solvcig Wilder 27 Eco-Socialism Editorial Cofll111ittee: by Michael R. Edelstein Jeremy Borenstein, Suzanne Crowell Bill Dixon, David Glenn, Jeffrey Gold, Labor's Modest Rise Steve Max, Bill Mosley, 28 Maxine Phillips, Chris Riddiough, by David Moberg Jason Schulman, Paul Washington, Robert Woodruff Will Labor Compute? Fo1111di11g Editqr: 29 Michael Hanington by Paul Berman (1928-1989) 30 "Feasible Socialism" Democratic Socialists of America share a vision of a humane international Review by Michael Edelstein social order ~ased on cquita~le distribution of resources, meaningful work, a healthy en~1tonment, sustamable growth, gender and !'aciaJ equality, and non-op_press1ve rclati?nships: Equality'. solidarity, and democracy can only 33 Paul Loeb be achieved through mternattonal pohncal and social cooperation aimed al by Anette Sasvari & ensuring that economic institutions benefit all people. We are dedicated to Solveig Wilder building truly international social movements-of unionists, cnvironmen ~ali~ts, feminists, ~'!d people of color-which together can elevate global "The JUStlcc over brutahzmg global competition. 36 Best Recruits" by John C. Cort DSA NATIONAL OFFICE 180 Varick. Street FL 12 Memory and Hope New York, NY 10014 38 212.727.8610 by Ernest Morgan http://www.dsousa.org/dsa /Jnno Millennium Part Two• DemocraticLeft ·~ page 3 A R.epo(I from the XXI World Congress in Paris DSA and the Socialist International Bv JoHN G. MAsoN h! The Ghost of for the current SI Secretariat in Lon criteria which matter: the geographi '1\ Michael Harrington!" don, when it is not overlooked alto cal area which its covers and the po said Neil Kinnock of the gether. This was sadly in evidence dur litical forces which it represents." Over British Labour Party as the DSA del- ing the July session of the Gonzalez the past twenty-five years, the SI has egation passed by to take their seats Commission on Global Progress, expanded its membership from forty at the recent Socialist International (SI) with Clinton i\dmmistration officials parties when \Villy Brandt assumed its World Congress in Paris. Kinnock's and NYU economises in Washington Presidency in 1976, to nearly one hun witty aside unsettled a few of our six last summer. Inexplicably, DS1\ was dred and fifty member parties toda)~ delegates, but I was touched that not notified of this firsc major SI Its membership roster translates into Kinnock-in his own backhanded meeting to be held in the States since a significant Socialist presence in Eu way-had cared to acknowledge how the World Congress ar the UN in rope, the Middle East and Meditemi important Michael Harrington had 1996. nean, Sub-Saharan Africa, India and been for the SI during the Seventies This change in our standing could the Pacific Rim and Latin Amenca. and Eighties. At that time, I larrington also be felt in Paris, where without Mauroy's second crueria '\\"llS the was the SI's leading American spokes Bogdan Denitch (a DSA delegate Si's political "weight"-here defined person and a valued advisor and strat since 1991, whose expertise on East by the size of electoral represcntanon egist for the Sl's ruling triumvirate of ern European issues is widely re of its member parties with thctr iiun Olaf Palme, Willy Brandt and spected) to head our delegation and dreds of millions of YOters orld Francois t>.1itterrand. For over a de to take the floor in our name, we kept wide," and by the fifty or so tiut are cade, DSA's marginality at home was a low profile. Although our delegates parties of government on ..all the offset within SI councils by did good work ner.vorking with the world's continents." And as if ) un Harrington's brilliance as an essayist, international press and other delega derline the point. the p<> a page 4 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two democratic Left's capacity for ideo knowledge economy is a just a pass some of democratic socialism. Some logical and programmatic .innovation. ing fad or those parts of the Left of the centre-left, some just of the Mauroy then concluded, "it's true that defending the status quo, promoting Left. I do not minimize the real and we have changed. And it is precisely tax and spend or yielding up the ter genuine debate that underpins these because Social Democracy has known ritory of law and order to the Right terms. 1 simply say it is the debate it how to adapt to change that we are Because make no mistake: If we self that is important, not the labels." the leading organized political force don't become the reformers, the In a sense he was right, but also disin in the world !!Oday." For Mauroy the Right will step m and take our place." genuous. What he left out of his de programmatic shift came from the Blatt for one had no doubts that scription was the rejection by the SI fact that the SI "no longer limits its we could marry capitalist enterprise leadership of his proposals for the ambitions to the simple redistribution to social fairness, but his French hosts reform of the SI itself. Last spring, of wealth but also includes its cre did not share his enthusiasm for the Blair suggested thal the SI should be ation," a comment that echoed Tony neo-liberal policy consensus. Francois dissolved into a larger "centre-left" Blair's remark that everywhere the Holland, General Secretary of the association which would include debate about the future of the Left is French Socialist Party, was prepared Clinton's New Democrats alongside centered on the issue of "whether we only to say "yes to the market New Lab@ur. Then shortly before the can stand for fairness and enterprise economy, bu.t not to a market soci Congress, he proposed that the SI together." ety." French Premier Lionel Jospin could drop the "S-word" from its Needless to say, a DSA which is shared Holland's skepticism about name in favor of a more neutral cen not really a party with identifiable lllil.rket reforms and declared: "In it tre-left label. None of these propos elected rcpresencaL.ives and which self, the market creates neither mean als were accepted, but clearly show fields no political candidates in its ing, nor direction, nor project. For us that right before the Congress name, will be hard put to meet the the market--even regulated, even con opened, Mr. Blair took the issue of test of electoral relevance that would trolled-does not eliminate the need labels very seriously indeed. allow 1t to fit comfortably into the for the social contract. ... We refuse the All of these maneuvers were existing SI club. Nor can it easily pass commodification of :;ocieties." brushed aside in Mauroy's blunt dec the ideological test of "modernity." Josp1n even found a place in his laration in favor of "a Socialist Inter In particular, DSA's ideological pro remarks for a favorable reference to nauonal which is more international gram of opposition to global corpo Karl Marx's critical analysis of capi without being less socialist," a prefer rate capitalism places it on the outer talism and our continuing need to ence endorsed by "the great majority fringe of the SI today. In the eyes of "think through capitalism in order to of our member parties, for whom European leaders like Blair or challenge it, to control it, and to re the political struggle is still structured D'Alema, who equate "moderniza form 1t." One conclusion he drew around the Left/Right divide between tion" with the market based reform from this was that the Left had to progressive and conservative forces." of the welfare state, our refusal to buy "reflect on the reasons that have led In a clear rebuke to Blair, Mauroy into the neo-liberal agenda makes us us to allow the return of stagnation added that "for myself" as well as for a "conservative organization" and a and massive unemployment." For "the Socialist International, the 'third political adversary. Our criticisms of Jospin, "our first priority today as way' is still located in between capi the American "model" and market socialists is to work for full employ talism and communism." In short, the led globalization will be ignored by ment." His second prionty was to Paris Congress represented a thinly them, and the DSA could find itself demand the regulation of capitalist disguised defeat for the European marginalized within the SI-along globalization-rejecling Blair's de advocates of the Third Way, notw1th with the rest of the hard-left opposi scription of it as a raw, uncontrollable s tanding their November meeting tion to "centnst" policies which op force that sets the limits within which with Clinton and his entourage of erate within the limits set by global socialists must work. "Globalization hundreds in Florence, Italy. capital markets. must not be based on unlaterahsm." It came as no surprise then that Jospin declared. "On rhe contrary, it the one continent which SI General Debates Over Blair's "Third Way'' must encourage the emergence of a Secretary Luis Ayala passed over in balanced and mulu-polar word. The his official report turned out to be For the British Prime Minister, the world needs rules, ... for this cenrury North America. Neither the renewal "debate today is no longer about has shown us that socialism without of the AFL-CIO, the victory of the whether we modermze but how, and liberty does not exist. But socialism Mexican PRD in Mexico City, or the how fast. In h1Slory the Left always without equality becomes meaning work of the Canadian NDP were wms when it is not just about justice less." deemed worthy of mention in his re but about the future too ... We must In contrast, Blair summed up the marks-a I tho ugh the Gonzalez take on the forces of conservatism, Congress debate in these terms: Commission's meeting with New Left and Right, who resist change, "Some will talk of social democracy, Democrats in Washing~on was singled whether it's the Rigb t who believe the Millennium P a r t Two • Demo c r atic L e f t = page 5 Antoruo Guterrez. who formally commuted him self to seekrng out American partners \\>\th whom the SI could col laborate. This settled the question of whether the SI will seek contact with American Democrats and progressives, but left open the issue of how and when. More to the point, Guterrez did not touch on the vital ques- tion of which Democrats. out for praise. The same silence was mation technology like Microsoft and Will the SI's contacts be limited to observed in the plenary speeches AOL/Time-\\'arner rework econo Clinton's New Democrats or will the made by Jospin, Schroder and Blair. mies and cultures around the world, Progressive Caucus tn Congress also The one notable exception came in a our political elites remain largely di be included in the international dia plea made by I tali an Premier Massimo vorced from policy debates which logue? How this is worked out is a D'Alcma to the delegates to recog bring the rest of the world's demo strategic concern for DSA, for it may nize that "dialogue with the Ameri cratic leaders to forums like the UN determine how much space exists for can Democrats is fundamental to the or the SI \'\'orld Congress. Despite us to become a player in the coming process of strengthening ties between close collaboration between Ameri conversation bctwet.'tl the SI parties Europe and the other continents, and can and transnational non-govern and American labor and progresstve \\ill allow socialist forces in Europe mental organizations which was so NGOs over globalization. to have a direct relationship with other much in evidence in Seattle this No Given the current configuration democratic and progressive cultures vember, the institutional and cultural of forces within the SI, our space ts acting in the world." isolation of our two national parties limited. At best DSA toda} finds it D'Alema's speech only hints at the remains almost complete. self closest to Jospin's Soaahsts. At problems for the SI that flow from The Democratic Party, for in worst we risk isolaoon by bcmg iden its weak tics with American political stance, belongs to none of the exist tified by Blair's "Centre Left" v.'lth the organizations and personalities. For ing Internationals, although it sends marginal Left Group withtn the Eu how can one claim to be the world's obserYers to three: the Liberal, Chris ropean Parliament-made up of par leading political organization when tian Democratic and Socialist Inter ties like the French Commurusts, ·who Russia, China and the United States nationals. At the Paris Congress, they are rhc Socialists' coahoon partnas in are all but absent from its ranks? More were represented by one guy from the f-rance, Italy, and Germany, but still particularly, how can one deal with the National Democratic Institute who outside the 1deologta.l mamstream of global impact of U.S. "unlateralism" turned out to be Canadian. Similarly, European Soaahsm If Tiurd Way in the absence of a working relation the American media presence was lim advocates ulnmatdy succeed m pro s hip with America's Democratic ited to the local stringer from UPI moting the 1deologia.l "re-centering" Party? This practical issue in many who kept asking me whether "there of the SI-as they tned to do with ways was the central question hang was really a story here worth cover Fdipc Gonzalez's Comnussion on ing over the theoretical debates be ing." In short, our cultural dynamism Global Change--DS.l\'s cont12ry mes tween Liond Jospin and Tony Blair." and national self-absorption both fas sage about the reality of U.S. cinates and repels the outside world ncoliberalism low unionization rates, DSA and the SI: a world that is often much more in millions ·without health coverage, in American Challenge terested in us than we are by it. This jured cities, polluted air and water, gap in political awareness raises the sharp income differentials-the Ironically at the turn of a new cen issue ofwhen and how Americans can whole, real picture will never be heard tury, everything from the,gl~bal reach be brought into the global conversa in the higher councils o'f the SI. of the Internet and American domi tion about transnational problems and nated global media culture to dramatic on what terms. john G. Mason teaches at in Seattle against the street protests The American challenge to the SI lf/i/liam Paterson University and i.r WTO poses the riddle of what was confronted head-on in the writing a book on rrench n11clear poliry. America's political "exceptionalism" maiden speech of newly elected SI means. Even as U.S. corporate giants President, Portuguese Prime Minister in global communicauons and infor- page 6 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two A Feminist Perspective on Welfare ''Reform'' BY MIMI .ABRAMOVITZ n a 197~ article in A!S A1agazine, once agatn became a political target. Personal Responsibility and Work Johnrue 'l 'illmon, pn•sident of the :\fter Clinton found that he could win Opportunity .\ct, the national welfare I National \\'elfare Rights Organi votes by promismg to "end welfare caseload has plummeted by almost 50 zation, explained why she saw wel as we know it," some feminists tried percent from its peak-with more fare as a women's issue. Linking the to draw attention to welfare as a stunning declines in many states. In lives of poor and middle class women's issue-but to little avail. three states, the rolls fell by more than women, she declared: Conservatives blamed feminism for 80 percent In seven others, the de 1bcn.: are lots of lies that male society the decline of family values. Liberals cline was more than 60 percent. Only tell:; about welfare mothers: that AFDC believed that any job was better than one state-Rhode Island-showed a mothers axe immoral, hzy, misuse their welfare and optimistically expected decline of less than 20 percent. welfare checks and spend it all on booze Congress to make childcare, health The shrunken ·welfare rolls have and are stupid and incompetent. If services, real child support, and edu elicited cheers of success from nearly people are '>villtng to believe these Ees, cational options part of the package. every politician, policymaker, and its partly bec:1usc th<..-y arc JUSt special The Left, which only occasionally presidential candidate. If reduction versions of the lie~ that society tells brought women into their otherwise was the main goal of welfare reform, about all women .... [fhcse negative important analyses, also marginalized then reformers can rightfully claim stereotypes are just) a way of rational feminists. Tillman's message, however, victory. But if welfare reform was i.zmg the male policy of kcepmg women as domestic slaves or saying that all was not lost on women on welfare meant to improve the lives of women, women are likely to become ,..,-bores \vho to this day demand the rights of something has gone dangerously awry. unless they arc kept under control by motherhood and womanhood as Few observers have noticed--or seem men and marnage. well as )Obs with a Jiving wage. to care-that welfare reform regu Speaking at the height of the Now that Aid to Pamilies with lates the lives of women, uses the women's movement, Tillmon saw Dependent Children (AFDC) has strong arm of the state to try to that the treatment of women on wel been all but scrapped across the coun modify their behavior, and undercuts fare reflected public amaeucs about try, 1t is all too clear why recipients reproducuve freedom, caretaking women's demand for economic in and feminists think of welfare as a supports, and protection from male dependence, personal :mtonomy, and women's issue. The first version of violence, as well as their ability to se social justice. Reflecting on past attacks this arucle, published by Dtmom.ztic Left cure jobs with decent pay. Welfare on welfare, Tillmon knew that wel in 1995, could only speculate on what reform falls hardest and most pain fare "reformers" typically won pub welfare "reform" would actually fully on poor women. Yet as Johnnie lic support for cutting benefits both bring, for the law had not yet passed. Tillmon recogruzed more than a quar by stigmatizing single> mothers for Unfortunately, recent research findings ter of a century ago, when it comes departing from prescribed wife and show that the outcome of welfare to public policy, an mjury to one mother roles, and by playing the race reform has exceeded our worst fears woman is an injury to all. card. The racial stereotypes ofwomen by far. of color as matriarchal, hypcrsexed The welfare program that sup Can't Make Ends Meet and promiscuous have always lurked ported smgle mothers and their chil The most well known target of wel below the smface of these attacks. dren for more than sixty years has vir fare reform was women's work be tuall disappeared. When Congress Tillmon understood the under r havior. By plaong a five year lifetime pinnings of welfare reform better than converted welfare from an entitle cap on welfare eligibility (22 states most. Unfortunately, few policy mak ment program to a state-run block have even shorter limits), the 1996 ers, politicians or advoC1tes listened grant, 1t effectively ended the federal welfare law transformed AFDC into to her then or remembered her words government's longstanding commit a temporary and transitional work in the early l 990s-whcn welfare ment-however meager-to the program. The law increased the num downtrodden. This historic shift can bers of hours chat women on wel celed automatic funding so that in the fare must work, penalized states with TlllS article wa~ cxc:crpwd from the forth year 2002, fot the first time in its his too few recipients in work programs, cominr new eduwn of U11d1r A/lack, Fightit(!, will Ba.