The World Trade Organization: Making the World Fnendfy far Transnational Co1porations
BY JOSEPH S CHWARTZ transnational corporate elites. ln less purchase from comparues that invest than fjye years, the \VTO "Dispute in regimes which \'Joi.ate labor a"ld hu ainstream ljberals and conscr Settlement Processes" have stopped man rights and whom ofren employ vatives treat the "globaliza- the United States from requiring Ven child labor. M10n of the economy" as if it ezuelan gas exporters to conform to were an act of nature. J\TewYork Times air c.1uality regulations srricrer than 25 Years of R119•'lhaldllrfm correspondent Thomas Friedman in those of Venezuela. The \'(;'TO has The practices of the \XfT O do not forms us that with growing economic also banned European l.Jnion at derive from inherent economic laws interdependence comes the necessity tempts to prevent the import of US of efficiency, but from the Rcagan co "compete 10 the market or clic." produccd hormone-treated beef. And Thaccher policies of the advanced in But all economic arrangements are 10 1997, a \\'TO panel ruled that the dustnal democracies. In the early 1970s social institutions constructed within European Union could not grant a sgucezc in corporate profits fueled relations of power. Today's global trade preferences to union-grown by growing union power, higher real market is structured mostk for commodity prices, the inrert:Scs oftransnational cor and a slowing of pro porations, as opposed to those ductivity gains caused of ordinary citizens. TNCs to react by The mass protests at the abandoning the post Seattle ministerial meetings of \\1\\111 "social con the World Trade Organizations tract." this permitted led by environmentalists, trade corporate control of unionists, NGO activists from im·estment m return developing nations, and DSAers for relauvd}' high real prefigures an emergmg interna mdusrrial U'ages and tional movement to regulate a saferr net for many transnational capital in the inter workers ID developed ests of human needs. For the nauons.. Corporntions first time since the collapse of henceforth de- authoritartan communism and manded to be free the rightward drift of many govern Caribbean bananas over Chiquita ba from the consmums of uruon power ing social democratic parties, the tra nanas produced by exploited non and prot,rressi,-e ax.anon. arguing that clitional socialist demand that capital union labor in Central America. "deregulating" the economy would serve the interests of the very people ln Seactle, ministers from pro benefir all. who create it has been returned to the corporare governments around the 1\,·ency-nve )eaIS of such poli world's political center stage. globe tried to spread the WTO's cies, imposed b, consen-an,-e and cen The World Trade Organization powers over ttadc in manufactured ta-le~ gO'l; crnmentS m the First World (\VTO) places corporate interests goods, to agriculture, financial and an Millennium Part One • D c m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g e 3 continued from page two I a race-to-the-bottom in regard to Jiv ing standards and labor rights. By de manding that all nation-states remove regulatory constraints on corpora tions, gut social welfare programs, enact balanced-budget fiscal austerity, and declare war on trade unions, the WTO ensures that capital will be able to move labor-intensi\'e forms of • production to the "lowest cost pro ducers" in the developing worlc.1. \'Ouk more capital and knowledge mtensive production remains in ad / vanced industrial nations, like software design and computerized machine tool production, chc and-union prac TNCs and regulate global financial tices of race-to-the-bottom capital actors in the mterests of equitable and Short-Ttnn, Feasible ll'nda ism means that the disproportionate sustainable de\'clopment. A global The international movement for glo share of the benefits from such in democratic left must be rebuilt as an bal justice is somewhat di\'idcd: most c'r~scs in First \\'oriel productivity alternath:e both to a dead-and-bur international labor federatiom and goes to the top twenty percent of the ied authoritarian Communism and to mainstream environmental groups population, the "symbolic manipula a social democratic welfare state which favor reforming the \VTO so it could tors" who organize production asclf. can no longer be sustained strictly on enforce international labor and human a national level. rights guarantees. But many NGO Resistance to Demoaatk Thus, the ne'>v social mo\·ement and activists in the de,·eluping world Polltf cal Control politics of civil society must still believe the WTO must be abolished grapple with the political question of and a completely new, more demo The worldwide protests against the gaining state power. For only the poli· cratic international instituaon be built Seattle ministerial mectin~ represents cies of national governments can cre from the ground up. This is compli a new stage in international popular ate the regional and international in cated because m:iny go' crning elites resistance to corporate dictates. This stitutions which can control TNCs on in Third World governments oppose fledgling trans-border network must behalf of a global l\.ew Deal in the any international limits on the rate of both identify the enemy and put forth interests of people. In the first half exploitation of their domestic work a feasible, democraric, alternacive eco of the twentieth century this federal ers. There is disagreement as to what nomic model. The 1997 defeat of the nation regulated corporations which institutions would best democraaze proposed Multinational Agreement had become truly nacional in scope and the global economy under those cir on Investments (the M1\J), which thus could no longer b{; effectively cumstances. f fowever, there i.s fairly would have deregulated control of regulated b} state governments. broad consensus as tu immediate, con global investment (simi lar to G1\Tf's Reversing the transnational corp· structive reforms an rntern:ttional deregulation of trade) demonstrated orate race-to-the-bottom now re democratic movement should de that worldwide alliances of trade quires the same kind of global coor mand. They include: union, environmental, and human dination of economic policy in favor rights activists could slow the jugger of a high-wage, h1gh-productivit) • Jubilee 2000 debt forgi,·eness for naut of corporate globalization. economy. This would require progres developing nations by both private To impose a democratic global sive taxation and high-quality public banks and national and international order upon TKCs will necessitate co· pro\is10n of education, health care, lending institutions. 1bese economics ordination of policy among demo childcare, and job training. In addi have been distorted into export-plat cratic so\'crcign governments. Nacion tion, 111 order to allow de,·eloping forms which then do not scr\'c the states, contrary to mainstream nos nations t0 improve living standards, needs of their own popularion. Such trums, can still influence corporate new international trade and investment an economic strateg} make.., them behavior. 'fo do so they must engage regimes will have to be constructed permanent debtors to the very glo in regtonal and international coopern· t0 reverse the unfavorable cconom1c bal banks and IMF whkh encouraged tion aimed at institucing a new global relations that labor-surplus and cap1· this disastrous economic strategy in social contract which would level-up tal short de\·eloping nations 1nev1ta· the first place. gluhal living standards, impose labor bly face. and environmental regulations upon p a g c 4 • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • Millennium Part One • Establish a floor rather than a ceiJ decrease the incenti\'e for short-term ing on basic human and labor rights capital flight aimed at disrupting sm· and environmental standards in all in ereign nation-state policy. ternat iu nal trade and investment T he abo\'c reforms could all be Photo Credits: agreements. Such agn:cments would instituted without a revolutionary abo have to recognize that for some time lition ofgloba l capitalism. Absent this Comwtiot1 photos pages 11, 18, to come ''li\'ing wages" and environ kind of Global New D eal, the se 20, 26 (botto!ll), and 39: Erfr Ehel mental standards in rhe developmg Yere im:gualily and economic instability world will no·r be able to be as "high" which governs the lives of the global Pages 12, 23 a11d 38: Jeff Cold as those in the First \Vorltl. majority may soon visit itself upon even the privileged sectors of the ad Pages 9, 26 tllld 39: Ste1•e Oiil'er • Democratic internarionalists can vanced industrial nations. be for in\'Cstmcnt of cap11al in the Page 21: Bob Adel1JJa11 Third \\'orld, pro\'idcd it does not Joseph Schimrtz teaches political theof)· at pre\"Cnt those nations from develop Tev;ple U11irmi!y and i's a 111e111ber of the ing an integrated, domestically-ori DSA 's National Political Cov11nittee. enred economy which senes their people's needs. • New inccrnauonal regi1lawry in I sritutJons should be g<)\"erned jointly At a time when many people by developing and developed nations. They should insure ec1uitable terms of trade and interest rates so that Third think the health of our society \Vurkl nations can o\'ercome the dis advantageous terms-of-trade that their surplus rural labor and capital is measured by the shortages 11npose upon them in a glo bal market. Exporting to pay o ff Dow Jones and NASDAQ, onerous capital loans not only denies domestic populations of needed re sources, but also attracts surplus rural it's good to have a magazine that labor to urban areas without job op portunities. knows what still matters most • Stop corporations from patent ing indigenous medical practices and is human dignity. the medicinal benefits uf de.;cloping nations' btospccies. J\ just mrcrnationaJ economic order would allow indig enous peoples and developing nations to benefit from the contributions their own medical practices and local biospecics can make to the world's peoples. • Create ec1uitable international regulation of global finance capital. Billions of dollars can now be transfered into and out of national fi nancial markets-in a nano-second which allows finance to veto a nation's International Union, UAW democratically determined economic Stephen P. Yokich, President Ruben Burks, Secretary-Treasurer srratcgy. Imposing a global "Tobin Vice Presidents: Elizabeth Bunn, Ron Gettelfinger, tax" on all transfers of liquid capital Nate Gooden, Bob King, Richard Shoemaker stock and bond market investments www.uaw.org and short-term bank deposits would Millennium Part One • D e m o c r a l i c L e f 1 • p a g e 5 A European Perspective BY D ANIEL SINGER socuu.1sr l.VT£RN1irroNAJ. n years after the collapse of he Berlin Wall and the brief en e· ry of the people on the politi cal stage of eastern Europe, the es- tablishment is repeating relentlessly and quite successfullv that socialism i~ ' dead and buried, while capitalism wiU live for ever. Ifwe define socialism a~ the mas tery of the people over their work and their fate, socialism could not die in eastern Europe, because it never lived there (or anp.-here elsL, so far). If we must draw a lesson from the collapse of the Soviet empire.: and the disintegration of the USSR that fol lowed, it is about the historical ephemeral nature of a socJal forma~ guite different, since out of the fif. if the latter alrcadv has some trouble tion and not about irs eternitv. \\1hen teen governmems of the European \dth his rank-and-file as a result. Llonel a regime no longer corresponds to the Union eleven arc dominated by Jospin, the Prench prime min needs and the possibilities of a given members of the Socia!Jst Interna i ter, gi\CS rhc impression of hanker epoch, sooner or later it will he tional and two of the most impor ing after the reformist past, though in brought down, because ulrimaccly tant prime ministers, Tony Blair and actual practice he does little to play people shape their own history. This Gerhard Schroeder, are apparently that pan. His ambiguity is illustrated is a lesson we should apply at home. showing an alternative road. Ala;, by his favorite formula, "market Their power rests on our weakness, their "Third Way" has little t0 do with economy yes, marke( society no," on our acceptance of There Is No the one the so-called n.:visionists had which does not predict which will Alternative (TINA). in mind Jn eastern Europe in the fif prevail when the two mcvitably clash. In western Europe, where 1 Jive, ties, when they were hoping to get Actually, it Is not surprising that the immedfate struggle is over the ac rid ofStalirust repression without ~e Jospm should be the most reluctant ceptance of the A mcrican economic placing ir with capitalist exploitation. since in the struggle to defend the wel model. For seYeral \'ears nmv. the in The new "Third Way" is nothing of fare state the biggest battle so far was ternational financial cstablishn'ient has the sort. It is nut an alternative to the fuught in France, m the "winter of been telling Europeans that thcr must 1\merican model either. Lying some discontent" of 1995. Paris was para follow the example of the U. s: This where between Reagarusm and the lyzed by a transport strike and the is not the old ''.American dream" old Social Democracy, it looks more whole country shaken by mass dem which dazzled Europeans .immediately like an attempt to adapt the Amcn onstrations. Indeed, future historians after the last war. It is a sort of can model to European tastes and may treat that ep1sode as an ideologi ''American nightmare." In the global to smuggle it across the Atlantic in cal turning point, as the first strike ized, deregulated world you live: m, new disguise. against TINA, because the French pro E~opeans are told• you can't afford If WC accept the modem defini testers were saying: "If this is the fu national health services; a decent mini tion of Social Democracy as the re ture you offer us and our children, to mum wage; some security of tenure; for~nist management of the existing hell with your future, alternative or no public pensions and so on. But ,..,·cst society, then Social Democracy is now alternative." This refu,sal 1s historically ern Europeans arc attached to thc.:ir faced with a historic dilemma be unponant since as long as we accept collective social com1uests and the re cause what its leaders arc now being or internalize the assertion that no other cent electoral unpopularity of conser asked to preside over is the councer solution is possible, we wiU not be vative parties is largely due to their nc rdormist management of capitalist looking seriously for one. But this tcmpt to dismantle welfare states. 1b society. Blair and Schroeder seem negative stand is only the beginning, day, it will be objected, the situation is guite willing to fulfil this function, even the foundation on which to begin the p a g e 6 • D e m o c r a t i c L c ft • Millennium Part One search for a different society. A mass vancc stage by stage and de\'clop their rain in this major confrontation. But social movement will not gather real political consciousness through action. the conflict, because of the interde momentum unless guided by such a The important thing is ro link spo pendence of our world, is by its very vision. The existing form of capital radic skirmishes into a general offen nature global and you Americans have ism has its own logic and will only be sive against the system. Not just work a potcntiaUy crucial role to play. There swept aside by another system with a ers, but ecologists, feminists, gays and is no curse, after all, damning the logic and coherence of its own. lesbians must discover in their lJnited States to be forever the domi The idea of socialism as a model, ownstrugglcs that their demands, their nant model of capitalist imported or otherwise, handed down aspirations, their dreams cannot be exploitation.The other certainty is that to disciplined marchers or obedient fulfilled within the confines of the ex our task is urgent, for if we do not voters is gone - one hopes fore,·cr. isting society. Our common task is to rapidly provide progressive solutions, On the other hand, because of what trample TINA; to revive the belief there are plenty of candidates with has happened in the past, it is idle to that life can be altered by collective reactionary and irrational ones who expect people to embark on long political action. can. term action, unless they know where J\t this turn of the millennium, they arc heading, how they will get with models smashed and great ex Daniel Sin_e,er, the European comspondmt ef 'The Nation, ·· i.r a left-11-i11g socialist there and what democratic guarantees pectations shattered, we must resume helon.ging to 110 par()'. A journalist, broad they will have on the way. The appar our struggle without illusions and cer caster and ltcl11rer, ht is the author ef mat!)' ent contradiction can be m crcomc if titudes but with the conviction that books, ef ll'hich the latest \Xi'hosc • we view socialism not as a model or quire a lot can be done. My impres .\fillennium? Theirs or Ours? hasj11st blueprint, but as a project, a draft that sion is that western Europe, for all bem p11/Jlished l!J Monthl>• Review Press will be reshaped by people as they ad- sorts of reasons. may be the first rcr- Democratic Socialists of America Best wishes to DSA and Democratic Left on your 25th Anniversary. On this last Labor Day of the 20th Century, American workers can look back with pride on the progress we've made. The spirit and determination that carried us through past struggles continues to guide us in our undying quest for economic justice. APWU AMERICAN POSTAL WORKERS UNION,AFL-CIO MOE BILLER President WILLIAM BURRUS Executive Vice President • ROBERT TUNSTALL Secretory-Treasurer Millennium Pare One • D c m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g c 7 The Prison Industrial Complex BY KEVIN PRANIS we have Little control. Prison and jail which drew more than 3,000 pdson ne of the most stunning as populations in the U.S. have grown activists 10 September 1998, demon pects of the WTO demon by 200,000, and the Justice Policy In strates the porenrial that exists. O srrations, especially as they ap stitute estimates that the 1111111ber nil/ reach There are hints that the struggle peared on television, was the military 2,000,000 efter Valentine[ Dtg 2000. against the prison-industrial complex character of the police response, That's the bad news. The good has