-k: 1rrov1m and lfi't(fart in tht Uniltd Stalu, tory, welfare be directly under the forced those lacking jobs to work-off by Mtmi Abramovitz. Monthly Rcvil:w Press, Congressional budget ax. Less than their benefits in menial public and 1999. J\n earlier version of this article ap three years after Congress enacted the private sector JObs.,and otherwise pt:arcd tn /tr Tlmt Timts, Nov<..•rnber 18, 1999. M i llen ni um Par t Two • De m oc r atic L eft •p age 7 stiffened already tough work rules. In down for all workers and harder for only" pro turn, local welfare departments cut unions to negotiate good contracts. To grams in the benefits or closed cases for the slight the extent that welfare reform has public schools. est infraction of the many new rules, fueled deep cuts in other social pro By March such as missing an appointment with grams it also cost some women (and 1999, every a job counselor. men) the public sector jobs that lifted state except Many women forced off welfare them into the middle-class. California had found work-as they always do when accepted these a booming economy creates enough Restoring the Tradftional Family funds for pro jobs. Even so, large numbers of Putting women on welfare to work grams which former recipients now report that they has c.'lptured the most public atten stress postpon cannot make ends meet. Low wages, tion. Under the rubric of Temporary ing sex unul part-time work, costly childcare, trans Assistance to Needy Families (fANF), marriage. portation, and work expenses have left this AFDC successor explicitly calls Once the many women worse off than when for discouraging single motherhood government In they received welfare. South Caro in favor of two-parent families. The wins the nght to control the childbear lina, for example, a study by the Na "reformers" descnbed single moth ing choices of poor women, it be tional Council of State Legislatures erhood as the nation's number one comes that much easier to tamper found that 50 percent of the women social problem-responsible for drug with the reproductive rights of all kicked off welfare fell behind in rent dealing, drive-by shootings and the women. The effort to limit reproduc or utility payments compared ro 39 deficit. In the name of maintaining tive freedoms for all women bv us percent while on welfare. Fourteen family values, welfare reform revived ing poor women as a wedge s~ed percent said they now could not af once discredited moralisttc behavioral with the Hyde Amendment, which ford medical care versus three per standards that punish single mothers allowed states to deny Medicaid dol cent before. In Kentucky some 70 by regulating their childbearing and lars for abortions. Since then, the percent of the former recipients parenting choices. courts and legislatures have eroded ended up worse or no better off than Federal law now allows state gov abortion rigb ts for millions ofwomen In when on welfare. state after state ernments to impose a child exclusion from all walks of life. Now welfare havtng also lost Food Stamps, Med or family cap rule which denies aid to rules threaten the childbearmg choices icaid, and subsidized housing-many children born while their mother is of women on an Millennium Part Two• DemocraticLeft • page 9 Barbara Ehrenreich: Feminism in the New Century opening up of the professions bas so day? Please let me know if you can far meant very little. These women re offer a present-day parallel, but I tend main locked in stereotypically femi to suspect the answer is very seldom nine occupations -usually low-paid or not at all. Perhaps the biggest so and dead-end- yet more and more cial and economic trend of the last women, especially women of color, thirty years has been class polariza arc single mothers, trying to raise and tion-I.he expanding inequality in in support children on their own. This come and wealth. As United for a Fair doesn't represent a "failure" of femi Economy's excellent little book, Shift nism-just something we haven't ac ing Fort11ne.r: The Peri/J of the American complished yet. A major challenge for lf/ea/Jh Gap points out, the most glar feminism in the new century is to ad ing polarization has occurred between dress the economic needs of all those at the very top of the income women, and this is where feminism distribution-the upper 1-5 percent has to make common cause with the and those in the bottom 30-40 per democratic socialist econonuc justice cent. Less striking, but more ominous DL: How does the Womens Movement agenda. for the future of feminism, is the compareI to other Iocial movemenlI of the growing gap between those in the top 20th Century? DL: How ;·ou think the Womens Move 40 percent of the income distribution BE: The women's movement has ment will differ in the next century from the and those in the bottom 40 percent. been one of the most important so last? One chart in Shifting Fort11ne.r shows cial developments of our time. Two BE: I can remember in 1972 about that the net worth of the households hundred years ago women didn't even twenty of us gathering in somebody's in the bottom group declined by have the right to own property if they living room for our weekly "women's nearly 80 percent between 1983 and were married. One hundred years ago support group" meeting. We were all 1995. Except for the top one percent, they still couldn't vote. Fifty years ago associated, one way or another, with the top 40 percent lost ground too they were restricted to a few occupa a small public college catering mostly but they lost much less. I Iouseholds tions and strongly discouraged from to "non-traditional" students, mean in the 60th percentile lost only 6.5 working outside the home. Women ing those who are older, poorer and/ percent of their net worth in the same have emerged from being non-citi or more likely to be black and Latina time period. Today's college teacher, zens--even chattel-to being full par than typical college students in this if she is not an adjunct, occupies that ticipants in our society. Just think of suburb. Among us almost every level relatively lucky top-40 group, while the changes in my own lifetime: we of the college hierarchy was repre today's clerical worker is in the rap have fought our way into occupations sented-students of all ages, clerical idly sinking bottom-40. Could they formerly considered male-only, from workers, junior faculty members and still gather comfortably in each other's medicine to the military. We have won even one or two full professors. There living rooms to discuss common is the right to legal aboruon and free were acknowledged differences of sues? Do they still have common is dom from sexual harassment. Rape race and sexual preference among us, sues to discuss? victims are no longer treated like which we examined eagerly and a little Numbers don't begin to tell the criminals. And so forth. None of anxiously. But we were comfortable story though. The 80s brought a sharp these changes were handed to us; we together, and excited to have a chance lifestyle demarcation between the had to organize, agitate and demon to discuss everything from the lower 40 percent, which is roughly strate every step of the way. administration's seXlst policies to our what we call the worki~g class, and But we haven't achieved women's personal struggles with husbands and the upper 20-30, which is populated "liberation" yet, not by a long shot. lovers. Whatever divided us, we were by professors, administrators, execu My concern 1s with the economically all women, and we understood this tives, doctors, lawyers, etc. "Mass disadvantaged women for whom the to be one of the great defining quali markets" became "segmented mar ties of our lives and politics. kets," with different consumer options Could a group so diverse in class signaling differences in status. In 1972, A version of this interview appeared in the and occupation happily convene to- a junior faculty member's living room November 28, 1999 issue of In Thm Timu. p a g e 10 • D e m o c r a t i c L e f t • M i I I e o o i u m P a r t T w o looked much like that of a depart mental secretary-only, in most cases, messier. Today, the secretary is likely tn acccssorize her home at Kmart; the professor at Pottery Barn. Three de cades ago, we all consumed the same foods and enjoyed sugary, refined Oour treats at our meetings (not to mention Maxwdl I louse coffee and cigarettes!). Today, the upper middle class grinds their own beans, insists on whole grain organic snacks, and ve h 1:men tly eschews hot dogs and meatloaf. In the 70s, conspicuous, or cwn just ove.rlr cmhusiastic, consump tion was considered gauche-and not only by leftists and feminists. Today, professors, including quite liberal ones, arc likely to have made a deep c1riouonal investment in thcll" houses, furniture, pewter cooking ware, etc. sents a great advance, since women did, in fact, have the unforeseen con l t shows how tasteful they are, mean who earn their own way are of course scc.1uence of heightening the class dif tng--when we cut through the gar more able to avoid male domination ferences between women in two bagt• about aesthetics-how distinct in tht•ir personal lives. But women's ways. First, it was educated, middle they are from the "lower" classes. infl.ux into the workforce also means class women who most successfully that fewer and fewer women share used feminist ideology and soltdanty DL: Htfl weren~ there alwqys big ckm dtf the common occupational experience to advance themselves professionally. faretJce.r between women? once defined by the word "house Feminism has played a role in work BE: There were always class differ wife." I don't want to exaggerate this ing class women's struggles too-for ences, of course. Even before polar commonality as it ex.tsted in the 1960s example, Ill the union organizing ization set in, some of us lived on the or 1970s; obviously the stay-at-home drives of uni,·ersity clencal workers statistical hilltops, others deep in the wife of an executive led a very dif but probably its grearest single eco valleys. But, to continue the topo ferent life from that of the stay-at nomic effect was to open up formerly graphical metaphor, today we are dis home wife of a blue-collar man. But male-dominated professions to tributed on what looks less like a they did perform similar kinds of daily women. Between the 70s and the 90s, mountain range and more like a cliff tasks-housecleaning, chikkare, shop the percentage of female students in facc. Can feminism or, for that mat ping, cooking. Today, in contrast, the business, medical and law schools shot ter, any cross-class social mmrement, majority of women fan out every up from less than 10 percent to 40 or survive as class polarization spreads morning to face vastly different work more percent. There have been, how Americans further and further apart? experiences, from manual labor to ever, no comparable gains for young Gender, race, and sexual preference positions of power and command. women who cannot afford higher still define compelling commonalities, Like men, women are no\v spread degrees, and most of these women but the sense of a shared condition throughout the occupational hierarchy remain in the same low-paid occupa necessarily weakens as we separate (though not at the very top), where tions that have traditionally been in10 buppies on the one hand and they encounter each other daily as "women's work" for decades. All m low-paid black workers on the other, unequals-givers of orders vs. those all, feminism has had little impact on or into frequent-flying female execu who arc ordered around, providers the status or pay of traditional female U\•es on the one hand \'S. airport clean of all the invisible services daily life occupations like clerical, retail, health ing women on thl· other. depends on, such as office cleaning care and light assembly line work. In the case of women, there is an or data entry, vs. consumers of those While middle class women gained additional factor compounding the services. tv1BAs, working class women won the dins1on wrought by class polarization. right not to be called "hpncy"--and not a whole lot more than that. Tn the 1960s, only about 30 percent DL: }011 seem to impjy that the 117omen s of American women worked outside Movement tlltf} have act11alfy exr,m:rbated Secondly, since people tend to thl'1r homes; today, the proportion is class divisions between women. marry within their own class, the gains re,·crscd, with over 70 percent of BE: For all the ardent egalitarianism made by women in the professions women 111 the workforce. This repre- of the l'arly movement, feminism added to the growing economic gap M i l l e n n i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e r t • -p a g e 11 between the working class and the movement of the professional-managerial class. Work 70s and early 80s ing class families gained too, as wives probably brought went to work. But, as I argued in Fear together as diverse of Falling: The Inner Lift of the Middle a constituency-at Class, the most striking gains have ac least in terms of crued to couples consisting of two class-as any other well-paid professionals or managers. component of The doctor/lawyer household feminism. We zoomed well ahead of the truck worked to legalize driver/ typist combmation. abortion and to stop the involuntary ster DL: How bas da.rs polarization affected ilization of poor issues of greatest concern to the Women} women of color, to Movement? challenge the sex.ism BE: Here are some brief and sketchy faced by all female observations: consumers of medical care and to ex theme of consc1ousness-ra1s10g • Welfare. This has to be the most pand low-income women's access to groups. After all, whatever else tragic case. In the 70s, feminists hewed care. In many ways, ,.,,.e were success women did, we did housework; it was to the slogan, "Every woman is just ful: Abortion is legal, if not always the universal (or nearly universal) fe one man away from welfare." This accessible; the kinds of health infor male occupation. We debated Pat was an exaggeration of course; even mation once available only in under Mainardi's famous essay on The Politics then, there were plenty of self-sup ground publications like the original of Housework, which focused on the porting and independently wealthy Our Bodm, Ourselves can now be found private struggles to get men to pick women. But it was true enough to reso in Mademoiselle, the medical profession up their own socks, etc. We argued nate with the large numbers of is no longer an all-male bastion of pa bitterly about the "wages for house women who worked outside their triarchy. \Ve were not so successful, work" movement's proposal that homes part-rime or not at all. We rec however, in increasing low-income women should continue to do it, but ognized our commonality as home women's access to health care-in that they should be paid for their la makers and mothers and we consid fact, the number of the uninsured is bor by the state. We studied the Cu ered this kind of work to be impor far larger than it used to be, and poor ban legal code, with its intriguing pro tant enough to be paid for-even women srill get second-class health vision that males do their share or face when there was no husband on the care when they get any at all. Yet the possible jail-rime. scene. Welfare, m other words, was only women's health issue that seems Thirty years later, the feminist si potentially every woman's concern. to generate any kind of broad, trans lence on the issues of housework is Flash forward to 1996, when Clinton class participation today is breast can nearly absolute. Not, I think, because signed the odious Republican welfare cer, at least if wearing a pink ribbon men are at last doing their share, but reform bill, and you find only the counts as "participation," and very because so many women of the up weakest token protests from groups little of the emphasis there is on the per middle class now pay other bearing the label "feminist." The core dreadful inequities in medical care for women to do their housework for problem, as pro-welfare advocates cancer patients or anyone else. In fact, them. Bring up the sub1ect among found, was that many middle and even the nature of medical care is in affluent feminists today, and you get upper-middle class women could no creasingly different for women of a guilty silence, followed by defensive longer see why a woman should be different classes. While lower-income patter about how well they pay (and subsidized to raise her children. 