the potential to fundamentally which evoked Americans' deepest news is the general public is just be- change thinking on race and class in fears of authoritarian government. America. The stark inct1uities and ter· While new to most middle class and riblc abuses associated with the cur white Americans, militarized policing rent cmninal justice svstem seem to has become quite common in some be provoking a crisis of conscience low income urban and occasionally among some conservatives. Libertar suburban neighborhoods occupied b} ians, in particular, have become ac police checkpoints by day, and feder tive in efforts to reform drug laws, ally-funded SWAT teams with assault and while these effort:; are consistent rifles, and infra-red scopes by night. with libertarian principles, many have On the second day of the Battle ginning to grasp the cnotmity of the begun to recognize that the radal and of Seattle, according to news reports, prison industrial complex, and to un class disparities in the effects of the local police fired tear gas, flash-bang derstand its social consequences, as a laws go beyond the Ja,vs themselves. grenades and rubber bullets at a result of an explosion of media cov The Prison Moratorium Project peaceful march completely unrelated erage. Thanks in part to the work of (PMP), which emerged from discus to the WTO that took place far away Increasingly media-savvy criminal jus sions bem·een progrcss1Yc students from the downtown "security zone." tice rhink-tanks, reporters are begin working with the DSA Youth Section, Angry diners, shoppers and neighbor ning to understand the scale of the and former prisoners from the hood residents came out into the street pnson system and discover that there Harlem-based Community Justice to face off with the police, who re are literally thousands of compelling Center, has been working to help portedly answered the mediation ef stories and scandals to be mined build a broad national movement forts of a city councilman with more from the questionable use of police against pnson expansion. Over the last tear gas. What news reports failed to informants, to the burgeoning popu four years, we have struggled co mention was that the eyenr was held lation of eWerly prisoners and to the reign-in for-profit private prison cor to protest the impending execution of impact of felony convictions on the porations like Corrections Corpora Philadelphia journalist and political voting rights of African-Americans. tion of America, and food service prisoner 1'.Iumia Abu-Jamal, whose A grassroots movement against giant Sodexho Alliance/Sodexho case has become a focal point for the prison industrial complex is being Mariott Services, CCA's biggest in opposition to America's growing born, led by prisoners and their fami vestor. The PMP also worked with "prison-industrial complex." lies working through organizations Hip I lop artists to educat( youth Two years ago, (DLJuly/August like Families Against Mandatory Mini through the forthcoming 1\o Mori: 1997), I argued that the exploding mums (FAMM), Citizens United for Prisons CD and we worked with prison industrial complex has had a the Rehabilitation ofErrants (CURE), unions and studenrs to connect devastating effect on progressive poli and the November Coalition. In a ncreased prison budgets to decreased tics by draining public coffers, number of states, these groups have funding for education. disempowering traditionally progres helped achieve modest but significant B} training and empowering sive constituencies, exacerbaring rac victories, like FAMM's successful fight young people, parents, educators and ism and fear, and eroding support for against the most egregious Michigan other allies to organize against the social provision and civil Liberties. I sentencmg laws. Other coalitions of prison mdustr1al complex, and by cre also argued that the effort to build a criminal justice policy advocates, ser ating bridges between yomh and oth grassroots movement of prisoners' vice providers, community organiza ers that have a stake in a de-milita families, students, educators, commu tions and some religious leaders have rized future, we h~pc to help build nity and religious organizations to sprung up to work on specific policy the civil rights movement of the next oppose prison expansion must be a issues, Hke New York's Rockefeller millenium. We hope you will jom us. priority for us. Two years later, at the Drug Laws. While movement infra close of rhe Twentieth Century, the structure is lacking, especially at the na Kevin Pra11is, farmer DSA Youth Section United States is still engaged 1n a tional level, the astounding success of Organizer iJ Director of the Prison deadly "war on cnmc" over which the first Critical Resistance gathering, Alomtod111J1 Project. p a g e 8 • D e m o c r a t i c L' e ft • Millennium Part One An Interview with Francis Fox Piven WITH RoB SAUTE ing an academic by itself especially enjoyable. I do what I do for IJJt' as DL: [ 10111 didJ'OJI co111e to be a radical? well as a lot of other reasons. I do it fundamentally because that's the way FP: I .ike a lot of people in the New I want to live and it give::; me so much York area, my parents were Russian pleasure. Jewish immigrants. They were intui tive radicals even though they didn't DL: 1 'm i11ler11sted in hoiv the roles ef being have formal educations. 1 think they an a((lde111ic t111d bemg a radicalfit together. certainly influenced me. My father Holl! do)'Oii deal with !he tensions that arise? with Richard Cloward in the possi when I saw him, which wasn't vc11' bility of welfare rights organizing often because he worked very long FP: The tensions arc trivial. The basic from some studies thar \Ve had done hours - alwa\'S talked to me about fit is like a leather glove, but the ten of the operations of the welfare de world affairs. i remember him saying sions have to do with getting along partment in New York City, which we to me that you couldn't believe the with all of your colleagues, and get later expanded to other cities. Partly capitalist press. So I &skcd him, "Then ting just the job that you might want those studies themselves were inspired whv do vou read the newspaper all at the time thar you \Vant it, or getang by our knowledge of the Lower East the. time: Daddy?" And he said, "I nominated for this or that, or having Side and the poverty programs there. read between .the lines." Since I your articles accepted by the main So we began to use survey data to couJ Millcnnl um Part One • D e m o c r a t i c L c f t • p a g e 9 poor people in rhc United Stares dur and economic elites. I think Ameri social science is not very good at these ing that period. can history is just indisputable on thar things. Of course, many pcoplc would score. At those rimes, people who are say, "Oh, but it \\'as a failure because commicrcd to the model of builrung DL: lflbal hmoe beef/ the fJIOSt i111porla11t look what it led to in the end. lt led permanent organizations, member by American political 111ovements of the Tinn to the Personal Responsibility and member, incentive by incentive, can tieth Centm)'? Work Opportunity Reconciliation .Act often bc counted on to try to stop of 1996." But l think that that is a protests just because they have another FP: The labor movement and the civil profound)) mjs)eading observation, model. They know the right 11'<1)' to do rights movement Both of them are because it presumes that people can it. The people raging in the streets are important for rwo reasons. One, be win institutional reforms once and for the people ready to defy landlords, cause they rud in fact secure very im all. Nothing is ever \Von once and for or def) the marshalls who are evict portant changes. They really did re all from below. What people get from ing people from their farms. But those construct American institutional life, below has to be fought for again and people, they aremaking a mistake. although in neither case in the endur again and again. I'm reconciled to that "IF'e know how to do it," j,_ what rhe ing way chat the participants hoped conclusion. organizers say on those occasions, and for or assumed. But the labor move chat's not constructive. ment brought uniorusm and some DL: ll7he11 yo11 111rote, Poor People's thing of an ideology of class and class Movemcnts,you U'ere so111e11 1hat skeptiml DL: So hou• do u1e 11101'f! bryond that? relations to American political life. about the ability ofpe1wane11t, political or And J think that the exjstcnce of ga11izatio11s to carry o"I social change. Hos PP: By becoming a little bit more unions until the 1980s, however tired, yo"r thinking changed about /hat? humble about our knowledge and ossified, and corrupt they were, also talent to construct institutions that will created some space rn regular politics PP: Properly considered, it's a com persist and solve the problems of this (as opposed to movemcnr politics) for plicated and rufferentiated argument society - problems of terrible the Left. It's good to have a space in about poor people and marginalized marginalization and inequality- with regular politics for the Left, for an or people. I'm not saying that an organi out the need for protest from below. ganized Left, for a normal, everyday zation like DSA cannot be a perma I trunk that too many people on rhe Left. The labor movement was also nent organization. Business people l ..eft rusrorically have thought that their important for the concessions that Jt form permanent orgaruzations, stu institutional designs could be imple won workers. It created a substantial dents can form quasi-permanent or menred once and for all. But there is morgage-holrung working class - big, garuzations that will last until they get no once and for all in politics - there burly guys who thought they were out of school. So people in rufferent just isn't. really something. But before unions positions can form polfrical organi they were just as marginalized in a way zations that have more durability than DL: It sn11nds like yo11 are .raying ti1 part as poor people are today. Every the organizations that arc formed at Ibo! rhat~f!/ 111011 ~happen 1111/il certain co11- movement I know of has tried to the bottom of society. It is also true ditio11s are 1J1el. So what sho"ld actitists do imfracc unions because uruons really that with a lot of gdt and determina in the meo11 lli11e? won something, something sigrtificant. tion, activists or organizers can sus tain relatively modest permanent or PP: \Ve test the waters. ltre ah1"f}.r act DL: IF'hat speczjical/y were the good and ganizations even during periods when as though 1J1ore is possible, and every for bad aspects of that? there is little actiYism. the l:\P, .and tieth time or so more nil/be possible. the faith-based PICO are examples of Look at how many demonstrations FP: Well, the bad is that not every that. And we could go down the list occurred before protests erupted in movement can follow the model of of modesr community orgaruzing ef Seattle. Partly at meetings of the \X-TO, the uruons. Crcaong a permanent or forts that have managed to endure. and also at meetings of other inter ganization with the check-off. Unions Maybe these organizations do national organizations. So we must only get the chcck-off from the com some good in the sense that they keep keep trying. 1\nd that's the way raru pany because they moderate the rus alive certain ideals of self-empower cals have always done it. They've al ruptlvc potential of workers. And the ment and justice and so on. Bue the ways thought they could read the check off is very harmful to the in problem is that people don'twin large political situation, but only once in a ternal culture of unions because it gains through that kind of political while arc they right. orients union leadership co company influence. They win large gains at times management rather than to their own when electoral instability combines DL: Do yo11 think radicoLr are 011/y ri._R,ht rank and file. In any case, you're not with and encourages the rise of pro about the political tides ~y accident? going ro get a check-off from the test movements which are really welfare department for organizing threaterung to power elites - political FP: Partly by accident. You know, welfare recipients. But don't think that p a g e 10 • D e m o c r a t i c L e f t • Millennium Part One welfare rights leaders didn't try to do that. They did. Amazing! And that's the influence of lhe labor movement. That's a good influence. Tbe civil rights moYemcntwas at least as important as the union move ment because the victories that the civil rights rnovcmcm won Millennium Patt One • D c m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g c 11 Class Matters Economic Inequality and Black Politics BY MANNING MARABLE m· of the primary litmus tests - more than a generation after the pas I Iispanic household's financial wealth for e\•aluating the st.tte of sage of the 196..J. Civil Rights Act and was zero. O progressive politics through the 1965 \'onng Rights Act -- the re But these statistics don't reveal the out \mencan history has been the alities of black politics have funda growing class stratification that in c h~1racter and viabilitv of the black mentally changed. The rapid growth many ways cuts across racial bound freedom mo\'cmcnt. \xrhen African of class strat1ficat1on within black anes. l\lan Wolfe, director of the J\merican activism \\'(IS at a high le\·el, \merica is actually crcat10g three ,·cry Center for Reltg10n and American as m d1e desegregation struggles m d1c dn ergent "black communities": a Public Life, recently observed in the Jim Crow South of the 1960s, the black professional, managerial and !'Jew York f1mes that the 1990s ml/ be most progressi\•e curr(•nts within entrepreneurial middle class that 1s remembered tJJ a time ef Rea,~anism ll'tlh white \mencan politics were inevit,1- doing remarkably well financially, a 011! Reagaf! ... the itTcomes of the but-rijj blv strengthened. Protests 11rot111d is black working class that has been Amen.-•.ms ha1'f tisen t»fre asfast OJ those sues of racial inequality pushed for steadily losing ground; and the black ofmiddk-dass Amedcans. "Back in 1980, ward the boundaries of democratic poor -- undr or unemployed and un the a\·erage top corporate executive's discourse, creating greater space for s ktl led -- with those working salary was -12 times higher than the other progn:ss1\·e causes. \'\'ithin the jsurvnring near the offici,tl povert\ lc\ median income of a factory worker. black freedom movement itself, there els in circumstances of soc1oecon.omic By 1998, the top executives were tak was a long and nch tradition of lead devastation mg home -119 tunes more than fac ers and mtellecn1als who linked the So it is impossible to talk about tory workers politics of racial justice to the adrn "black politics" unless one begins with cacy of socialism such as \'\:EB. Du the rc;tl1ty of class. The fund MUlcnnium Part One • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g e 13 black owned companies, Sharpton Twenry) cars ago, sociologist\\ 11- promises to shake things up on Wall liam Julius Wilson predicted that. dis Street: "I'm coming downto\vn, JUSt mantling legal segregation structures like King 1'..ong.. " would reduce race as a social force. The problem with these minor .A decade later, Corne! West insisted ity-corporate partnerships is that they that "race matters." Both scholars benefit only a tiny number of black were correct. From the tragedies of executives, and foster the illusion that Amadou Diallo and Abner Lou1ma, the corporate sector can be persuaded to the death row case uf Mumm to "do the right thing" on race. The Abu-Jamal, race dead)' matters in the vasr majority of African-Americans areas of criminal justice, access to are working people, nor mvestment housing, health services, transportation bankers. Nearly one third of all Afri and 10 thousands of other ways. But can-American holdings actually have a race-based politics, a strategy that a zero or negative net worth; that is, a defines political objectives in narrow greater amount of debt thac their raciali%ed categories, will ine\'Jtabl) fail combined financial assets. The pov to transform U.S. society. lt is not erty rate for blacks and Latinos at that race has so much declined in sig about 26 percent is more that three nificance, but that class has greatly in rimes higher than that of whites. How creased m its significance, as the fun many working class and poor Afri damental factor affecting African can American families will actually Americans, Latinos and millions of bt.:nefit from the successes of the \'<'all working people. Black and progres~ Street Project? sive political forces must consrruet an Don't get me wrong. I have ab effective critique of the growing in solutely nothing agrunst black-owned equalities of class that can serve as the busmesses, so long as they provide basis of the construction of a new goods and services with a degree of democraac movement for social jus social respon~i b ili ty to the black com tice and economic fairness. munity. But Jesse and Al would make a more signHkanr contribution to the l\fa11ni11g Mt1rable is Prefessor of History b lack freedom movement if they and Political Srience, and Director, placed greater emphasis on income l11stiftlle for &search in A.fiica11- distribunon strategies, and the cam A.111erican Studies, al Col"111hia Univer paign for a living wage to support sity. He is also o cofo1111der of the Black fa milies. Radical Congress and Chair, U11ited 1\/ew 1ork Black Radical Congress ucal Organizing Com!llittee Best Wishes In the New Millennium From Edward W. Clark, Jr. Manager New England Regional Joint Board Executive Vice-President UNITE 867 State Road Dartmouth, Ma. 02747 p a g e 14 • D c m o c r a t i c L e ft • Millennium Part One An Exchange with Alisse Waterston WITH SoI.VEIG WILDER on the street and in subways, "but llO body around me knew I was home Much q/ the e111phasis 011 the T~ft has shifted speak, New York's Mayor Giuliaru less because of the way J look and awr!Y Jro111 the•b11111a11 side of opprrssio11 to has been doing just that. Building on keep myself," she tells me. It is easy la1;{!,t'rglob11/ econo111ic issues. In tllrll!J clrm well-established notions about the un to see how this is true, observing her rootJJs today, soda/ scimce mqjors are bei1{~ deserving and disreputable poor, Mr. fresh-faced look, her just-right lipstick, told to fams more 011 statistics and data a11d Giuliani has been blasting homeless and the trim skirt and sweater set