'Well, women worry about paying for abor treat) their cleaning women. In fact, I work and raise my kids-why uons or for their children's care, many the low hourly wages earned by shouldn't they?" was a common re in the upper middle class are far more "freelance" maids is not so generous sponse, as if poor women could com concerned with such medical luxuries at all, when you consider that it has to mand wabes that would enable them as high-tech infertility treatments and cover cleaning eqwpment, transpor to purchase reliable childcare. As for cosmetic surgery. Young college tation to various cleanrng sites that other classic femmist slogan women get bulimia; less affluent throughout the day, a~d any benefits " every mother ts a working young women are more likely to suf like health insurance the cleaning per mother"-no one seems to remem fer from toxemia of pregnancy, which son should manage to purchase for ber it any more. 1s basically a consequence of malnu herself. Fast-growing corporate clean • Health Care: Our bodies, after all, trition. ing services like Merry Maids and The are what we have most in common • Housework In the 70s, housework Maids Iry.ternacional are far worse, as women, and the women's health was a hot femintst issue and ma1or offermg-in northeastern urban ar- page 12 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two eas-theit workers below-minimum original radical--and yes, utopian should take a hard look at how we're wages of $5 to $7 an hour. In a bitter feminist vision was of a society with spending our money. New furniture irony, many of the women employed out hierarchies of any kind. This of and, please, I don't want to hear about by the corporate cleaning services are course means equality among the how tastefully funky or antique-y it js former welfare recipients bumped races and the genders, but class is dif or a donation to a homeless shelter? off the rolls by the welfare reform ferent: There can be no such thjng as A new outfit-or a check written to bill so feebly resisted by organized "equality among the classes." The abo an orga01zation fighting sweatshop feminists. Olle could conclude, if one lition of hierarchy demands not only conditions in the garment industry? A was in a very bad mood, that it is not racial and gender equality, but the abo cleaning person-or a contribution to in the interests of affluent ferrunists lition of class. For a start, let's put that a clm.ic serving low-income women? to see the wages of working class outrageous aim back into the long If we can make sharing stylish again women improve. As for the pros range feminist agenda, and mention and excess consumption look as ugly pects of "sisterhood,, between afflu it as loudly and often as we can. as it actually is, we're that much more ent women and the women who In the shorter term, there's plenty ahead. Better yet, as many DSAers do, scrub their toilets for them-forget to do, and the burden necessarily falls give some of your time and your en about it, even ata "generous" $15 per on rhe more pri\~eged among us: to ergy. But if all you can do is write a hour. support working class women's check, that's fine: until Congress re workplace struggles, to advocate for distributes wealth equitably, we may DL: Are there a'!Y im1es of concern to the expanded soda! services for all just have to do it ourselves. Women} Movement that have not been h11rl women, to push for greater educa by class polarization? tional access for low-income women, Barbara Ehre11reich is BE: The issues that have most suc to make our gatherings financially and Honorary Chair of DSA cessfully weathered class polarization culturally accessible to all women, and are sexual harassment and male vio so on. I'm not telling you anything Barbara personalfy lobbied members of lence against women. These may be new here, s1stetSJ'Oll know what lo do. Congres.r with other activists in an attempt the last concerns that potentially unite But there's something else, too, in to prevent the so-called ''Personal Responsi all women; and they are of comse the spirit of another ancient slogan bility and Opportmri!J Act"from being crucial. But there is a danger in letting which is usually either forgotten or enaded into law. IP'c thank her and other these issues virtually define feminism, misinterpreted today: "The personal DSA members for their valiant efforts on as seems to be the case in some cam is the political." Those of us who are Capztal Hill in JllfJport of basfr entitle- pus women's centers today. Poor and fortunate enough to have assets and ments forfamilies. -Tl-fE EorroRS. working class women (and men) face income beyond our immediate needs, forms of harassment and violence on the job that are not sexual or even clearly gender-related. Being reamed out repeatedly by an obnoxious su DSA Feminist Commission Revitalized pervisor of either sex can lead to de Last month a group of NY DSA women, including Lynn Chancer, pression and stress-related disorders. Judith Lorber, Rosamond March, and Tequila Minsk"Y met at Ruth Spitz's Being forced to work long hours of apartment for the purpose of reconstituting the Feminist Commission. overtime, or under ergonomically or Tht> Feminist Commission was started in the early 1970s to explore chemically hazardous conditions, can theoretical issues and related action-oriented programs to move a strong make a person physically sick. Yet socialist-feminist agenda in the U.S. We would like to revitalize this project feminism has yet to recognize such of the American Left, which was a focus of activity after the merger routine workplace experiences as between DSA's predecessor organizations, the Democratic Socialist forms of "violence against women." Organizing Committee (DSOC) and New American Movement (NAM). We wish to discuss and act on issues of poverty and its relationship to DL: Ca11 the IPomen sMovement sHrmount gender and race, and the need for public provision of childcare 10 the the obstacles mated f?y das.r polarization? U.S. today. BE: When posing this quesuon to The newly reformed Feminist Comrruss1on will be meeting in New middle class feminist acquaintances, I York City on Sunday, March 26th to discuss future plans and activities. sometimes get the response: "\Xlcll, Please attend if you are in the New York area. In the meantime, we you're right. We have to confront our encourage interested members to attend the World :March of Women in classism." But the problem ts not W.'lshington DC which will be taking place in October 2000. For more classism, the problem 1s class itself: the information about the Feminist Commission meeting or the World March existence of grave inequalities among of Women, contact Ruth Spitz ([email protected]) or Lynn Chancer women, as well as between women ([email protected]), or the DSA National Office. and men. We should recall that the Mi 11 en n i um Part Two • Demo cc at i c Le ft • pa g ~ 13 Capitalism Can't Be the On!J Game in Town Rational Hope B Y D AVID ScHWEICKART ' ~ spectre is haunting Eu happiness. the deep and bloody oppressions rope-the spectre of In most quarters this counter sanctioned by racism. We should not Communism." So project will likely be called ".social say-because it is not true-that the wrote Marx and Engels in 1848. ist" or "communist," because if it is dispositions and structures that sus They were .right. Europe, indeed the anti-capitalist-which it must be if it tain sexism, racis~ and homoph o world, was haunted by "Commu is to be a movement for complete bia are less deeply rooted than those nism" for nearly a century and a half. human emancipation-it will be so that sustain capitalism or are less in Now, at least for the time being, that labeled by its well-financed' enemies. need of being rooted out. If we a.re ghost has been exorcised. In its place As Marx and Engels wrote a century to have a truly emancipatory social has appeared the conquering spirit and a half ago, ''Where is the party ism, we must work for more than the spectre of globalized capitalism. in opposition that has not been de socialism. I would propose that humanity's cried as communistic by its oppo project for the twenty-first century nents in power?" It is pointless to The Next System is to exorcise this ghost, the very real contest that label, which can in fact Such an undertaking is lacking spectre which is in fact our own cre be worn proudly, drawing on the among the "practical Left" today ation. rich intellectual legacy of the social those people engaged in concrete Humanity's project-let us call ist tradition. It draw moral sus it will struggles against concrete oppres a counter-project, since it stands in tenance from the many heroic sion. Virtually all of the many anti struggles waged under the socialist opposition to the ongoing project of systcmic struggles being waged at globalizing capital-will of necessity banner-without denying the fail present are proceeding within the be a vast and complicated affair, in ures, perversions, and atrocities of horizon of capitalism. In the ad volving millions of people. It is an parties and governments that have vanced industrial parts of the world, called themselves "socialist." all-embracing project for human these struggles are largely defensive. emancipation. It is the project to al Since we can't immediately trans Students and workers have gone on ter alJ the attitudes, practices and form the existing order, wipe every strike and have taken to the streets in structures that circumscribe unneces thing out and start over, we have to Italy, France and elsewhere to block sarily the possibilities of human hap create a new order that preserves government rollbacks of hard-won piness. It will have a practical dimen what is good in the present while gains, justified in the name of "glo sion-the organization and mobili mitigating the irrational and evil. It bal competition." In poorer coun zation of large numbers of people can't be what Marx denounced as tries workers, peasants, students, and locally, regionally, nationally and in "crude communism," animated by women continue to fight for the ternationally. It will also have a theo envy. Instead, it must be a world that gains already won in most rich coun retical dimension. builds on the material and cultural ac tries: human rights, democracy, labor This theoretical dimension will it complishments of past centuries, em rights, gender equality, and rights for self be complex. It must be in the braces the political ideals of liberty, indigenous people. In some instances tradition of the great oppositional, democracy and the rule of law, and movements are pushing to extend anti-capitalist movements of the promotes such values as generosity, further what has already been nineteenth and twentieth centuries, solidarity and human creativity, self achieved wider social democracy. But and the other profoundly discipline, personal responsibility, and m none of these struggles do we emancipatory movements struggling hard work. It will not sneer at these find an articulated conception of a latter values as "bourgeois values." for gender equality, for racial equal new mode of production. ity, against homophobia, for preser They will be acknowledged to be The Left, to sustain its core iden indispensable to the construction of vation of natural environments, tity, must be able to conceive a suc against nuclear madness, and for a new world. cessor-system to capitalism. T his is genuine peace. All of these struggles We should not claim-because because the collapse of the Soviet will be seen as part of the huge, glo it is not true-that the struggle Union has been so demoralizing to against the power of capital more bal effort to end oppression and to is many Leftists-the vast majority, I fundamental than, for example, the en sure every human being a fair dare say-even though they did not chance at self-realization and human struggle against patriarchy or against p a g e 14 • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • M i 11 e n n i u m P a r t T w o then, following Lenin's death, agri culture was collectivized-at terrible human cost-all means of produc tion were nationalized, and an im mense central planning apparatus was put into place to coordinate the economy. What we now th.ink of as "the Soviet economic model" came into being. For a long while, it looked like this radically new way of organizing an economy was the wave of the fu ture. The Soviet Union industrialized while the \Vest collapsed into De pression-as Marx had predicted it would. The Soviet Union survived the German invasion, broke the back of the German military machine, and then, without any Western help, re built its war-ravaged economy. Nu merous Western economists looked at relative growth rates and nervously plotted the point at which the Soviet economy would surpass that of the United States. Meanwhile, the fire of Communist revolution took hold in Internationalist. Moraltst. Materlalfst Left details to us. China, Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam, and seemed about to sweep the Third World. view the Soviet Union as the embodi talism appears strongest and most he ment of the socialist ns1on \'\'hat gemonic, 1t is possible to assert with Historical Materialism cver its failings, the Soviet Union rep more evidence-backed conviction But, as we all know, a funny thing resentetl an alternative to capitalism. than ever before that an efficient so happened on the way to the future. It was, if far from perfect, a succes cialist alternative to capitalism is in In the 1980!> Soviet economic sor-sys Lem. Capitalism was not, as it deed possible. growth ground to a halt. The now seems to be, the only game in As everyone who has studied economy didn't collapse (that would town. I think appearances are mis Marx knows, Lhc spectfics of a so come only with the attempted capi leading here, and that capitalism is cialist society arc never mapped out. talist restoration), but the Soviet not the only game in town. But with Virtually no attention is given to the model hit its !units. It began to lag instttuuonal stmctures that should re out a theory of a successor-system, badly 111 technological development, we can only view the world through place those of capitalism and thus particularly in the hot, new, politically the lens of capital. define a genuinely superior economic sensitive areas of information pro I conten Millennium Part Two• DemocraticLeft •page ls model, not only in Russia but model, a form of market socialism then to enterprises via public banks. throughout Eastern Europe, is widely that extends democracy to the work The third problem can be solved by believed to have proven that Marx's place and removes society's invest imposing a tariff on goods coming historical materialism and conception ment mechanisms from the hands of from poor countries so as to bring of socialist succession was wrong. a private, privileged capitalist class. It their selling prices into line with what But this conclusion follows only if it breaks with free trade dogma and they would be if wage levels (and is assumed that every attempt at con engages in a "socialist protectionism" environmental regulations) were the structing a successor-system to a that aids both domestic workers and same-and then rebating the col given order must necessarily succeed. those of poorer countries. lected tariffs to the exporting coun In Marxian terms, historical materi These institutional changes cor tries. This would force rich countries alism sees the human species as a respond to felt discontents within to pay fair market prices for their practical species groping to solve the contemporary capitalism. Why imports rather than free market problems presented to it. There is no should democracy stop at the fac prices. reason to expect success right away. tory gates or the entrance to wher Would it work? I think so. I have It is far more probable to see only ever else you might work? Why elaborated and defended in detail partial successes at first or outright should the stability and quality of an these institutions in Againf/ Capitalism. failures, with subsequent attempts economy be held hostage to the I present an updated version of the informed by those experiences. Nei greed of a class of people whose argument in my forthcoming book, ther I nor anyone else can prove that decisions as to where to invest, and .After CapitaliJm, where I also argue historical materialism is a correct in what, profoundly affect the gen that Economic Democracy embod theory of history. It is a hopeful, eral citizenry? Why should workers ies the multiple criteria ofan adequate optimistic theory. It aims to be "sci of the world compete to see who successor system theory. I hope that entific," but it clearly embodies ele will settle for the lowest wages, and conscientious readers will be con ments that do not lend themselves why should poor countries devote vinced. I also hope that the twenty to scientific validation. so many of their resources to satis first century will witness a massive Any successor-system theory fying the desires of rich-country con expansion everywhere of should delineate an economic model sumers? emancipatory successor-systems to in sufficient detail so that it can be The first problem can be solved capitalism. I don't think this is an ir cogently defended, to professional by allowing workers, not absentee rational hope. economists and elsewhere, as being owners, to control enterprises. The both econorrucally and ethically su second can be solved by generating David S chweickart teacheJ at perior to capitalism. The theory a societal investment fund, not from Loyola Univmiry in Chicago. HiJ should orient our understanding so private sa\'ings, but from a capital as writingJ are used by the as to enable us to make sense of the sets tax. All of the revenues would DSA Economics of Socialism Working numerous and diverse economic ex then go back to regions and com Group. periments of this century. particularly munities on a per capita basis, and those of the post-Wodd War II pe riod. If the human species is indeed groping toward a post-c.apitalist eco nomic order, socialists have a respon sibility to assist in that. Politically, the concrete reforms that progressive parties and movements are currently Association For Union Democracy struggling for should be suggestive of additional reform possibilities. AUD 30TH ANNIVERSARY CONFERENCE Historical materialism sees the insti tutions of new societies developing Union Democracy in a Changing Labor Movement within the old. Successor-system theory should help us locate the seeds and sprouts of what could become April 7 - 9, 2000 a new economic order so that we may protect and nourish them. Fashion Institute of Technology Economic Democracy 7th Avenue at 27th Street, New York City I am convinced that what I have for some years been calling Economic info: www.uniondemocracy.com Democracy is the appropriate page 16 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two From Sweden to Socialism BY JOANNE BARKAN Almost a decade ago, t1110 eminent /~(lists, econo!llist Robert lions, the current vmion of the global economy haI put intense l leilbroner and Jocial critic ln•ing f lo1n, posed a pair of q1m presI11re on the European social democracies and our weak eq11il'a lions that all demomitfr socialists needed lo answer. 