she 1 less 011 penot1al accounts. Alis.re lf7atersto11 s New Yorkers as demons, pushing the always wears. Low, Sorrow and Rage: An Urban poorest and most vulnerable among Annie is one among 50 poor Ethnography for Our Times, 111oves i11 us further to the margins. In my view, women who live in Woodhouse, a the other direction. these distorted portraits and explana facility designed to provide housing tions most favored by our mass me and other services for the destitute in DL: 11"'0, do)'oufac11s 011 the pn:ro11al sto dia and reactionary leadership is pur New York City. Their life stories un nes of ho111eless 11'0/llel/ i11 l\Te11·) ork Ci!J? poseful misrepresentation -- a social fold as J sit with them at a kitchen and political project. Putting a human table, prepanng meals, talking, shar AW: I came to the writing of thjs face on suffering might make it a little ing intimacies. book nearly twenty-five years ago as more difficult to sweep people away This is the setting of my ethno a young school teacher \VOrking in a like so much garbage. graphic research; in it, we hear from poor Brooklyn neighborhood. Pnor women like Annie, Hattie, and Dixie to that, my college studies taught me DL: ls this an either/ or, or can JJ'e 01J1pha about what it is like to live on the street that deprivation and dcpr;wity arc size both the persof1{1/ a11d political sides of and how it feels to lose your mind, rooted in po\·erty culture. ~\fy own the capitalist co11ditio11? about the rastc of crack cocaine and experiences did nut fit with this ex the sweetness of friendship. planat10n of the world, and I looked AW: lt is absolutely not an either/or. The characteristics of the women to amhropology for answers. For an I Iowever difficult it is to demonstrate of Woodhouse -- poor, homeless, thropologists, research means doing the connections, a/lour individual life mentally ill, "prostitutes" and "crack ethnographic fieldwork, getting to stories are Jinked to larger social and addicts" -- constitute that which the know intimately the subjects of your historical processes that are beyond popular culture has hanwly demon work. This allows us to question given the control of most people. I explore izcd. Gendered and diseased, the assumptions, and so provides much those connections in mv book by tak women of Woodhouse represent needcd insights inco human behavior ing up Paul Farmer's question, "By collapse. In the popular imagination, and interactions. In writing this book, what mechanisms do social forces these women make up the devil her 1 want to share with readers what the become efJJhodied as individual experi self, to borrow from Frances Pox women are like an Millennium Part One • D e m o c r a t i c L e f t • p a g e 15 erful sign. Never mind that they are Annie is tremendously concerned fights like that." In her own home, the results of a long process of im about living at Woodhouse. At times, Annie explains, "I wouldn't have to poverishment; they now signal disre she is overcome with a sense of dread answer to anybody. It's not that I like pute and danger. and suffers a fear of being misunder walking around cursing at people or IronicaUy, the playing fidd started stood and misinterpreted. "It's dan yelling at people, but in my own out with distinctions in political and gerous for me to live here because they home, I'd be able to, without there economic power, inequalities rendered can send you to a hospital or maybe being 'consequences."' invisible by media propaganda and prison," she says. She doesn't know Annie sets herself apart from the . political rhetoric. In turn, these kinds exactly what she should do. One side other women at Woodhouse. She in of distinctions legitimate domination: of her says to drop everything and sists, "I'm not like them, and I'm not we bdieve that those who rule de move to I Iaiti. But the other side of mentally ill." Annie says they've put serve to, and "all the rest need super her says to stay where she is, let her on Haldol, an antipsychotic medi vision, guidance, reform, incarcera Woodhouse help her get through her cation. She tries to hold back the tears. tion," as anthropologist Robert current financial difficulties, and stick "I don't like the medicine," Annie cries. Crawford once wrote. with her plan to finish school. Annie "I don't like its side effects and 1 don't is already enrolled in a college pro always take it, even though they think AMadneulaMa gram. She still hopes to complete her I am." When she started talcing the For the women of Woodhouse, each degree in a few years and become a medicine, Annie didn't get her period path has been different, but the an schoolteacher. Annie resigns herself to for two months. That tells her guish is all the same. Wbether they reality. "I guess I'U stay here for now. something's not right with it. were born into poverty or have fallen I'm borrowing money from Annie's chart reads like a textbook into it, thcii:s are stories about struggles Woodhouse and waiting for my public case of schizophrenia, mostly having for the rudiments of subsistence and assistance to come through." Annie is to do with delusions, hallucinations, the emotional struggles they face. In firm in hc:r decision not to apply for incoherence and inappropriate affect. each story, we hear how fragile it is to SSI, monthly payments provided to Annie believes her behavior is odd have a home. For some, having no disabled people, because "I don't only to North Americans. She insists place to live is related to mental ill want my name to be in the computer that "a Haitian psychiatrist, knowl ness. For others, the "breakdown" and I don't want to have problems in edgeable in 'psychologie de Loa' comes later, after suffering one too the furure." would understand that I'm oot insane many assaults. Others who seem to Annie has plenty of examples of or crazy." Episodes interpreted and hang in the balance between emo just how risky living ac Woodhouse treated as psychosis by those around tional and material vulnerabilities are can be. Recently, she met a young man her are to Anrne simply a reflection thrown over the edge by one last who seemed interested in getting to of "a spiritual problem I need to straw or another. know her better. When he called her work through." Annie says that dur During the three years she was at home, he got through to the main ing these so-called psychotic episodes, homeless, Annie frequented many a switchboard at Woodhouse. As he she is perfectly aware of what she is restaurant bathroom to keep clean later reported to Annie, the young doing and what is happening all and wash up. For the most part, she man made some inquiries about the through it. ''When I speak to myself remained invisible and kept out of residence and was told by the recep in Creole," Annie tells me, "I'm just trouble. She was arrested only once. riorust, "Woodhouse is a home for the getting into my spiritual self. Any Hai "You know," she begins the story, mentally ill." Annie is devastated and tian psychiatrist would be able to con "those restaurants where you pay af deeply ashamed. "It should be up to firm that." !er you eat? Well, I went in and or me when and what I tell him about "I hate the food at Woodhouse," dered lobster but 1 didn't have any Woodhouse," Annie asserts, "and it's Annie once comments, "It's joreigtl money to pay for it." Annie's little not that I was going to lie to him about food to me." splurge cost her two weeks in a Long my circumstances." One day, Annie fell apart, almost Island jail. "I want to get out of here," Annie pletdy. Her case manager discovered Annie also tried staying in a couple moans, "I can't stand institutional liv Annie bad been "cheeking her meds of municipal shelters. She considers ing." She reports more incidents. The for two months." Annie became hys shelters "horrible and dangerous" and other day, she had an argument with terical, once again manifesting what found the streets "a safer bet." Over Teri. Annie says Teri yelled at her for those around her consider to be bi no good reason. Annie argued back. several months last winter, Annie Jived zarre behavior - shaking uncontrol It escalated, and Annie began scream in the subway. "Oh my God," I blurt lably while hurling foul-mouthed in ing and cursing at Teri. "l used the 'f' out, "I can't believe you lived in the sults at anyone in her path. That day, subway in the 1 "It wasn't curse," Annie confesses. "And then I ui11terti111e." Annie was given the choice to take her so bad," she answers, "the Number got in trouble. The staff told me I medication or be hospitalized. 7 train is pretty warm!" can't use language like that and get into p a g c 16 • D c m o c r a t i c L c ft • Millennium Pa.rt One They say she's a paranoid schizo for herself. and she must therefore also .its rcpresentati\'es can do to ruin the phrenic. I hear that's the "best" Jcind reject Woodhouse, the means through rest of her life. In the end, the pain of of schizophrenia to have - the one which this "illness" would be con her 11Jness cannot be denied (whether with "the besr outcome" and the one strnctcd and become real. Annie docs sheadm.tts it or not) and the system that "goes into remission more often what Gilman warns us against. "The eventually takes her anyw:iy. This is the than the other forms." I manage to palpable signs of illness, the pain and tragic story of one young woman get hold of the pay-phone number suffering of the patient, cannot be trapped by contradictions in the prac on Annie's flot:>r in the "psvche ward" simply dismissed as a social construc tice and ideology of mental illness. ar Bellevue. The message is always the tion." The contradictions arc cli:aying. same. "Annie doesn't want co come There is more. Annie is not afo1id \\'oodhouse women arc at once vul to the phone," they tell me. only of stigma, bur dreads other con- nerable and strong, failures and survi sequenccs that would follow diagno- vors. They are at once in need of Od4Women01f sis. She refuses to be entered "into the "help," "healing," "teaching," which in "Mental illness is part of the potential computer [because] I don't wanr to cum is paternalistic and infantalizing, of the human condition," Professor have problems in the future." Annie and, at the same time, rhcy an: tn need of Psychiatry Sander Gilman ob docs not want to surrender the little of respect, freedom and autonomy, serves, "Ir has many possible mani freedom and autonomy she retains. To independence. Woodhouse is ar once festations, many causes, many out accept \'V'oodhouse's offer of help a home, nurturing, healing, caring, em comes." That the women arc captives would be to step into the system and bracing and it is also an institution, pn: of the mental health system as well as lose all control. As she puts it, "lt's carious, naming and labeling, part and carriers of the stigma associated with dangerous for me to live here, because parcel of constructing otherness and mental illness are clearly two aspects they can send you to a hospital or essemializing women's experiences of its many possible "ourcomcs." maybe prison." After all the illness and with P°''ercy, homelessness, mental ill Dixie tells us that people "think its pain arc real, how these are under- ncss. Just as the women signify our we're murderers." If not imagined as stood and handled is socially deter- social problems, Woodhouse is em "mad-dog criminals," the mentally ill mtned. Annie has perfectly valid con- blcmatic of our social solutions, al are, at the least, considered incompe cerns about the consc:guences of her ways fragmented and partial. tent. "We are all afraid of these 'mad diagnosis, though these mighL easily be people,' as they have been called over dismissed as her "paranoia." Among Alisse lf'la/1mton is an and over in both the media and offi the evcryda) results for the mentally urban a11thropolo.._1!/rt. cial pronouncements... and we must ill, according to Gilman, is their "iso- Excerpted and reprinted from Love, Sor defend ourselves... agaiost lthem]," lacion as if they had contagion ... and row, and Rage: Destitute Women in a Gilman summarizes the prevailing at the s~nse that they form another wo.rl Millennium Pan One • D e rn o c r a t i c L c ft • p a g c 17 The Social Denlocratic Welfare State: AchieveITlents, Crisis and Future BY JOHN D. STEPHENS markets, had exposed the costs im these three countties seemed to have posed by generous "":elfarc states and the formula for success as they had wenty years ago, when I wrote labor market regulations, and thus avoided the high unemployment char The Tra11sitio11 from Capitalism to these had to be cut back to restore acteristic of continental Europe, and fodalis111, the radical transforma T competitiveness or the country in had extremely high labor force par tion of capitalism was actually part question would suffer in terms of ticipation rates due primarily to the of the agenda of European social de slowed growth and increased unem high labor force participation of mocracy in many countries. After ployment. On the Left, social women, made possible by the exten having effectively abandoned the vi democracy's defenders lamented that sive day care, parcnral leave, and other sion of socialism in che early post war increased ~apital mobility had not only such policies cushioning parenting and period, most social democratic par deprived social democracy of macro work. By 1993-94, the situation had ties moved to the Left in the 1970s, economic tools to fight unemploy changed as unempk>) ment had risen adopting proposals for greater menrand samulate growth, it had also to 6% in Norway, 81/11 in Sweden, and worker control in the workplace and strengthened capital's hand vis-a-\'is greater social or worker ownership 18% mFinland. It appeared char the go\'ernments, making it possible for social democratic model did not of the means of production. The capital to demand 10\ver taxes and less work anymore. Swedish social democrats had regulation. Thus, 1t was not primarily Based on excensive quantitative adopted the wage earner fund pro that globalization stood in the way of analysis and comparative case studies posal, which, in its original form, deepening social democracy's achieve of welfare state reforms in advanced would have entailed the gradual so ment but, rather, that the crowning capitalist societies, E"clyne Huber and cialization of production in the coun achievement of post war social de I have argued that the nco-libcral crit try, and the French Left had made ex mocracy, full employment and the ics and pessimistic defenders of the tensive social ownership part of its universal and comprehensive welfare social democratic welfare state were common platform. With the election state, was now in danger. too quick to sound the death knell of of Mitterrand in 1981 and the return It was the unemployment crisis of social democracy. Given the latest of the Swedish social democrats to the early 1990s in Sweden and Fin glowing reports on the Swedish government the next year, it appeare~ land and, to a lesser c:.xtent, Norway, ecunom); we can say, with the ben for a fleecing moment thar these radi that appeared to seal the case for the efit of hindsight, that we ""'ere cor cal dreams might be realized. argument that the new era of global rect. In fact we can lay to rest all that I do not need to remind DL read ization inevitably meant a rollback of chatter heard once on the I eft to deni ers that it was noc long until the French social democr:tcy's fuU employment grate the achievement of social de socialist government reversed its welfare state. As of the late 1980s, mocracy. Even among acaclcmics sym- course. The reversal of course was attributed to vulnerability ofthe coun try to international capital and currency flows. In Sweden, the social demo crats watered down the wage earner fund proposal and what was passed was liquidated by the bourgeois gov ernment elected in 1991. While it is difficult to connect the demise of the wage earner funds directly to interna tional capital flows, the economic dif ficulties of Sweden that led to the bourgeois election victory have been frequently linked to "globalization" by commcntacors on both the left and the right. On the right, neo-liberal crit ics of social democracy claimed that rhc internationalization of economic relations and of trade and financial Convention delegates conclude session in song! p a g c 18 • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • Millennium Part One pathetic to social democracy, tt was claimed that the movement had achieved nothing. The welfare scate was not a distinctly social democratic project and, moreover, it did not re distribute income between classes, only between generations. Today, almost no one defends this DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISTS & view. l t is •widely conceded among social scientists studying welfare states OF AMERICA -·&- "7' that social democratic governments, particularly in Nordic nations, not only were responsible for welfare state would seem to call these models into mance of the export sector was piv expansion, but also that they built a question. The developments arc otal for the economic welfare of the type of welfare state that is universal linked since the cutbacks were a re country. These welfare states were istic, solidaristic, and highly redistribu sponse to the rise in uncmploymenc. constructed to be compatible with tive, both between classes and genders. It is the liming and seventy of the export competitiveness. One of the social scientific break rollbacks that argues that chey were In the case of the Christian throughs that has buttressed this con largely unemployment driven. The Democratic welfare states, the rise in clusion was the closely comparable countries where unemployment rose unemployment was partly due to their income distribution data compiled b} early initiated cuts in the mid-1970s; inability to absorb the increasing en Luxembourg Income Surveys (LIS). the countries where unemployment try of women into the labor force Conventional measures of income m rose late continued to expand welfare e1ther through an expansion of low C Millennium Part One • D e m o c r a t i c L c ft • p a g e 19 now prevalent in Europe. \'<'ith open jectc p a g c 20 • D c m o c r a t i c L e f t • Millennium Part One • Coming Attractions fo the au/1111111qf19 58, r,;·o pret'io11sfy Jmdti~I!, groups ON thr Leji- the / 11dept11- dmt Soria/isl I -eag11r (JS!.) lfd by Max Shacht111a11, a/Ol~f!, ll'ilh ifSJ'Ollth ajjlliate the 10t11({{ Sotiali.rl f ...f{/f,fle (Yr!.), and the So ciali.rl Pt1r[)' (.