'Those q1m lent in the United States. Some of the pressure iI real in et"onom1'· tions seem jiat as meaningfitl to me today, so I 'II re-pose them in terms; Iome is political!J generated. Everyone is mpposed to JCale my own words. back the Ult/fare slate and deregulate the economy in order lo Vimalize a vibrant, left-wing social democrary that 1ve 'II call compete in the global market. In response, most socialists are Slightfy-Ima._~inaf)'-Sweden (SIS). I-low ml(ch would 1h"1 place try·ing to defend and rebuild what remains of social democrat)" have lo d1ange, and in what u11!)'f would it have to change, in From my point of view, that doesn ~make l leilbroner's and Howe's order to become an unmislakabfy soci11/isl, not capitalist, coun q11estionI irrelevant. On the contrary, people who call themselves try? And givtn so adwm·ed and attractive a we!fare stale as softalists need to explazn what the label co11ld pouib!J mean to SIS, wfo· would a democratic socialist wish lo move beyond it? day; the old definitions Iound obsolete. I lms a Ilightfy revised since the time when rr eilbroner and Howe asked Ihm quu- version of how I once answered Heilbroner and [!owe: oking around Slightly-Imagi countability oversee the immense pen by staying in SIS than by moving. This nary-Sweden, even the skepti sion funds, thereby exercising some gives them excessive economic power P cal socialist is impressed. The democraric control over investment. and political leverage. But no matter labor movement is powerful and National legislation prevents ar how well the SIS system performs, democratic. A solidaris tic wage bitrary firings, requires worker repre private capital will defect if it per policy-centralized bargaining to sentation on the boards of directors ceives significant advantage elsewhere. achieve equal pay for equal work na of all firms, allows \vorkers to halt National loyalty is a myth. The gains tionwide-forces unproductive enter production if they find unsafe condi made in SIS remain precarious. prises to shape up or go under. This tions, and obliges employers to ne The socialist has other reasons for boosts overall economic efficiency. go ti;\le with local unions before wanting to move beyond SIS. First, Strong tax incentives pull profits into implementing major changes. she would like to break up concen reinvestment, rather than speculation. After living under this system for trations of wealth and power in or 'lhis further raisl's productivity and some decades, most SIS citizens hold der to promote democracy. Second, creates jobs. Intelligent labor market dear the values of equality, social jus she believes that people can have sub policies Gob training and placement, tice, solidanty, democracy, and free stantial control over their work life subsidies for worker relocation, and dom. Images of poverty in rich coun only if the workplace belongs to so on) keep unemployment low. tries like the United States shock them. them. Third, although SIS wtns high Because the transition to new jobs They pressure their government to marks for equalizing life opportunity, is eased, the labor movement coop increase aid to the Third World. They redistributing wealth, and fostering erates in industrial rationalization, once point with pride to the fact that the fine (socialist) values, the socialist thinks again increasing efficiency and growth. overall ht·alth of SIS children in the even more could be done. Surplus from this dynamic economy bottom 1en pcrcem income group is \Vhat structural changes does the is used to protect the environment. identical to that in the top ten percent. socialist propose? The innovations ·111e surplus also supports a system of During their six weeks of vacation must do more than upgrade SIS universal, high c.iuality social welfare each year, SISers love to travel more than, say, improve day care or programs that are decentralized abroad But they return convinced that make taxes more steeply progressive; enough to be user-friendly. Good their system best implements basic they must transform capitalist SIS into education builds a skilled work force. values. a socialist country. Forms of owner Progressive tax policies shrink income Life is sweet in SIS. Why go be ship must change, and the scope of inequalities, which keeps the market yond? The socialist pomts out that markets be reduced. from listing too heavily toward luxury because most industry is privately The socialist recommends enlarg goods. Public agencies with good ac- owned, the system is nilnerable. The ing SIS's small socialized sector. Un left government and unions try end der the new system, the state would lessly to accommodate pnvate capi own enterprises in key industries as The original version of this essay first ap· tal. Not only must profits be high, well as natural monopolies. Socializa peaced in the wmter 1991 issue of Dm111t. It was reprinted JO lt:"hy Murk.ti S oriolism? private owners and investors must be tion would keep concentrations of (Roosevelt and Bclkm, editors; M.E. Sharpe, persuaded that they will benefit more power and wealth out of private 1994). Mi 11 en n i um P a rt Two • Democratic Left • pa g c .17 hands, give the government and la op A members into capitalists. Co bor movement more control over the op A has the possibility of becoming economy, and prevent capital flight. a powerful conglomerate. Laws are But the skeptical socialist ac passed to prevent one co-op from knowll'dges serious problems. The in investing m another. But this immo evitable oversight agencies can under bilizes capital, and the economy loses mine freedom of initiauve for the its dynamism Finally, an economy managers of socialized firms. Assess dominated by cooperatives doesn't ment of responsibility becomes dif have labor unions uniting workers ficult Politicians feel compelled to both industry· wide and throughout pour money into failing businesses the economy. There is no solidaristic rather than risk their careers by shut wage policy and therefore none of ting them down. Even if a good its far-reaching benefits. managerial culture develops in the Needing respite from the own socialized sector, the entrepreneurial ership question, the socialist consid function, essential to a dynamic ers the market and its noncapitalist al economy, may be lost. The socialist ternative, planning. Comprehensive doesn't value efficiency, competitive planning-including price settmg, pro Only slightly imaginary. ness, an p a g e 18 • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • M i 11 e n n i u m P a r t T w o Revitalizing Democratic Socialism In the 21st Century BY PAUL.BERMAN n my own supremely vague defi have never been cut specify the policies, and nition, socialism can only mean away. Will we be able to why the term imperial I this: the well-being of society as identify what is old and ism ought to apply. That a whole, and not just of a part. dead in our own ideas, particular exercise might Socialism's prospects, from that su and rid ourselves of help us distinguish be premely vague point of view, are rea those things? It won't be tween an authentic im sonably good, in spite of CYery ter easy. It's always much perialism and an equally rible thing that is said. \\'calth and simpler to go attack authentic humanitarian technology are increasing today-al someone else than to sit impulse to intervene though they are not benefiting every down and try to rethink here and there around one equally, and arc benefiting some one's own ideas. The so- the world-two very people not at all. Democracy is cialist movement ought to be a radi different things that can sometimes spreading around the world-al cal movement, which is to say, an look oddly similar. Do this through though not to every country, and very imaginative movement. But for a out the traditional left-wing vocabu shakily in some countries, and some long time now, and in America es lary. times a bit shakily in our own nation. pecially, socialism has been, in cer lt used to be said that socialism J\ spirit of democratic solidarity tain respects, a movement of deep required a state-owned economy. Or is spreading, too, in the form of what conservatism, in ics own fashion-a else it was said, more attractively, that is called the humanitarian movement. movement unwilling to alter its deep an authentically socialist society It is the kind of spirit that causes est ideas and habits, a movement would require a collective economy large numbers of hardy individuals pickled in nostalgia for a bygone age under decentralized workers' rule- and sometimes even governments to of heavy industry and giant bureau a republic of workers' councils. Nei come to the rescue of people in dis cracies and red radicalism. ther of those ideas will get us any tress in other countries. But, as ev I would like to propose a mod where today. People may go on us eryone has noticed, the spirit of soli est method for rethinking our own ing those old phrases, but it's impos darity has remained inconsistent and ideas. It is this: to take the traditional sible to imagine how the old phrases inefficient and sometimes hypocriti vocabulary of the socialist left and, might apply to any real-life society cal. In short, several lrends around as an experiment, forswear using it of today or tomorrow. the world arc pointing in directions for a good long period. We might In my opinion, we should be that might very well lead to the well begin with the word "socialism" it happy to concede that socialism is a being of all; and every one of those self, together with its putative oppo word like freedom, which refers to several admirable trends is also site, "capitalism." Each time we are something that can never entirely ex pointing the other way. From my tempted to use one of those weighty ist. There can always be more free perspective, the prospects for social terms, let us push ourselves to find a dom, or less freedom, but freedom ism are looking reasonably healthy in more detailed, more precise expla itself will never entirely exist; and like either case. For socialism is not just nation of exactly what we mean. wise socialism. Freedom always re an idea that seeks the good of soci \Vhen we speak of "capitalism" quires new forms and new ap ety as a whole. Socialism is a protest or "corporate rule" or "corporate proaches; likewise socialism. movement, too. J\t least, it's sup domination" let us ask ourselves: ex Let us not put ourselves in a po posed to be. And the field for pro actly which economic policies and sition where other people are always test is not disappearing any time soon. practices do we have in rrund? Let proposing changes, and we are re My great worry about socialism us learn to say that we oppose cer sisting them. Let us propose changes and its prospects in America rests on tain policies and practices-and be of our own. We should say: we are a different ground. The socialist able to identify other aspects of enthusiastically in favor of increas movement arose in the nineteenth modem economic life that we ad ing global trade-and we have a pro century, and it is still encumbered by mire. If we want to talk about U.S. posal for how to achieve such an in all kinds of vines and weeds that imperialism, let us push ourselves to crease, and how to do in it in a form sprouted in that long-ago time, and define exactly what we mean, to that will lead to attractive conse- M i 11 e n n i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e f t • p a g e 19 quences at home and abroad. We are enthusiastically in favor of the com On the Stump puter revolution, and other technical innovations, too-and we have some proposals for how to advance those innovations in ways that will avoid dividing society into cyber-haves and cyber-have-nots. In that manner we should reaf firm one other legacy of the social ist tradition: a legacy of utopian thought. Only, we should promise ourselves not to reproduce the failed and sometimes harmful utopias of the past, nor even the attractive uto pias of the past. We need far-reach ing but also plausible, proposals that DSA National Directory Horace Small spoke lo our California locals in March. might actually turn into policies. We socialists have a long tradi tion of social service--0f calling on our comrades to devote themselves to careers in the labor movement, in Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation the social service professions, and in (Required by 39 USC 3685) humanitarian movements. That is one tradition we should go on affirm 1. Publication Title: Democratic Left. 2. Publication Number: 701-9602. 3. Filing Date: 3/10/00. 4. Issue Frequency: Quarterly. 5. Number of Issues Published Annually: 4. Annual Subscription Price: ing. We should say that, as socialists, $10.00. 7. Complete Malling Address of Known Office of Publication: 180 Varick Street, 12" Floor, we don't pretend to have a single eco New York, NY 10014. 8. Complete Mailing Address of or Headquarters or General Business Office nomic or political formula for all the of Publisher: 180 Varick Street, 12111 Floor, New York, NY 10014. 9. Full Names and Complete world. But we do have a few ideas Mailing Addresses of Publisher, Editor and Managing Editor: Democratic Socialists of America, 180 Varick Street. 12" Floor, New York, NY 10014. Editor: Horace Small, DSA, 180 Varick Street, 12" about what is a good way to live. Floor, New York, NY 10014. Managing Editor: . 100wner Democratic Socialists of America, 180 We know that we admire people Varick Street, 12" Floor, New York, NY 10014. 11 . Known Bondholders, Mortgagees, and Other who actually produce things-people Security Holders Owning or Holding 1 Percent of More of Total Amount of Bonds, Mortgages, or who do productive work. We admire Other Securities: None. 12. The purpose, function, and nonprofit status of this organization and the people whose work is useful to their exempt status fOI' federal income tax purposes: Has Nol Changed During Preceding 12 Months. 13. Publication Title: Democratic Left. 14. Issue Date fOI' Circulation Data Below: Millennium Part One fellow citizens. \Ve measure the value (December 1999). of labor by other standards than the dollar. We should be able to say: the Extent and Nature of Circulation: socialist movement is not just a Average No. Copies Each lssueAverage No. Copies of Single Issue movement with a set of practical and During Preceding 12 Months Published Nearest to Filing Date imaginative ideas for the future, and a. Total Number of Copies 10,800 11,CXX> not just a protest against conditions b. Paid and/or Requested Circulation of the present. It is a movement with (1) Sales Through Dealers and Carriers, a set ofvalues for everyday life. There Street Vendors and Counter Sales: !m !m is nothing very unusual or arcane (2) Paid or Requested Mall Subscriptions: 7,816 6,967 c. Total Paid and/or Requested Circulation 8,716 7,PIJ9 about those ideas and impulses. Any d. Free Distribution by Mail 275 100 number of people are conducting e. Free Distribution Outside Mail 1,CXX> 500 their own lives right now precisely f. Total Free Distribution 1.275 fill according to the best socialist values. g. Total Distribution 10,091 8,467 We should proclaim those people h. Copies Not Distributed (1) Office Use. Leftovers, Spoiled ~ 2,533 our heroes. No one else is going to (2) Returns from News Agents 0 0 do that-not in today's world of i. Total 10,800 11,CXX> money-madness and glitz. Percent Paid and/or Requested Circulation ffi 9'2 Publication Statement of Ownership Will Be Printed in the Millennium Part Two issue. I certify that all Paul Berman is the author of A Tale of information furnished is true and complete: Frank Llewellyn, Business Manager. Two Utopias: The Political Journey of the Generation of 1968. page 20 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two Left In: Martin Duberman's Defense of ''Identity Politics'' 11 rmnt. >ears thrre has bem a mo1111ting attack on "identi!J ana/pis, ·~·/,m "is simpfy assumed to be the lra1tscenda11t catt§J1)~ I politics, " on•po/itical groupings that purh agendar briud on and i.mm relating to gender, race and sex11ali!Y are marginalized race, elhnicif)" gender and se:-.:11al orientation. S11ch a politicr, it is as comparlivefy insignficant. But "class" is inherent!J a cultural being arg11ed, harde11s boundaries bet1Peen oppressed groupr and issue. So/idari!J based on eco11omit· isme.r CtJ!l never come about pm1ents them from mobilizing coUettiiie!J around "tranrcendent" until dit•isions based on gender, race and sex1111li!Y tJrt mogniZfd- i!111er of ckm a11d econofllic il:eq11ality. if not nJo/ved--as central lo achieving such a .~oa/. The basic argmne11t in Michael TomasJ:J1 i seminal Left far Cerlainfy, TomasJi:>~ el tJ! are right i11 deploring the Leji's D~ad, as well as reant J11orks i?J1 the estimable Todd Gitlin and i11attention in recent years to class-based oppmJion and to the En·c l Iobsbau1m, mn along there /inti. No mb1tanlial or unified mounting insemrities and rmnl1Junts of blue collar life. A11d /me, Left e.'\ist1 todqy. Instead, thert are "several small Lefts, "discon every time )'Oii p11sh an anti· racist, pro-ftmini.rt or gq;• agendayou nected rhards "sometimes agrem{g on things, sometimes not. "A.mong are likefy to hardm the opposition. This is necessan'jy so because these fragmentr are remnantr of the 1960s. cit-ii righ/J movement, polarization is how social progress taku place. The alternati:1e, some se,gme11ts of organized labor. some e1wironmentalist1, and however-sometimes elevated as "pragmatic po/itiCJ "-is to avoid various activists far the disabled, aged and homelesr. But towering giving ojfonu i?J• avoidingf11ll-1cale diwmions q(controvmial pub above all these-''the vanguard, 11-ithout q1mtion, "i11 Tomasi.;yi lic isJ11es, which all but guamntee.r the presen•ation of the .rtatus view--are ideologicalfy dnven ''identi!J movementr" b,md on race, quo. A non-disrupted dvic culture is one where the outs have.foiled ethnicity, gender, and sex11al orientation. to make their,R,rievances known, or have been rni1:es~(11lfy Ji/ena:d. The problem with thi.r, Tomask;y tells 111, if that the Left has P11ttingpn·mary emphasis 011 lhe placation of anger and the a11oid "110 ana/)'!is of what unites people. " ''Enlightenment 11niversal ance of offense i.r a prescription far soda} 1tagnation. The ideas ism, "to TomasJ:J~ is the linkinggl11e, the ideas of Locke, Hume, being generated 011 the multin1lt11ral Left ''" not "i11pposedfy" Voltaire,jeffmon, ,111d Pai11e which he S willing to understand that women sciousness. I think our national orga An Interview have had a bard time, and gays and nizations are doing better nO\V than lesbians have had a hard time, and they used to in terms of minority with Martin so forth. But beyond that, they really representation and women actually don't want to hear the details because heading up some of the major or Duber man they might affect how they view their ganizations, but the value structure of own lives and internal narratives. these organizations seems to me so B Y MICHAEL LIGHTY desperately middle class. DL: At the same time. don~ you think DL: The co11cludi11g US'!)' in )'Ollr recent the GLBT movement has its own difJiclll DL: I 1vonder what lessons )'OJI do draw book, Left Out, is a provocative critique tiu with radicalism, especialfy class ana(y from yo11r work as a histoniin q(the .1 lfii of a book by Michael Tomas0• and of si.r? In a recent i'sme of Out magazine, can-./' lmerican liberation movement. i?J· Pat Ca/iji,1 talked abo11/ clau distinctions similar ideas put forward others. Their MD: The Black struggle was certainly po1itio11, you ar;g11e, boils down lo: ''l l!)', in the !JD' t"Ommunity, 1J!