\ f>) led !~)' N omitm 1 "/Jo11Jas, a/011<1!, 11 1ith il.r )'Otflh {/J/iliale the }om~ People's Socwlt.rt 1-t·agHe (Y/>SL) joinrd forces i11 a 1mi(J conl'enlion. Altho11gh this mtf)' .ree111 r1 rather 111i11orjoot11ote to the his tory qf A!lmica11 lefi-11i1~1!, sectana11fr111. the el'enl wo11/d profo1111df)' ajfecl the fit111rt' rn reer a11d outlook of one l'l'lmm ofthe r:S'L, n thirty )'Mr-old socialist 11t111;ed Alichael fiarri11gto11, as described i11 "'' t•:-.:mptJro111 1\1amice 1ssm11rm 's (nrthco111ing hiograpl!J qf DSA'sjo1111dti{I!, Chai1: Lditors l\Tote. fount! signs that "the sixties were be the Uni,·ersity of British Columbia ginning to ~air \\'ithin the fifties and before rerurning to New York. In February 1959 1\fichacl re ln the months following the our tmy socialist movement was ported to the YPSL national cxecu merger in 1958, the Young People's emerging from its sectarian isolation." tive committee on his tour, a report Socialisr League (YPSL) numbers The tour took him.to the former cen issued as a pamphlet entitled The St·w were still pitifully small: the group ters of YSL strength- Chicago, Left: ']'be Relew111re Democmtir Social counted twn hun Millennium Part One • D e rn o c r a t i c L c ft • p age 21 minent "political realignment," the har people Jive in the presence of Mount to drop out and move to Greenwich binger "not of a third party of pro R:untcr.... Driving in the city, one never Village. But he saw no contradiction test, but of a real second party of the knows when the turning of a corner between the personal impulses that people." will reveal the aspect of beauty. On a ha p a g c 22 • D c m o c r a ti c Le ft • Millcunium Part One Rethinking the Theory and Politics of Christian Socialism BY GARY DoRRIEN talism poses the questions; how much of capitalism. The parallel should be It is a truism, often lamented by of that vision is salvageable? How instructiw, for it , ..· as precisely Marx's neconsen·atives, that modern Chris much can be redeemed in a political vagueness and utopianism with regard tian theology has been largely a social culrure m which "socialism" mostly ro the socialist al rernativc that allO\vcd democratic tradition. Most of the conjures up images of killing fields, generations of totalitarian thugs ro call major Christian theologians of the prison camps, bureaucratic stagnation themselves Marxists. past century haYe shared the dream and economic bach11ardness? Is it In liberation rheology this predis of a transformed economic order. possible to reclaim the democratic so position has heightened in recent years From the social gospel progres cialist and social Christian vision of with tbe ascendancy of posm1odcrn sivism of \'fashington Gladden and democratized economic power at a and mulnculturalist thcorv. As in Sbailer Mathews to the social gospel time when corporate capitalism is postmodern discourse. theory as a socialism of Walter Rauschenbnsch turning the whole world into a single whole, there is a pronounced tendency and George Herron, to the Anglican predatory market? in current liberation theology to em- social democracy of William Temple and Charles Raven and to the neo ~- orthodox socialism of Karl Barth and Emil Brunner, to the neo-Marxism of Paul Tillich and the early Reinhold Niebuhr on to the Catholic socialism of Johanne!' Metz, Daniel Maguire and Gregory Baum m the liberation theologies of Gustavo Gucicrrez, Rosemary Reuther, and James Cone to the ccotheologies of Sallie McFague, John B. Cobb, Jr. and Jurgen Moltmann, most of this century's major theologians have called for progressive-structural alter natives to capitalism. Theologians like myself have inherited a tradition of transformational rhet0tic from them. One of the key weaknesses of phasize cultural cncicism and various At the same time we have inherited a recent Christian socialism in address kinds of identity polit:tcs while avoid legacy of cultural accommodation ing these questions has been its reluc ing any discussion of economic alter from churches and religious thinkers tance to define its subject and address natives. Certainly these forms of criti who were anxious to secure a rcspect the concrete problems that inhere m cism have raised issues that cannot be a ble place 1n the prevailing order. different strategies for cconoffilc de merely added to an inherited Chris There is a puzzling contradiction be mocrac). Liberation theology in par tian socialism. The effort to democ tween the lofty rhetoric and the prac ticular has produced a sizable Chris ratize power must take place not only tices of modern Christianity. Today tian socialist literature, but precious at the point of production (as in these contradictions are magnified by little of it deals with the relationships Marxism), or in the electoral arena (as the pitiable state of progressive poli between democracy and socialism or m liberalism), but also in what Man tics and by the decline of mainline the trade-offs that different economic ning Marable call~ "the livmg place" Christianity as a public force. strategies presem or even distingufah - the post industrial community This century began with tmging among different kinds of socialism. where people struggle ro create envi social gospel hopes for economic For example, a theologian like ronments that arc more diverse and democracy and a new "cooperative Gustavo Gutierrez is quire precise m ecological and hospitable than those commonwealth." The end of the cen describing the ideologies and eco in which most of us live. Democratic tury that bas witnessed the erosion of nomic order that he rejects, but, like socialism today requires a multi-cul progressive religiotis energies and the Marx, his wrirings on political tural, femirust, lCologicaJ conscious apparent tdumph of global capi- economy are consumed by his critique ness that challenges and transforms its Millennium Part One • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g e 23 inherited economism. But at the same the holding companies are kept in a ally avoided the rhetoric of socialism. time, it is a mistake to think that any weak position, the entrepreneurial He worried in the early 1940s that serious challenge to existing relations advantages of the mutual fund model "socialism" was already unalterably of power can ignore the factors of are traded off as the client enterprises associated with left-authoritarian poli production. Cultural theory may ap essentially become cooperatives.Apart tics, partly because democratic social pear to be more manageable and re from the fundamental question of ist economic strategies were typically warding than the seemingly hopeless control, the most serious question that difficult to distinguish from authori problem of eguality, but every needs to be addressed is whether the tarian state socialism. He opposed struggle for social justice has an eco holding companies posited in social state socialism while appreciating that nomic dimension. Gains toward so market theory are too decentralized for most people "socialism" meant cial and economic democracy are to compete in markets dominated by economic nationalization and central needed today for the same fundamen large, ruthless, integrated corporations. ized state government. He therefore tal reason that political democracy is The upshot of these problems for avoided socialist language and ideol necessary: to restrain the abuse of un me is not that we should forger about ogy in making his case for decentral egual power. democratizing economic power, but ized economic democracy. As he ex Today we need, and are slowly that no single scheme to redistribute plained in Christiani/.)' and the Social Or gerting, work that explores the poli power should be universalized or en der, he fervently hoped to convince tics and economics of cooperative shrined as the next object of faith. everyone of the need for greater so ownership, mixed forms of decen Economic democracy is a project that ci~I and economic democracy, but he tralized worker and community own must be built from the group up, piece judged that few people outside the ership, and especially, the problems by piece, operating new choices, cre trade unions and the activist political and possibilities of mutual fund own ating new forms of democratic Left would e\•er embrace socialism. ership strategies. We need work that power, seeking to build a new social Temple was not interested in bol takes on the problems of external fi order that is more egalitarian, coop stering socialist ideology with the nance, innovation, and competitive erative and ecological than the pre prestige of Christian faith. He vigor ness that worker-ownership strategies vailing order. It is a project that breaks ously promoted economic democracy present. With regard to mutual fund from the universalizing logic of state as a Christian ethical project while re strategics, we need work that spells socialism. No political economy jecting the progressive Christian ten our the possible functions of the hold worth building would force workers dency to sacralize socialist ideology. ing companies that would invest col into cooperatives that they don't want The difference is crucial. Though so lectively owned social capital. Mutual ro join. As David Belkin observes, cialist theory has provided a seemingly