/!ich iI unacknou•l• formative for me personally 111 open edged between predomrnant!J male lipper the left has failed a11d it's the fault of ide11- ing my eyes to a lot of inequitit•s. I IWl!J class con1tituencies and ordinary ,f!,'!Jf. She tity politics. " do you think th:;· re mean, in the fifucs, I was your typi had real!J ftlt a great deal class oppres sqying that? of cal smug middle-class white boy. I sion within the comm11ni1J•. MD: Because. like most straight don't think I was ever particularly people-and perhaps especially MD: I feel close to her line of analysis smug, actually, o nly because I f clr so straight whtte men-they don't want and argument. I am not convinced rotten abou t wh o I was-namely, their own patterns of behavior or that our community, even if we re gay. But I was certainly a middle-class their own value structure challenged strict it to the younger generation, is whttc kid who was not at all inter in any significant way. I tl11nk the un sufficiently class an M i 11 e n n i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g e 21 ~ng of the Black movement said dfffermce as a nent ones repre that "Black is beautiful." Being dif v'"J' to sentinggay and les ferent is beautiful. Not only that but, Jlre11gilm1 the c11l- bian people. The up- in many ways, because we've had a ture andptvmotejus coming spring national different historic experience and de tia. gay and lesbian Millen veloped a different set of values and nium March in Washing MD: Yes, and in some perspectives, there's a lot about us ton seems to be symbolic of a very concrete ways. The that-pardon me-is "superior" to conscious transformation l!J cer way in which the GLBT the way the mainstream views things, tain gay leaders lo prrJ)ut a new community has historically particularly in how people relate to image far the community and make formed relationships-the im each other. So not only was it okay that image normative. portance of friendship m·tworks, to be different, but we have some the fact that we don't automatically MD: "Faith and Family" is the an- thing of importance to say to those buy into monogamous lifetime pair nounced theme of the march. Our mainstrcamers who at their best have bonding as being the maximum road leading institution is the Metropoli learned toleration. to human happiness; though I must tan Community Church. That has far say alarming numbers in our com and away more members than the DL: Do .)'Oii think there u airy lesson tn munity do seem to buy into it. But National Gay and Lesbian Task how Paul Robeson navigated these issues? this is a part of the larger problem: Force. I mean, gigantically more. MD: What so intrigued Robeson that Gay 1\mericans are 1\mericans. \Xlhen you look at our community when he went to Russia was that, at 1\nd most of them arc mainstream at its publications, at how it chooses least officially, the Soviet Union was in their values and tlll'y're not at all to spend its money, at its seeming encouraging minority cultures within sympathetic to a Robeson, or to me, indifference to most political is its boundaries to preserve their or to you. sues-it gets pretty depressing. It's unique heritages, and at the same time I do think, hoWC\'er, that we like we don't have any troops. It's not was offering all the rights and pr1vi GLBTers arc doing a better job in just the straight Left. It's the gay Left. leges of first class citizenship. And dealing with issues of inclusi\•eness We don't have any troops either. to Robeson, that was the ideal com than the male straight left has done. bination. He was not attracted to the There is much more pro forma ac DL: Haven~ the elected representatives of melting pot-at least, by the 1930s. ceptance of diffcrentncgs that's the gq_y comm11ni!J fit a more "normal" ste He understood the value of coupled to a deep refusal to actually reorype of masculiniry? differentness and he wanted Black digest what that differentness means. MD: Oh, definitely. In fact, until re people to preserve their culture, and cently the national leaders who not try to make themselves into imi DL: Yet gay conservatities mch af Bruce would end up heading our organi tative little Anglo-Saxons. Bauer and Andrew Sul/it-an hat•e an ex- zations would be people like Tom lraordina')' current)'. No longer are the Stoddard, who was a lovely guy and DL: }011 realfy argue far the inclusion of rudrcal z·oices necmari!J· the most promi- a dear friend, but the personifi cation of the all-American boy. Nice-looking, blond, perky, smart, cheerful-the Boy Scout Oath. I think that has changed somewhat, especially since AIDS. Before, you just didn't see people of color m our movement-ex cept the occasional person-let alone in positions of leadership. Now I think you see more, es pecially within AIDS organiza tions. But not many. DL: And then theres ·the ''anti-iden ti!J politics" crowd If they allow for gays, its normal gays basical!y, those who are most like them,yes? MD: Oh yeah. Tomasky's very clear on that. He needs someone indistinguishable from him in p a £? e 22 • D c m o c r a t i c L e f t • M i I I c n n i u m P a r t T w o \'alucs and behavior, except for this trivial little matter of who they hap pen to find erotically exciting. DL: Do radical GLBTers have a 1miq11e critique or diffare11t ana!Jsi.r ~f capitalism? If .ro, hoJIJ 111ight yo11 a1ti1'Hlate it? MD: I don't think we have a differ ent analysis. I mean, when I hear gay radicals speak about capitalism which isn't often, because there aren't many of them-they tend to be say ing pretty much the same things that the straight Left is saying. We usually bemoan (I include myself in this) the growing disparity in income and as set ownership. We talk ?.bout the fact that the jobs just aren't there any more lesbian feminists were saying we've way of reconstruction. If our insti for the unskilled or the semi-skilled. got to look at this gender busipess tutions as they currently stand are Beyond that, I don't hear gay very seriously because a lot of what mostly serving patriarchal males, then radicnls coming up with either a new we have taken for granted about once we've challenged and redone symptomology to describe what's what it means to be a man or a that notion of maleness, the institu wrong with capitalism, or anything woman is nonsense. It's all based on tions are clearly going to have to like a new set of propositions as to social myth-not based on any kind change accordingly. how to either humanize it or ulti of scientific findings though the sci mately get rid of it. That doesn't entific community likes to pretend DL: How? mean that there isn't within GLBT that it is. lifestyles some kind of implicit cri MD: First of all, there won't be as The re-definition of gender and tique, which maybe needs to get bet many patriarchal males around who the meaning of gender non-confor ter articulated. \X'hat kinds of non will need those institutional supports mit~· is critical. \X'e might talk-as economic relationships lead to the as desperately. Suzanne Kessler has-about the fact greatest amount of happiness? And that we should nor be performing what kind of sexual behavior? Is it DL: I.r the notion identiry politics surgery on interscxcd infants-those ef serial monogamy? Lifetime mo the notion ofa singular coherent identi{y- kinds of issues. There is a vast range nogamy? Is it having no primary part mea11i11gful? of what we're now calling genders. ners, etc.? We have to discuss all those It isn't just that the bmary doesn't cap MD: It isn't meaningful in the same big, murky, and messy issues which ture it. It's just that five or six gen way that race isn't truly meaningful people tend not lo be talking about ders won't capture it either, and that from any kind of"scientific perspec these days. They arc to some extent any individual wanders back and tive." But to be of a certain color or in the gay world. But they aren't re forth-that we're full of all kinds of a certain sexual orientation means that lating it concretely to how it might contradictory impulses and gestures you have had a different expenence. ultimately turn into a critique of capi and desires and feelings. How different will depend on the in talism. We must start to look at aU that dividual we're talking about. But stuff-the horrible amounts of ar speaking of the group generally the DL: There 1va.r a critiqm, particular"!J in mor that we all wear in order to win experience has been different. And the 19 70s. of capitali.rl patriarchy from a some kind of credential or accep so this has created a legitimate sub feminist p1·rspective-1vhich gcry radical! tance, and travel through life with a culture for a variety of groups, cen adopted to some e.Y/e11!, and ,·ertain!J les certain degree of comfort. We're all tered on ethnicity or race or gender lii1111 radiral! adopted. Do]OU feel that cri constantly repressing and constantly or sexual orientation. t1q11e 110 longer has a presence in the r:om trying to push ourselves into shape 1bcsc identities, though, are very wmi!J'? so that we will be an acceptably cer sltppery because most of us have MD: I don't think it has a compa tifiable male or female. And once you Millennium Part Two• Democra t icLeft •p age 23 same thing-identity politics has become a disservice to us all, including those minori ties who have been involved in it. I think this kind of ex change, however unfortu nately angry it is, maybe has to happen-because Tornask.-y's book is extremely provoking. But having got ten through that initial stage of screaming at each other, what we really need to un derstand is that there's no nec essary contrndiction between arguing for a more economi . . cally equit~ble society, doing meetings doesn't mean that some of ~ess may be overwhelmingly more 1usttce and hononng the wide vari important to her than her sexual ori us were unaware of the fact that we ety of human beings who exist in this sometimes found women attractive entation. And at yet another point, country. I don't see any necessary con her class membership may be more and/or slept with women, or what tradiction. I think unless you're aware ever. And we had issues regarding important than either. of both, in fact, you can't properly race. We came to these meetings in do either. DL: Do Tomasif:y and the other critics o~der to deal with rather single Unless you're aware that the class you write about want to unpack or even rrunded, uncomplicated questions of struggle is always inflected by issues oppression. deal with the notion of overlapping identi relating to race and gender, how are ties? you ever going to mobilize the work DL: Given the level of violem·e that still MD: No, he doesn't address all of ing class, since this has been driven exists-and the threat of violence-one by racial hatred for centuries? And that. As I say in the essay, he's not wonders how scife we are in public. aware of all these arguments that take on the gay side, how are you ever place within our community around MD: The need to organize around going to get more gay people politi these very issues of identity, and our sexual identities is still very much cally involved if you don't recognize questions about how useful it is as a present. Which is exactly why we can that our national organizations do not political organizing tool. not do what the Tomaskys are ask have the kinds of agendas that are I think at the very least, GLBT ing us to do. We cannot now surren likely to mobilize people who live in identity is essential as an organizing der our political involvement and small towns, who are paid badly, tool That doesn't mean that it should identity politics and join him under who have either no jobs or part-time permanently determine the way in this absurd banner he's proposing of jobs or lousy jobs? On all sides, we which we either define ourselves or universal enlightenment-whatever have to be aware of the dimensions organize politically. But if you go the hell that means-and all march of all these issues. back to the 1960s, we had real griev forward into the civic sunset. What ances in common despite all of our is he talking about? I mean, where is Martin Dubem1an is a Distinguished other differences. Gay people were there any recognition of who we are Professor of History al Lehman College trying to connect with other gay on that banner, and where is there and the Graduate Center of the Ci!J people, and trying to find a social any programmatic articulation of Universiry of New York and the fo11nder space where we could meet, have a what it will take to end our oppres of the CUNY Center for Lesbian and drink, dance, or just congregate out sion specifically as gay people? Gqy Studies. Duberman's 11e111 book is side. Left Out: The Politics of Exclu We knew we were being treated DL: What}yourevalt1ation of how ''live" sion-Essays 1964-1999 very badly and we wanted to do this attack on multi-culturalism and iden (NY, Basif Books, 1999). something about it. How else could li!J politics is amo11g the straight Left? we have organized in order, for ex Michael Ligh!J is a former MD: I don't think it's diminished. I National Director of DSA. ample, to prevent police entrapment? don't see any signs of that, but maybe We had to organize around our iden I've simply missed some signs. It tity as "gay men." And the fact that seems to me more and more books we went to Gay Liberation Front are coming out saying essentially the page 24 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two The Exclusive DL Intervieiv Richard Rorty BY BILL DIXON ichard Rorty is a professor hand, hut Trent Lott's more guiet, DSA, wr organization firm!J ,'Ommilled of comparauve literature at yet equally implacable, opposition to lo building a .rodaliit movement in the U.S. R Stanford University and one any help for the weak is just as dev Isn ~ that a fonlradirtion? of the most influential philosophers astating to the nation as Gingrich RR: I guess it depends on what you living today.. Among political think would have been had he continued mean by a "socialist movement" If ers, Rorty is the leading proponent m power. that includes movements for a liv of pragmatism, a uniquely Ameri ing wage, for universal health insur can school of philosophy associated DL: 1'011 somelimu make a distinrtion ance, for equal educauonal oppor with Charles Peirce, William James, between movements and rampaigns. A1ove tunity, etc., sure I support socialist and John Dewey. and more recently, menls .rtqy aloq/ from u•er:;·Jq;• develop movements. But I think we need to Cornd \Vest, who was once a stu ments and addreu themselves on!J lo the get rid of the distinction between dent of Rorty's at Princeton. \\'est big qrmtionr. Campaigns, try fOnlrast, are "socialism" and "mere welfare-state recalls his studies \\.;th Rorty as "eye defined try immediale,finilt poltiiralgoals. liberalism," and say that thL· socialist opening," "a major influence," and You argue Iha/ /he Left would be beller idea is that the national product "music to my ears." off leaving movement-buildin_g alone and should be used to foster economic In his ne\v book, Arhieving Our instead learn hou• lo throw in with a lot an~ social equality rather than being Country, Richard Rorty argues that of mmpaigns. How would this spedfiral!J dramed off by the rich. That can best the time has come for the American app!J lo socialist movements? be fostered by standard, reformist, Left to finally get down to the busi RR: I don't think there should be a welfare-statist measures. ness of real-life political engage socialist movement in the first world ment. Recently, he fielded a few ques just reforms in the interest of greate; DL: ) 'Ou wn·te that you would like to see tions on this theme for Demomitir Left. social justice-an attempt to make the line between liberalism and the Left the U.S. more like Canada, France become b/un-ed, and that in plare of the DL: Here we are, the Republirans are on and Norway. In the rest of the traditional opporition bemreen radirals and the rtlrtat, and the Democrats uem poiied world, I don't know. It now looks reformists ;•ou would prefer to see a 're to retake the House of Representalivu. as if the attL·mpt to create a stan formist Left. " Suppose such u thing was The Gingrirh m1olution ts long gone and dard capitalist marketplace is not in operation right now. IFhal .rorls of there's et•m some hopeful talk of a pro working well in a lot of the former grwive/ liberal revival. Anyou optimis Ihm.gs do you imuine ti w01tld ii be doing? Communist countries, but I do not tic? RR: It would pass all the laws that a feel I understand the situation well majority of peopk now want RR: Certainly if we elect a substan enough to know why it works in passed-public financing of politi tial Democratic majority and a Poland but not in the Ukraine. cal campaigns, universal health insur Democratic president \VC have the Maybe in some of those countries, ance, gun control, ctc.-and then go chance of some laws being passed and in parts of the Third \\'orld, on to try to achieve a consensus on that will lessen socio-economic in something like a socialist movement more controversial measures such as equality. But I am not sure that is would be a good idea. universal free day care, no more lo likely. There is still a fear that Demo It seems to me that in a lot of cal financing of public schools, etc. crats will tax the suburban middle small countries which have attained class for the benefit of the poor. And a rnasonable degree of social justice DL: }our a._~enda for the reformut Ltft I would not be at all surprised by a (Scandinavia, I Iolland, Ireland, etc.) doesn ~mm much different than Jhe agmda victory for: the junior Bush over there have simply been successive alrea4J beingp1ahed b.;1 Clinton and Gort. piecemeal reforms, stretched out Gore. If that happens, I would ex lPhat do you make of Clinlonism? Do over decades. 1\s far as I can see pect as little attention to the needs you think there} a'!}lhing lo his rheton"r of the poor as we had under Reagan those reforms have accomplished a~ of the Third lf''D'? and the senior Bush. .A Republican much as a great big mo\•ement might Senate and President would be quite have done. RR: I don't think there is such a thing enough to quash any progressive im as Clintonism, and I think that the tiative. DL: But you are a lifetime member of Contin11ed on pa.gt 32 Gingrich stupidly overplayed his Millennium Part Two• DemocraticLeft •page 25 Evolutionary Capitalism BY MICHAEL}. THOMPSON ewYear'sEve 1899inBer ship between the economy on the using the modern conservative mea lin saw a group of social one hand and its political and legal surements for poverty-and Jt is al N democrats and socialists institutions on the other. But it must most double that rate within New celebrating the arrival of the new cen also show how these links have York City, the financial epicenter of tury in grand style. Among them evolved over time and the tensions the recent economic boom. In addi were Karl Kautsky, Rosa Luxemburg between them. tion, we are seeing the creation of and Eduard Bernstein. They looked Capitalism and democracy are permanent structures of inequality with optimism to the arrival of the not, by necessity, concepts which are that are arising from the differences 20th century which they believed dependent upon one another. Capi in baste educational opportunities would usher in the fall of capitalism talism has historically given rise to the between the upper, middle and and the emergence of social democ democratic impulses of working lower classes. These structures of 10- racy as the predominant political and people. It has evolved into a less vio- equality are reproduced with each economic system of the new age. successive generation and are accen Capitalism would indeed un tuated by policies thar weaken the dergo crises, both economic and welfare state. Outside the United political, throughout this past century. States, free market macroeconomic But as an economic system, capital The realities of the capitalist poltcies have contributed to an Asian ism has survived. In fact, it has done economy, in any Form, will crisis, have caused an economic more than merely sustatn itself; it has constantly come into conflict meltdown in Russia and the former evolved and transformed. The con Soviet satellite states, and have raped cept of evolution does not, how with the ethical dimensions Third World economics. ever, imply an ethical progression of a democratic society. Capitalism cannot, therefore, toward more democratic account evolve into anything resembling a ability of private interests, a more democratic society, much less demo equitable distribution of wealth, or cratic socialism. Conflicts between a more critical and reflective popu capitaltsm and democracy will inevi lace. lent and somewhat less inegalitarian tably arise, and as public conscious Marx theorized that every social form as a result of the struggle be ness begins to sharpen, capitalism will system develops historically so that tween classes. But this evolution can begin to be critiqued and questioned the tntemal contradicuons within each never be complete: there can never in publtc debate. Those who control system make way for an alternative be a true and total merging of de and employ capital both locally and to replace that system. Capitalism mocracy-with its ethical grounding globally will be forced to address was, according to the classical Marx of justice, equality and freedom forthright the cleavages that exist be ian theorems, supposed to produce with a capitalist economic system tween rich and poor, within and be unmanageable problems so that a which requires, as a precondition for tween nations, and the power imbal successor would inevitably have to further growth, the increase of eco ances to which they give rise. DSAers be introduced. This has not hap nomic inequality and the increased must continue to offer alternative pened. Instead, there has been a ten exploitation of those who lack the models of mstitutions that will show dency for capitalism to grow ever ownership and control of capital. how wealth and public goods can be more entrenched in political, eco The realities of the capitalist distributed equitably. Only in this way nomic and soctal institutions both in economy, 10 any form, will constantly can the reality of democratlc social the U.S. and globally. come mto conflict with the ethical di ism cross from theory and idealism The state of capitalism at the end mensions of a democratic society. into concrete practice, aRd the realm of this century seems to defy the clas The institutions of capitalism are not of concrete freedom be made avail sic arguments for its inevitable de evolving in the direction of increased able to all. mise. There JS no real reason to as democratic participation. Instead, we sume, after all, that the system will have seen that within the United Michael]. Thompson is a staff economist collapse under its own weight. But States mcreases in economic growth with the New 1ork City Ho11sing this is because crttJques of capitalism and activity have resulted tn increases A.11thonty and an editor miss the mark. A critique of capital in economic inequality. Poverty re ef Democratic Left. ism certainly must show the relation- mains at 13 percent nationwide- page 26 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two Eco-S ocia/is111 How Shaky Is the Ground? BY MICHAEL R. EDELSTEIN s 1 write this essay, a strange hubris, human dominance and dis but horribly instructive regard. The questions we face tragedy unfolded on the The act could be dismissed as A today have to do with how airwaves. At least eleven Texas A&M that of immature students or a care University students died in the col less institution. I loweYcr, such a dis to change our social lapse of a forty-fooi bonfire of logs missal would neglect the fact that paradigms to make little as on a football field. 1\s a commen this disaster is a perfect analog for tary on human enterprise at the end life on our planet at the dawn of a well as big differences. of the millennium, that pile of logs new century. The earth has been speaks \•olumcs. 'fo the shriek of blighted by sprawling cities, fouled chain saws, it originated on hillsides air, polluted and over-taxed water stripped bare, destroying habitats systems, depleted fisheries, species ing. Not building on flood plains or for thousands of creatures. Fuels had forced to extinction, soils squan filling wetlands. Conserving water. been expended to cut and move the dered and foods grown in poisons, Making buildings not only energy logs to the flattened, filled and bar and massive population explosions efficient but renewably based. ren football field. The engineering of mvader species, with perhaps Growing food organically and lo of the pile was ill conceived, pre humans being the worst. \X'c have cally and using it locally. Minimizing sumably not a concern because this moved beyond Rachel Carson's consumption and waste while maxi was the ultimatl.' short-term human clarion \Varning that the birds no mizing reuse and recycling. Reintro actiYity-the pile needed to last only longer sing to mark Lhc spring to a ducing pedestrian life and revitaliz for a day or two. Safety was not Joss of the seasons themselves. \Ve ing mass transit. Meshing human considered, nor was the carbon have created major dead zones, and action to the cycles of nature. spewing into an already choked at even many environments we inhabit Many social injustices reflect our mosphere. The huge resulting pile daily are now assumed to be un underlying environmental alienation. of ash would also require disposal. healthy. Exploitation of laborers and of the Tradition, framed by sports rivalry, American social democrats and land goes hand in hand. Reconsider blinded all to the reality of what was liberals share many of the same no the forty-foot high pile of logs. Do being done. This was a true act of tions about the need and desire to we grapple with how to pick up the transform the earth to human pur messes we create, or do we just sit poses. But the fallacy of this ap back and watch the whole thing go proach is e\·idcnt in the prcsump up in smoke? t10n that the earth can serve one species to the exclusion of others, Michael R Hdelstein h Profmor of or the belief thac our transforma Environmental Prychology at Ramapo tive hubris docs not ruin the very College of /\'ew Jersey and Pruidenl, hospitality of a home that we seek Orange Environment, Inc. to improve. \\'l' think in terms of buildings and roads rather than ., places; profits rather than enduring nlues; and air conditioning or wa I~ ter purification rather than protect : I ing purity itself...... The questions we face today have to do with how to change our ..' social paradigms to make ltttle as well as big differences Orienting Ir,, buildings toward the sun for heat ~·. and to generate electricity. Using 'J shade trees instead of :Ur condition- M i I I e a n i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g e 27 Our Constructive Obsession U.S. Labor's Modest Rise B Y D AVID M OBERG be election of John to do political work both during elec rallies or picket lines and protesting Sweeney's modestly insurgent tions and afterwards. The success in corporate misbehavior to executives. T team to the leadership of the maintaining political operations out As part of the long-developing inter AFL-CIO has not yet turned around side of election time and of keeping est in corporate or coordinated cam the American labor movement. It was members involved has been limited, paigns, there's also increased effort to hard to imagine tba t would be pos but it's an important step forward. bring union pressure to bear on mul sible in four years, especially since most Also, the Union Cities initiative has tiple fronts when there's a battle with of the power to do things--organize encouraged local labor federations to a corporation over contracts, organiz members, strike, and contribute be more active in their communities ing or other issues. money and people to politics-res ts and to mobilize union members to Finally, labor is now much more with individual unions or even their help in each other's fights. That ex willing to workin coalitions with other locals. But it has made a difference tends the already established labor soClal movements. Equally important, that is important for both the labor community work of the Jobs With the AFL-CIO and many unions are movement and progressive politics. Justice coalitions. The WfO demon willing to work in coalitions that they l page 28 • Democr a t i cLeft •Mill e nnium P a r t T wo Will Organized Labor Compute? Digerati-Do BY ARTHUR B. SHOSTAK nio;s that invite me to help heartening. Chalknge, Dis transform them into Cy \\'hen such activists envision the sent, Tht Pro· U berUnions must first answer years ahead, they expect that comput grnsive, IVork questions like these from an especially ers \\ill soon secure unprecedented ac ing USA, Z, and other such publications thoughtful federation of Canadian cess of everyone in bbor to everyone have little to say about labor's e"'"Peri Wl1ons: elsc--officers to members, members ments with computerization. to officers, unionists to non-unionists, Neglect may give way now to at • \Vhat are the three most important and Yicc versa. They expect rapid poll tention as the October 1999 bi-annual things unions must do to survive--and ing of the memberslup, galvaru.z.ing of meeting of the AFL-CIO brought of thrive-in the brave new cyber-universe? rallies or e-mail protests, spotlighting of ficial word ofthe long-awaited full-scale • Ifunions lacked the basic know-how societal models worth cmubting and of entry of the labor federation into the and/or resources to get the job done wrongs for the righting. The labor Internet Age. Early in December, over before computers and the W'eb, how digerati dream of entire libraries at a 13 million members of the federation's will these tools magically make them unionist's beck and call, along with valu 68 affiliated unions were able for the better? able arbitration, grievance, and media first time to enter cyberspace through a • What can "logging on" do to over tion material. As if this was not enough, labor portal featuring the homepage of come the undeniable disconnect be their vision includes unprecedented co their own particular international union. tween unions' aspirations and what they operation soon across nat10nal borders, The site features news of labor matters actually achieve on a shopfloor-by an effective counter to transnational cor here and abroad, and includes lists of shopfloor, member-by-member basis? porate behemoths. labor-friendly and anti-labor companies. • Do enough union members use the 'lbe digerati, however, know full It offers invitations to share ideas with Web today? Is the Web the first, second well that computerization cannot "save" other unionists via e-mail, and features or very last place workers are likely to bbor. It is a complex, demanding, and other aids to building an electronic soli look for help? often exasperating too~ only as reliable darity community of union brothers • In the near future of virtual corpora and effective as the hwnans in charge. It and sisters-just the sort ofvision many tions, could unions end up as nothing work..; best when part of a mix that in democratic socialists have long held for more than electronic hiring halls and cludes old-fashioned labor militancy, labor. central legal defense fund~ for feudal political action, and one-on-one organiz It ts unclear how truly interactive the cottage-industry workers? ing. It works best when kept as an acces AFL-CIO's system will prove to be. • Will the shift in the global economy sory and an aid, rather than allowed to How much genuine two-way access will from patterns ofcast-we st, north-south become a confining and superordinating it offer to top leadership? Similarly, will trading blocks to digital patterns, force system. It cannot "rescue" labor, but it curb those brassy materialistic ads for labor to look at building our own in unless labor makes the most creative goods and services, even at a loss to ternal "Intranet" trading economy--i.e., possible use ofcomputerization, it prob labor of needed revenue? And will pension fund control and investment, ably cannot be rescued at all. chatrooms remain uncensored, despite labor sponsored investment funds, My nearly 40 years of studying the risks this poses to "big shots" as union virtual banks, cooperative pur American wlions has persuaded me that potential targets of rank-and-file barbs? chasing and housing and "green" indus five years from now either uruons will These reservations notwithstanding, trial development? be ossified relics, or command respect labor is owed cheers for L'lunching an The labor "digerati'' who pose as marure information-intensive power exciting, venture, one that can only has questions like these have lives steeped in houses, fully the equal ofanything in the ten the day when more internationals Information Age technologies, and arc business world and locals will connect and seek mem living in a networked world of union Democratic socialists could help bers. The AFL-CIO's entry into boosters. These techno-savvy men and make a critical difference in hdping cyberspace may ensure that labor has a women have expectations concerning unions and locals eager to compute in proactive place m the Information Age. the renewal of organized labor that is the 21st century. Labor's high-stakes ex ploration of what computers make Arthur B. Shostak is Profe.rsorof Sociology possible should recetve more attention and Anthropology at Drexel Univmi!J in This article is based on CybtrU11io11: Empo1Vtr i111, Labor through Comp11ttr Tuh11olo!J, (M. E. from the democratic Left. Coverage of Philadelphia. S HOSTAKA@dnxeLedll; Sharpe, 1999, Armonk, NY). labor, for example, in recent issues of http://1VU1Wjut11mhaping.com/ shostak. Millennium Part Two• Democratic Left• page 29 Second Look Robin Archer's The Politics of Feasible Socialism BY RoN BAIMAN hy do we struggle for which stems from the recognition that bor under capitalism is that it offers democratic socialism? we need other people to achieve no "direct control" to the worker W Where do we get the in some of our goals. In enlightenment even though the worker is the one spirallon and strength to endure hard terms, this implies that freedom re who is directly subjected to the nu ship, marginalization, and sometimes quires fraternity. We therefore have to thority of the capitalist. Also, the persecution in order to press for a distinguish between personal freedom, worker is not free to exit the working social goal that at times seems so un which can be had when individual class even though s/he may be able obtainable as to be laughable? Do we choices do not affect others, and to exit a given firm. Only with regard speak the truth? And if so, how do democrallc freedom, which requires to the greater limits on the authority we actually make lhc name of our associ'ttion. Democratic freedom, or of the capitalist, and in the ability of desire come true? the principle of equal liberty applied the worker to exit the firm, is wage What we need to do is map out a to associations, leads in turn to the labor an improvement over slavery. feasible politics which will allow us principle that "all individuals whose Archer concludes that in terms of to-paraphrasing Marx-not only in ability to make choices and act on freedom, capitalism is an intermedi terpret the world in various ways, but them is affected by the decisions of ate form between slavery and social to change it. Robin Archer may have an associaaon, should share control ism. The goal of economic democ succeeded in doing this in his recent over the process by which those de racy, and one of the centrnl goals of book: Econo1J1ic DemocrtzfY: The Politu'S cisions are made." If this were not democratic socialism, is to gi,•e work of Feasible Socialism (New York: Ox the case, then all persons affected by ers direct control over firms. ford/Clarendon, 1998). In a nutshell, the social decisions of associations Archer believes that human beings arc could not be equally free. How to Get There motivated by a desire for freedom, But this basic democratic principle After noting the dangers of destruc and that freedom can best be achieved cleatly can only be applied if one can tive class collaboration, public involve by forging strong centralized labor identify the affected individuals entitled ment, and centralization, Archer .movements that arc willing to make to controlling shares of an organiza makes a case for progressive "tradeoffs" for greater corporate tion. This is Archer's principle contri corporatism. This includes the passage control and democratic freedom bution. I le notes that it is important of strong constitutional guarantees for within a democrallc corporatist po to distinguish between control which internal union democracy along \vi th litical and social framework. can be exercised directly by making some measures protecting local :m Archer's advocacy of freedom as decisions in the face of constraints, tonomy to enhance membership the core value of socialism is rooted and control which can be exercised motivation, and strong pro-labor in the core enlightenment values of indirectly by affecting the constraints. public mvolvemcnt by Social Demo liberte, egalite, andJraternite. Socialism is For example, the controlling share cratic or Labor governments. Progrcs-. most often associated with equality holders of a firm can exercise direct s1ve corporatism also allows for "so rather than liberty, but, as Archer control by setting company policy cietal bargaining" through which points out, freedom lies at the core through their power on the board of unions can combine thctr power with of equity and solidarity. The concept directors, whereas in a market that of the government, :ind negoti of freedom must be extended be economy, consumers can only affect ate benefits for the entire working yond the liberal notion of "negative firm policy indirectly through their class. Societal bargaining permits ne liberty" or "freedom from con purchaslllg decisions. Archer defines gotiation over broad ta.", \vclfare. in straint," to the socialist concept of the condition of being a subject of vestment and other economic policies, "positive liberty" en tailing the "avail authority as the condition of having goals over which unions would oth ability of means." This "principle of to comply with the decisions of those erwise have no controt rhc outcome equal liberty" joins together the con tn authority. He then determines that of these negotiations may strengthen ditions of "lack of constraint" a11d direct control of an authority is the labor and lead to income tradeoffs "availability of means"-boLh neces approprui.te form of control for sub like wage constraints for lax cuts, sary for freedom of choice and ac jects of authority, whereas indirect growth and employment, and in tion. control is appropriate for affected creased social security or pension To the "principle of equal liberty" non-subjects. funding. Archer adds the "axiom of sociality," The major criuque of wage la- page 30 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two Archer details the ways in which through an J\rbitra ti on unions in other nations have been able Commission-led to a to gain greater direct control and con tradeoff of cost-of-living trol "against ownership." For e,.xample, wages plus productivity the metalworkers union in Germany increments in return for a gained some control over technologi shorter work week, price cal change in 1973 and 1978, and in restraint, lower taxes, and 1973 Swedish •afcty stewards gained other employment a temporary veto right over unsafe growth policies. work situations. These limited initia In the subsequent pe tives were completed by the far-reach riod of "strucmrnl adjust ing 197 6 German co-determination ment" from the early to law which gave unions near-parity rep rnid-1980s to the presen~ resentation on all large company su international pressures pre pervisory boards, and a 1976 Swed sented advanced national ish co-determination law which gave economies \\ith a new and unions the right to negotiate the out different problem of de come of decision-making at all levels veloping competitive ex of firm management. Alternatively, port industries to solve job control can be obtained "through growth and international ownership" as in the famous case of balance of payments the Swedish Meidncr plan enacted in problem:;. Archer argues a watered-down version in 1983. that corporatist regimes In periods of "stagflation," such offered a via bk alternative as that from the mid 1970s to early to neo-liberal policies of 1980s, Archer provides evidence in cutting social wages and dicating that more corporatist societ weakening union power. ies have outperformed all others in He notes tlrnt of the three reducing the "misery index" of infla key necessary reforms of tion plus unemployment through wage flexibility, labor wage and price restraining "incomes mobility, and training and policies." Under stagflationary condi work organization en tions, Archer claims that "control hancement and flexibility, through ownership" tradeoffs, such the most important "structural adjust skills training. In the absence of ne as exchanging increased employer con ment" goal is to facilitate labor mo gotiated corporatist agreements, pro tributions to union-controlled pension bility through skills training and pro ductivity enhancements are also likely funds in return for wage restraint, are ductivity enhancement. to face strong worker resistance be most likely to succeed because they Contrary to received neo-libcral cause of fear of layoffs. both increase union control of invest wisdom, centralized union power can ment and increase worker benefits in foster increased labor mobility and Extending the Vision the future. He notes that the Swedish economic efficiency and competitive By confining his analysis to industrial ness by selung wage differentials unions had much less trouble setting relations, Archer is able to produce a up union-controlled pension funds in across 1ob catcgoncs rather than across compelling argument for a strategy 1974, which unlike the three earlier firms or economic sectors. In coun for advanced country transition to a tries where wage diffrrentials arc not pension funds, was allowed to pur form of democratic socialism involv- · chase stock, than they had with the based on job classificatlon, highly paid ing worker controlled firms within 1983 "wage earner funds." Similarly, workers-such as US steel work for-profit organized market econo in Denmark a worker-controlled ers-often have nowhere to go but mies. Missing from this book is an cost-of-living fund resulting from a down the pay scale. In this situation analysis of international and national 1976 incomes-poltcy agreement was there will be strong resistance to struc economic policies that undermine this subsequently allowed to invest a cer tural adjustment as each union and corporatist "high roa M i I 1 e o o i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g e 31 equal opportunity across workers if in the U.S. But it may be possible to At the national level, this takes the it is not offset by progressive income find some signs of hope in the cur form of efforts to remove tax de redistribution. rent political and economic climate in ductions for excessive CEO salaries While I have no quibble with re the U.S. In particular, the recent re and support for minimum (and maxi taining important elements of a mar surgence of "living wage" laws and mum) wage laws, and other forms ket economy, it appears clear that in increases in the minimum wage sug of taxation and redistribuuon. These creased wuon power is necessary in gests growing political support for fair kinds of efforts may contribute to a order to achieve "socialist freedom." wages. political wage-setting climate that The influence ofworkers and citizens At this point the task of demo would be more conducive to an Aus relative to capital should be increased cratic socialists in the U.S. 1s ideological. tralian-style corporatist transition as through support for "fair trade" poli It is extremely important that we up described by Archer. At the interna- 1 cies, low interest rates and selective hold the banner of democratic social clonal level, the campaign for Third credit targeting, public sector growth, ism in the face of ridicule, rebuke, World debt relief highlights the way direct development and social pro marginalization, and discrimination to in which the capitnlist system places a gram funding, and other progressive let our compatriots know that seri higher priority on debt income for policy measures. Without this parallel ous people think that this is a viable private rentiers in the advanced coun struggle for "extra-firm" public political ideology. Working with stu tries than on health, education, and policy control, it seems to me that a dents is absolutely crucial to maintain economic development for the poor corporatist uansition is not viable. ing and spreading democratic social est humans on the planet. ism as an idea. Efforts to reach out Overall, Archer's book is a "must Feasible Strategy through publications, newsletters, pre read" for those concerned with how In the U.S. our task is most difficult sentations and conferences are also to achieve democratic socialism. Ar because of the relative weakness and critical in this regard. B111 we need to 11nite cher has tackled difficult transition To do this, decentralized structure of our labor oHr ideological and activistgoals. problems and outlined a closely ar movement, and because we do not our "ideological activism" should gued and realistic strategy that should have a tradition of national wage ar highlight the need for political con inspire us all to roll up our sleeves and trol of markets and resource alloca bitration beyond minimum wage and get to work. It is a program that may living wage laws. Archer, in fact, ex tion by focusmg on the fundamentally or may not be viable, but we have cludes the U.S. from his list of coun unjustifiable nature of capitalist "free our work cut out for us. tries where a corporatist transition market" income determination, and on the links between unregulated Um~r might succeed because a government Ron Baiman teaches at Roosevelt markets and environmental destruc si!)• dominated by a labor or social demo in Chicago, and is active in Chicago tion. DSA. cratic party has ne,·er been in power Rorty InterviewI co11ti1111ed from page 25 Third Way stuff is so much hype. If best left as a thing of the past, or might it to suggest to revolutionaries-in Clinton had Democratic maiorities have a f11t11n in the a.._1,e ofglobulization? Third World countries where only in Congress to work with, I think he rernlution will do-that they might RR: There are still a lot of places in might well have gone down in his want to read less Marx and more the world where things ·will prob tory as a very good president. What Dewey. ever the defects of his health plan, it ably only get better as a result of violent revolution. Because of his would have been better than what DL: Of course, there are rei·o/11tionaries torical lag, these revolutions will we have now, hue the insurance lob around the world-and not just in the probably be led by people who think bies bought enough TV ads to scuttle Third lf/orld-who do not .rhure;·o11rfaith it. ,\fter the 1994 election, Clinton of themselves as "Marxists," but thinking of themselves that way may in the abili!J lo change the S)'Stem through never had much of a chance to get dialogue and elections. It also seem1 11n not (with luck) have much influence an important initiative made into law. likrfy that those JJ•ho have J1dfered most on what they actually do when they I le seems to me basically a good from thr 11y11stms of capi/alism will sup guy-no more deceitful than FDR get into power. I'm one of those optimists who think that a shrewder port s11ch a middle-of the· road approa,·h or LBJ, and with a good heart. to the struggle for j11stice. and less up-tight U.S. government DL: You write that when people Ii/et Cor might have co-opted Ho Chi Minh RR: .All I could say would be: "You back around 1950, and thereby have ne/ West idenl{{J' with Marxism, it doesn ~ know more about the situation in seem like O'!Jlhing more than stntimental avoided a lot of bloodshed. So I your country than I do. If you think i!J·. Do ;•011 think that Marxist theory is would hope that the U.S. would try Conlinued on p11ge 35 page 32 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two A Conversation With Paul Loeb Soul of a Citizen BY ANETTE S ASVARI AND SOLVEIG WILDER DL: In yoNr late.rt book. Soul of a Citi understand the issues they are going the national scale, so they end up zen,yo11 e..-.:amine the personal and psycho to get mvolved because they realise confining themselves to purely lo logical aspect! of activum. If/hat made;·011 the issues are urgent. I just don't cal ideas with damaging results. One choo1ethat.f"ocut? thmk that is true. People need a sense of the things that disturbed me of efficacy, they need a sense of about welfare reform was the pau PL: I saw the power of the mO\'e possibility, and they need to see the city of opposition, particularly from mcnt:; that emerged in the sixties and issues, not only as abstractions, but folks working with very immediate then how some of them melted m some way that they can put a face local projects in low-income com away. I realized that we may have on People can have all the resources munities. \Vonderful stands on issues in the available, all the clear information '\Vorld, but unless we actually figure on issues available, and they will still DL: }011 indicate that the failures of the out how to get people invoked not get involved. Left have a/Jo '"Ontn"b11ted to the fJnimm of we're not going to make much our times, and that our inabili!J Lo point to progress. When I did a book twenty DL: Yo11 sqy that we are living in a time of examples of what we are slrt{P,,glingfor dis years ago on a tomtc weapons 9nid!m. courages many people from gellit1g involved. workers, I looked at how people avoid grappling with large, compli PL: 'We are getting messages from P L: People don't feel that they have cated issues. It was also the theme our culture that say: "Don't try to a "magnetic north." They want of my book on peace activists. In change anything because it is not go some model of an actual society, Generational Cross Roads, a book on ing to do any good;" "People tried whether it be Sweden or Nicaragu~, students, T compared a parnculal" to change things thirty years ago and that they can point to. But what we sector of young men and women they just messed things up"; and are left with is instead this institu who are both actfre and L'l-acnve. "No one is going to listen to you tion from this country and this in Now with Soul of a Ciuzen, I am an}'Way, so don't even start." There's stitution from that country. \Ve have tying all those threads together and also a sensibility in the media that pieces of a vision but we don't have asking, "\'X'hy should we act on any says, "Don't look seriously at any of a single blueprint, and I think that of these issues?" and ''\\!hat keeps the issues that we have to face in this makes it hard for a lot of people. us involved m the long run?" society. If you're fine you can slide by. You can be exempt." And these DL: I also got a sense from Soul of a DL: Mo11 thermu or1orral moi·emmtr em arc things we have to challenge-as Citizen that;011 feel technology rs dutorting pharize po!it1cal, e:or.onm, a!!d rocial t"ondi- socialists and as human beings. our sense of cause and ejject, and therefore 1ion1 that lead pet;p!t lo mobilize rather than erodes 011r sense ofresponsibili!J• and i11mases perronal ar.d psyhohgical faaorr. How do DL: Can yo11 elaborate? f)nicism. yo11 feel about tho1e theoriu? PL: I think the main reason for the P L: I definitely recognize the value PL: If you take DS1\ as :m example, increase of cynicism in our time is and potential of new technology. where membersh1p fees arc col the absolute dominance of the mar One group used e-mail durmg the lected in order to hire organizers to ket ethic, the notion that everything Clinton impeachment charade, gath mobilize people, then obviously is for sale. At the base of demo ering three hundred thousand onlinc structural 1ssues are important. But cratic socialism is the ethic of hu signatures in three weeks at a cost my sense is that a lot of those theo mans having value as human beings of about eighty-five dollars to say: ries neglect the indh·idual. I am not and not just what they're worth on "Let's end this garbage, we have saying that social change occurs just the labor market or as consumers. better things to do." They arc con through individual choices. But each Twenty years of candidates running tinuing to use that same network of person has to make an individual against the government has in people, which is now about half a choice whether or not they are go creased our cynicism, in some sense million, to try to plug into key Con ing to get involved. I honestly feel removing the notion of a common gressional campaigns. That's neat. that the people on the Left gener good. The impact of this is most That's something that could not ally tend to neglect that, and that they pronounced in people's sense of have happened without new tech take it for granted that if people helplessness to change anything on nology. M i 11 e n n i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e f t • p a g e 33 On the other hand, face to face large corporate entities on the no ture is so focused on the immedi connections to me are what build tion of environmental sustainability ate, the momentary. and sustain communities. I don't re was terrific. I find when I deal with My favorite activist in Soul of a ally believe that the Internet can sub folks like that that there are a lot of Citizen is a 101-year-old environmen stitute for that. points of potential alliance. I think talist. She started off in the thirties we have our own stereotypes about in the labor mo\•ement, and helped DL· /sn~ our mm ef fonnection lo com· certain groups of people that are pass the first social security laws in m11mtiu eroding in general? \'Cry damaging because they prevent Washington State. After a demoral us from reaching out. izing electoral defeat, I was driving PL: Robert Putnam shows that her home and said to her, "These there has been a decline in partici DL: If/hat are some other wqys that wt arc hard times." She laughed and pation in a number of traditional c,in challenge the !Jnidsm of our time and said, "Ah, you should have seen the activities, sncluding church services, enco11rage people to get involved? McCarthy era." I asked her how she club meetings, and even in the manages to persevere. She said that amount of time people spend go PL: Those that come of age nowa you can't do everything, but you can ing on picnics or going over to days aren't taught about the move do what you can, and then you can people's homes for dinner. Two ments that have changed society. \Ve do some more, and you can do that things have taken up the slot: one is know the names of movements, but your entire lifetime. She also said that the increasing workweek, and the we don't know much more than that. you can go out, take a walk in the other is watching screens, either TV It has therefore become hard for woods, see a river and look at a or computers. most people to imagine what it mountain, and then you can come means to take on the very compli back ready to take on Exxon. DL: How do we counter that? cated and difficult task of changing society. PL: So there is a fundamental iso DL: IVhat other things disting11ish those The example I give is the Rosa lation that has increased in the soci who get involved a11d sti!J invol11edfrom thore Parks story, which everybody over ety. A good example is the commer who don~( twelve says that they know. But what cial fisherman that I profile. lie has they know is the version that says PL: They recognize the power of done incredible work building alli that one day this woman decided stories of injustice and stories of ances between commercial fisher not to move to the back of the bus possibility. Often we are taught, par men and environmentalists. But he which then started the civil rights ticularly in academia, to think ab began by first building a sense of movement. It's a~ if it was out of stractly, and hear the numbers and community amongst the fishermen nowhere. Instead, the real story is statistics. Those things are certainly so that they were not isolated from that Rosa Parks was involved for a relevant, but it is different from re each other, and then he connected dozen years with the local NAACP ally grasping what it means for them with environmental groups chapter, she took training sessions somebody to live without health around issues like sustainability of at the I lighlander school and learned care, what it means for somebody the salmon run, wtth tesumony at to think very strategically, and then to go to school where kids are afraid the Endangered Species Act hear one day decided not to move to the of getting sliot, and so on. And it is mgs. back of the bus. That's not out of srories like those that galvanize nowhere. To me, the actual message people. DL: Tmns like ·'rommuni!J" an often used is much more empowering than the I remember asking this group ~ the Right to build support. I low dou the media clichc of creating this perfect of burned-out activists about what Left positi°" on Ihm imm dJjfor? change 111 history out of nowhere. got them involved originally, and PL: The example of the fishermen So part of our challenge is to re they all talked about very specific is instructive. 'TI1e coalition that was capture that history and communi events of moral outrage that im built to support progressive politi cate it to people getting involved for pelled them to act. Suddenly, there cal initiatives included Pentecostal the first time. was a little bit of optimism in their churches-they literally had an As But there are some who know Yoices and I felt that they were con sembly of God preacher making an the history of social movements and necting to what originally impelled invocation against greed on the steps have lots of books on their shelves, them to act. And I think that the of the State Capital in Washington! but forget the real and powerful les reconnection to those gut stories that , I thought that was wonderful. I sons. The folks in DSA who get made us want to be involved is very, mean, obviously I have got pro burned out are more likely to be in very important for keeping us go found differences with the Pente this category. Given that this is not ing. Otherwise, we can get lost in costals on things like sexual politics, an easy time for progressive social looking at the difficulty of the over but to be able to draw them into a change, we forget what it means to whelming scale of the problems that coalition that is challenging very keep on for the duration. Our cul- we try to tackle. page 34 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two Those who get invoh·ed and it surged in the mid-fifties. The cri can do in the next cent1Jry to build and s11s stay involved arc also able to live sis \Vas there all along, but it wasn't tain activism? with uncertainty. I interviewed an perceived as a crisis by most Ameri PL: I have been a member of DSA other group of burned-out activ cans until the movement put it on for about seven or eight years. I have ists who had at many points in their the agenda. lives called themselves socialists, and As for DS.A, I focus less on in always liked Democratic Leji, and I think it is a good magazine. It is not they talked about their uncertainties stitution building in my book than I pretentious, and I really value that. after the coll"-pse of the Eastern do on individual choices. But the in The tone is not, "I Iey, we know ev block model. Though they had pro stitutions that we are part of are erything and we are going to tell you found criticisms of communism, critical vehicles to be able to sup about it" The tone is more like, they didn't want a capitalist, multi port continued activism-we don't "Hey, you know we are in the soup national-dominated world either. act alone. Movements disappear together and here is what we're They said things like, "I'm not quite when we have a bunch of discon thinking. Let's work together sure what goes in its place. I see par nected radicals-people that want through this." That is a much better tial answers, but I don't have the to see change in society but aren't tone from my perspective. DSA has complete answers that I thought at part of any institutions that are ac an uphill road because we live in a one point might emerge." They were tually working for it. They can watch time and in a country where the striving for a "pq;fcct standard." the news and curse at the TV, but notion that there can be democratic They felt that they needed to know they end up being not really engaged. socialism that actually works is so every fact, figure and staustic, and So DSA is a vehicle for people to remote that it is hard to reclaim. So had to be able to debate I Ienry continue their engagement in a cul I think we need to concrctize indi Kissinger at the drop of a hat. ture that hides knowledge about the vidual stories. They make connec struggles and victories. tions vivid so that people can think DL: You write abo11t the way socz~1I move Desmond Tutu thanked Ameri about politics and change. ments '5Rrge a11d recede. .. IWhe11 an emer can students recently: "We might genry is ova~ mot'emenls slow down due to have never had freedom without Paul Loeb is an auociated scholar al di.sappointmen/i and burn-0111. Can)'Oii talk you." A very inspiring moment that Sea/lies Center for Ethical Leadership, more about the s11Slainabik!J ofactivism and you're never going to get from NBC and is the author of Soul of a the role organizations such at DSA plqy? or The New York Times. If you are Citizen-Living with Conviction in part of a movement you arc more PL: When you fight a loosing war a Cynical Time (St. Ma11in s Prm). likely to hear about lt, to learn about in Vietnam, the movement grows, it, to draw on it for sustenance. or when Reagan pushes us to the That's what we are supporting when brink of nuclear cataclysm you see we connect to DSA-the ability to a huge movement. Part of our chal retain and communicate the lessons lenge is to be able to articulate the of our common memory, to draw slow burning crisis. There are crises on common issues and work on going on in our culture, but they are them together. To find out about not ones that suddenly seem to victories in one place that you threaten everybody. To some extent, would have never ha\•e heard about Future DLs: people did that with the anti-apart in another city. heid mo\·ement. It is also happen • Howard Sherman's ing some\vhat with the sweatshop DL: IVhat other things do )'Oii think that Free Goods movement. You certainly saw that DSA and its journal, Democratic Left, with the civil rights movement when Rorty Interview/ continued from page 32 violence is necessary before things DL: 1011 describe john Dewrys philoso public's no'ses in the facts of pov can get better, you are probably phy as a question ofwhat philosopl:fy could erty and intolerance, and reminding right." But I don't know whether the do for the U.S. IP'hat do yo11 hope intel them of the success the rich are hav present oligarchs and kleptocrats will leauals and academics might reali.rtical!J ing at bribing politicians and keep be worse than the revolutionary do for the U.S. in the foreseeable future? ing all the goodies for themselves. leaders. Sometimes the new ones are RR: Just keep on dramatizing social worse, sometimes they are better. injustice-keep on rubbing the M i I 1 e n n i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e f t • p a g e 35 ''The Best Recruits'' BY JOHN c. CORT rving Howe once told me that tions, as well as the Religion & Soc1al 1977 when ddegates to the DSOC the best potcnaal source of so ism Com.mission of DSA, bdong to convention in Chicago met and or I cialist recruits was in the religious the International League of Religious ganized a Religion & Socialism Com community. I have often wondered Socialists (ILRS). Delegates from the mittee (later Commission) and de why he thought so. It has not proven R&S Com.mission have attended IL.RS cided to publish Religzolls S ocialirm. true so far, at least npt in this country. Congresses in Sweden, Nicaragua (as Among early co-editors and con Instead, the Christian Coalition has guests of the Sandinistas), England, tributors were Harvey Cox, Cornel become a bulwark of the Republican and Finland. West, Peter Steinfels,J1m Wallace, Sis- Party. Nevertheless, I !owe had reason Religious socialism in the U oited for optimism, for religious socialism States also has a long lustory. Henry has a long and rich tradition. James, Sr., a Swedenborgian Christian, In the religious community Irving Howe was one of the insisted in 1848 that the goals of Chris best-read men in this country. He was tianity and socialism are identical. Or the challenge is to persuade surely familiar with the New Testa ganizations and newspapers followed Christians that the Christian ment as well as the Old, and it seems in 1872, culminating in the Christian a safe bet that his knowledge of the Socialist Fellowship in 1906, which Coalition has very little to New Testament was one reason why boasted 27 chapters and a newspa do with Christianity. he could say that the religious com per, The Christian Socralisl, with 5,000 munity was a maior source for the re subscribers. This paper endured from cruitment of socialists. 1903 to 1922, the period when Eu The fitst Frenchman to use the gene Debs, a Christ-like figure who tct Mary Emil Penet, Maxine Phillips, word "socialism" was a Protestant revered but did not believe in Christ, Rosemary Ruether, Arthur Waskow, theologian, Alexandre Vinet, in 1831 . was winning more votes than any Joe HoUand, Jim J\dams, and Gary He used it to represent the opposite American socialist before or since. Dorrten. In one interesting three-way ofindividualism. Other French Chris From 1931 to 1948 Reinhold exchange, Mike Harrington, Rosemary tian socialists of the pre-Marxian pe Niebuhr presided over the Fellowship Ruether and the famous labor priest riod included Pierre Buchez, Victor of Socialist Christians (FSC), which Monsignor George Higgins sparred Considerant, Etienne Cabet, and the published Radical Religion, changing its over Mike's claim that "the political German aristocrat who became a name to Christiani!) and Society in 1940. and soctalJudeo-Christian God of the Catholic socialist bishop and an a page 36 •Democratic Left• Millennium Part Two Soda/ism consisttng of four co-editors: munism. In the religious community the hisrorics of both socialism and Phillips, 1\ndrew Hammer, Rev. the challenge is to persuade Christians religion, stranger things have hap Norm Far:unclli. and tlu.s ~cte.r, as that the Christian Coalition has very pened. sisted by Cox. Comd \\est (Charles little to do with Christianity. West, the Princeton theologian. is also Tbe more knowledgeable Catho John Cort has been a member of DSOC a contributor , J =k Clark. Rev. Judy lics might be encouraged to note that and DSA since 1975. !tr addition to bis Deutsch, Dand O'Bnen, and :Michael the social teachings of their Church duties as co-editor of Religious Social- and Re,·.• 1 :ia Dyson. Grateful bear a remarkable resemblance to tl1e ism from 1977 to 1988 1mdfrom 1998 mention mould -.>O be made ofjack Stockholm Declaration of the Socialist to the present, he is currentfy treasurer of Spooner and Cun S:inders, who kept International. Mike I Iarrington, rec the Religion ri-"' Sociu/i.rn1 Commission. &1m S ali\·e from 1988 to ognized by his comrades in the SI as 199 '\t."lm hdp the last few years from their best wntcr, had a lot to do with David CT1llOlU: and Lew Daly the writing of the Stockholm Decla New subscribers to R.eligio11s So The faru.re of religious socialism, ration. Although 1\like described him cialism ($10) get a free copy of like the future of DSA, would seem self as "a Catholic atheist," he was a John Cort's. Chri.rtian Socialism. to depend bzgely on the hope that the graduate of the Catholic Worker (J\fakc checks payable to Religi.ou.r people of thts country can absorb the movement and perhaps in some mys Socialirm, l Maolis Road, Nahant, fact that soa.al.tsm has nothing what terious way his atheist Catholicism MA 01908). ever to do u•th authoritarian Com- found its \Vay into the Declaration. In THIS"flME t WAN1' vou 'fO SAV l'f W\1-H ~ $ERIOU$ \..OOK ON VOUR FAC.£! M i 11 e n n i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g e 37 A Socialist Veteran Remembers Memory and Hope Bv ERNEST MORGAN n my autobiography, Dealing out cramping or disrupting the empt. Creative!J with Life, 1 offer dra workings of individual enterprise: Land trusts arc an extremdy use I ma tic memories of the pio TI1e Universal Stock Ownership ful type of land tenure. The con neering family I was born into., my Plan (USOP), as put forward by centration of land ownership and insurgent years as an Antioch student, economist Stuart Speiser, is a pro the exploitative pattern of land ten my marriage to a wonderful woman cedure whereby a portion of the ure distort our economy and are with whom we raised a family, ran growth of net worth of major cor reflected in badly inflated costs both political campaigns and founded a porations would be transferred in of rents and of home ownership. school. I then tell the story of my the form of stock to the general Forty years ago, 60 percent of business, begun on a shoestring in public via an arrangement described American families could obtain 1926, with a democratic structure housing for 25 percent of their in and an emphasis on racial equality. comes. Today only the richest 10 In the Great Depression, I percent can do this. helped orgaruze a successful barter Co-ops and credit unions, two movement-an important factor in A technologically advanced time-honored and successful forms the survival of our family and our society, dominated by a of enterprise, help broaden the base business. I also helped organize the paradigm of greed and of ownership and income, and fre unemployed. An active religious life quently increase buying power as with a strong social orientation was exploitation, is doomed to well. The National Cooperative a factor in my political career, in self-destruct. Business Association reports that which I served as Chairman of the large numbers of Americans are Socialist Party of Ohio and was its members of co-ops. candidate for Governor. Quite by Public ownership and manage accident I became a leader in the ment has always filled a necessary movement for death education and as "supcrstock." place in our society, but they have funeral reform. My book in this The Employee Stock Owner their own set of problems and limi field, Dealing Creativc!J with Death, ship Plan (ESOP) is closely related tations. A major problem has been sold over a quarter of a million cop- to USOP and is a plan whereby the practice of political patronage. 1es. firms arc given tax exemption on a In the Tennessee Valley Authority, of In the meantime, the business I portion of their earnings if they are which my father was the first chair started in 1926 had flourished and willing to distribute this portion to man, patronage was firmly rejected become a multinational corporation their employees in the form of and hiring was done strictly on the with 700 employees-and is em common stock. My own company basis of merit. Partly as a result, the ployee-owned. So now 111 my 9S'h has had an ESOP plan for years, TVA was able to carry through the year, I am the retired president of a whereby its growth has been stimu largest and most complex engineer highly successful company living in lated through reduced taxes on ing job in the world, with good pay comfortable retirement. But I do profits-and employees now own and excellent working conditions, not wish to find mysdf in the posi 63 percent of the stock. and with fairly low costs. Any ex tion of the rich man in a sinking ship Steeply graduated income and pansion of public ownership going to the bottom clutching his inheritance tax.es are a vital part of should be accompanied by this kind bag of gold. Our society desper any plan for broadening ownership of rigorous organiiational hygiene. ately needs to correct maldisttibu and income. During the past decade, A technological!y advanced so tions of ownership and income so tax policies have gone in the oppo ciety, dominated by a paradigm of that in the future my children and site direcuon. Sharply increased capi greed and exploitation, is doomed grandchildren will live in a more tal gains taxes are also called for. to self-destruct. That paradigm can egalitarian society. I Iowevcr, capital gains which are be shifted by DSA in its education A more equitable distribution channeled into Universal Stock programs and activism. of ownership and income can be Ownership or into Employee Stock I haven't let up at my age. Nei achieved in the following ways with- Ownership Plans should be tax ex- ther should you. page 38 • DemocraticLeft •Millennium Part Two Jo?n wtfh DSA. Cemocndic Socl11flsfs or America and Democntle Le~ DJn~ lrfoltthl'f Review, Rlckail PiL-osop!-,,.....,.'ler-rs Alsociltion, Brecht Forum I NV Marxist School, TM Nation, Tht Prognui~ • In TIIN• Tirna. z ~ SCiwa & Sodt:ty, War RHisters a..agi., Black Radical Congm•, Socl1llst Party USA, Cormiltll!e• of Correepondenca, Socia/fem and DemoctJC)', Ptopl•Llnk.org l many more ... ROtKINlt 'fHI IOA'I': ll.111-DING NIW COA\.lTlONS f'OR THI NEW CINTURY THE 18™ ANNUAL SOCIALIST SCHOLARS CONFERENCE FridayJ March 31 to Sunday April 21 2000 Borough of Manhattan Community Coll~ 199 Chantiers Street, New YOO: City Conlftmed Opening Plef'lfll}' s,,-.,,: Boud•n Oenltch, DSA; Robin 0.0. Xtlley, NYU; St•ni Woolhanc:tler, M.O., P~ici•n• fOr • Nlrl Htallh Pgm; ll\airav1 Deal, NY T11d Worl Aleo Feeng lhe NYC Premier or MARX IN SOHO A new play by Howard Zinn •Played to pwfectioo b)' Brian J~· & Tile M.R. Debatt: 9ogd111 Oenltch VI. Tariq All "Kcsova: NATO lntnentlon ~nd Ltft forti11n Policy" Jnfl1'm1141Dn !OClAUST SCHOLARS CONfEREHCE cAI CUNY Gr'llldU•tl C«it« and Ph.D. l'rogtq1 I# !ot:Jology 6'.tdut,. Cenwof 111~ City ~of Nwt Yorl l65 FHlll AWIH.lt, New Y~ NY 1~f USA Tf!I: 21Uf7.7861, tmlll: /mo@,J'1Qw/11Uidto/1T.Olf FEA'lURING: Mark Sedden Labour National Executive, UK Editor, Tribune DSA Reception and Book Signing for ~faurice lsserman's new book The Other American The Life of Michael Harrington 12 noon, Saturday April 1st followed by DSA ''.Author Meets Readers" panel·at 1 pm Borough of Manhattan Community College, Chambers Street, NYC INFO: 212. 727 .8610 \V\V'W'.socialistscholar.org M i 11 c n n i u m P a r t T w o • D e m o c r a t i c L e f t • p a g e 39 Can Music Still Make a Difference? B Y BILLY BRAGG o be honest, that perpetual yourself the same question: I bet your lyst for question, Can Music Make a answer is similar to mine. I was drawn change, T Difference?, is one that I to The Clash because I had a certain particu don't consider much. Even if music worldview and wanted that to be re larly so can't, that shouldn't stop us from try flected in the music that I listened to. c i a 1 ing. Also, when you've written a po I read their interviews and checked change. litical song, how can you ever gauge their lyrics, but I suspect that Marga Think if it has made a difference? It seems ret Thatcher was a bigger influence of Elvis to me that the relationship between on my political development than mixing music and change is more complex The Clash. b 1 a ck than simply the singmg of songs. Which is not to disnuss the po a n d For instance, at a concert in New litie1zing effect of punk. The Clash w h 1 t e York a year or two ago, a guy came opened my mind to the dynamic pos culture in Memphis in 1954, or the up and gave me his card. He was a sibilities of political popular culture Two-Tone ska movement that labor lawyer and he Lold me that this and, in doing so, they undoubtedly emerged as a direct response to the career choice was a direct result of changed things for me. They didn't rise of the neo-Nazi National Front my music. Now, that made me feel change the world but they did change in England in 1979. However, music pretty proud. But upon reflection, I my perception of the world. And it can only perform this role in conjunc felt that such a phenomenon could be was because of my disappointment tion with genuine forces of change looked at in a number of different in the failure of bands like The Clash within society. ways. For instance, has my skill as a to change the world that I became the Maybe a song of mine changed songwriter ensured that there are better kind of performer prepared to take the perception of our New York la labor relations in the New York area, a stance against Thatcherism. bor lawyer friend. Maybe he iust en or did I just provide the soundtrack This suggests that music does not joyed Jumping around his bedroom to this guy's vocation? After all, it's not have the impact of an event, which to Help Save the Youth of America. me out there defending people in the changes the world instantly and tan Whichever way you look at it, one workplace, is it? gibly, but is more akin to an idea, which simple fact remains: it is up to the Was that atlorney an activist works in a gradual way-making audience to change the world, not the drawn to Billy Bragg or did Billy small subtle changes that build up over performer. Bragg make him an activist? Ask time. In that sense, music can be a cata- DemocraticSocialistsofAmerica 0 Yes, I want to join the Democratic Socialists. My special interest are: Enclosed arc my dues (includes a subscnption to 0Labor the Democratic Left) of ADDRFSS 0$50 (sustainer) [DS (regular) 0Rclig1on 0$15 Oow income/student) c.m· 0Youth n Yes, I want to renew my membership m DSA 0 ,\nn-Racism Enclosed arc my renewal dues of SlAlE ZIP 0Fcminism 050 (sustainer) $!!!] (regular) 020 (low income/student) 0 Gay and Lesbian Rights • l~IONH Send to 0 Enclosed is an extra contribution of DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS OF (]J;O (!])() $2.".Q]> help DSA m 1ts work IHWL AMERICA 180 Vanek Street, 12th floor, New York, NY 0 Please send me more information about DSA l(Xll4, 212-727-8610, fa.x 727-861(1, and Democratic socialism. UNION/SCHOOL/ORGANll'~mON e-mail: [email protected]~. web: ww\\·dsausa.org It c I u r n t 11 D S A, 1 8 0 \' o1 r i c k S I r c c 1, N c w Y o r k, N \' 1 0 0 1 4 2 1 2 / 7 2 7-8 (, 1 0 pa g e 40 • Dem o craticLeft •Millennium Part Two