fund models typically establish hold however, a politics that expands the indispensable conceptual framework ing companies in which ownership of cooperative nnd social ownership sec and \'ocabulary for much of modem productive capital is vested. How tors could gi\'e new opportunities to religious social thought, progressive much control should these companies workers. It could create the precon Christianity cannot attribute divine possess over their client enterprises? ditions of economic democracy by sanction to any ideology, including ls it feasible to separate entrepreneur creating choices that neoclassical democratic socialism, without impli ial and production risks? Is it feasible theory promises, but doesn't deliver. cating itself in idolatry. to expect holding companies to bear The figure who has been most Perhaps the most influential ap capital risks without sharing in the helpful to me in sorting our the rela proach to religious political engage profits they help to generate? tionship between progressive Chris ment devised 10 this century is The trend in democratic socialist tianity and the politics of economic Reinhold Niebuhr's Christian realism. theory is toward the murual fund ap democracy is William Temple, the As the last theologian to make a sig proach, which seeks co mitigare the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury nificant impact on American politics, various problems that worker-owned during World War II. Temple as Niebuhr is repeatedly held up as the firms confront in the entrepreneurial sumed, as I do, that Christian ethics model of how nonfundamentalist field. A critical problem with the must struggle, fallibly and provision Christianity should speak to the domi mutual fund approach is that it weak ally, to theorize and practice the best nant culture and seek to influence it. ens the democratic power of work attainable politics of the common In a generation that experienced the ers at the firm le\'el. Economic de good without sacralizing this construc apparent futility of tht liberal social mocracy theorists typically cry co deal tion. Though he produced some of gospel, he gave American Christian with this problem by placing as much the most creative and programmatic ity an alternative rhetoric, policies, and control as possible in decentralized Christian socialist thinking of this cen theology. His first attacks on Chris holding companies that work closely tury, in his lacer work Temple firmly tian liberalism called the church to with firm managements. This "politi resisted the tendency of his movement throw off its moralism to join the cally correct" preference has its own to equate social Christianity with class struggle against a dying capitalist problems, however. To the extent that democratic socialism, and he gener- order. He later called the church to p a g e 24 • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • Millennium Part One throw off its moralism to join the the church by accepting the liberal gitimizing, integrating pnnc1plc of militar) struggle against fascism. l le bourgeois dichotomy between a vir \\'estern culture should be taken up enlisted Christian support for tue-producing private realm and an by democratic socialism. Specifically, America's world-embracing cold war instrumental/technocratic public in The Politics al Cod's F1111em/ he called against communism. His dialectical realm. But che prac realism defined for his rheological tical effect of this generation what the "realities" of strategy - for all of politics and ethics were. i\tore rhan Niebuhr's greamess, any theologian of this century, he his passion for justice, made American Christianity face the and his enormous question of what it means to exercise influence - \i..·as to power in a morally responsible way. deepen the accom For Niebuhr theology has to modation of main translate the moral, social and even re line Protestantism to ligious meaning of Christian commit the dominant order. ment into secular terms. This project The churches gave of translation would enable Christians up ·whatever re to play a role in the political sphere mained of an iden and enable others to make sense of tity that resisted or Christian claims. Niebuhr drew a cru distinguished them cial distinction between Christian from the dominant moral identity and the social mission culture. Under the of the church. The Christian social terms of Niebuhrian mission was not to transform the so realism, liberal Prot cial order in the light of the biblical estantism claimed no vision of justice, community and voice or vision of its peace, as the social gospelers claimed, own in rhc public but rather to provide religious sup sphere. It was re port for a secular liberal agenda that duced to support served the social struggle for justice. work for anti-com Christian realism made an enor munism and other mously \'aluable contribution to so causes endorsed by cial ethics through its emphasis on the the secular liberal es- pervasi\·e, indwelling, and systemic tablishment. Christian realism pro for a new "united front" of religious reality of e''il in individuals and espe pounded an understanding of poli and secular socialists to redeem the cially in all social institutions. Niebuhr's tics that kept the churches as rh11rches values of religious socialism and fill writings persistently drove home the out of the public arena. But if the the void left by terminal \X'estern reli point that every social gain creates the meaning of religious faith can be gions. The new socialist united front possibility of new forms of social translated into secular terms, why would recm·er the values of progres evil. But this beHef ultimately eviscer bother with religion? sive Judaism and Christianity, he ated Niebuhr's vision of a good so Niebuhr underestimated the need wrote, "but not in religious form.'' It ciety that transcends the prevailing or for religious communities that take up would reguire the religious wing to der. The passion for economic justice the public struggle for justice in their subordinate its religious concerns to that fueled his early work gave way own language, in their own way and the needs of the movement in order to the status quo politics of the "Vital for their own reasons. In /;i.r own way, to promote the values it held in com Center" Democratic establishment. :-.!ichael Ilarrington's thinking about mon with other socialists . .Mike be Niebuhr's later thinking became an religion also undercut the role that he lieved that progressive religious val example of the truism that without a wanted progressive religious commu ues could survive without religion and normative ''i-;ion of a good society, nities to play in American politics. As he assumed that religion was dying social ethics remains captive to the a reasonably good Marxist, Mike be anyway. Socialism was therefore a dominant order. Lacking an imagina lieved that religion was passing into vehicle to keep progrcssi\'e religious tive forward-looking dimension, his oblh-ion, but he also worried that the values alh-c. influential "realism" restricted itself to passing of legitimizing religious au "But Mike," I would say, "what marginal reforms within the existing thorit:y was leaving Western societies if religion isn't dying after all? What system. ·nie borders to possibility re without a moral basis to inspire vir if the suryh·al of reltgion ts fa1 more mained unrested. tue or define common values. He pro certain than the sun·ival of socialism? Niebuhr tried to sa\'c a place for posed that the job of providing a le- J\nd what if the socialist movement Millennium Pan One • D c m o c r a c i c Le f I • p a g e 25 that you want actually needs Uving, ,.;ta} religious currents to sustain itself?" l ncn:r got very far with him on this subject. Mike was good at beginning. a discussion of religion, but he quickly became: uneasy m talking about it. It was evident that he was an example of rhe possibiUn that he hoped for, howcYcr. Though nm a religious be lie,·er, he was as religiously musical and as deeply influenced by Christian moral teaching as anyone I'Ye known. Mike had an eschatology, which he offered many times at the end of a speech. "] [ you consider your coun· try capable of democratic sociaUsm," Honorary Chair Barbara Ehcrcnrcich addresses pre-convention public meeting; he would say, "you must do two Faat1g OJ) ./lgainsl The Glohal Ero110fl1.J. things. First, you must deeply loYc and trust your country. You must sense the dignity and humaruty of the people who survive and grow within your country despite the injustice of its sys tem. And second, you must recognize that the social vision to which rou are committing yourself will never be fulfilled in your liferime." Scripture says, "the memory of the righteous is a blessing." 1\nd so it is. Gary Donien, Professor afld Chair of Rrli,_e,io11s Studies at Knla111azoo College, jmtpJtblirhedThc Barthian Revolt in Modern Theology: Theology Without Weapons (lr'tst111insler john Former Berkelcv, K110x Prt'rs, 1999). This article is Califorrua ~byor a,.;d adapted fro111 his lecture at a 1996 newly elected DSA co11Jere11ce 011 'The rit111re of the lf7e!fare Honorary Chair Gus State" at Ci!J• Collet,e of Ne111 York • e\\pon:spokent the G'mdHclle Center, which honored the pre convention public 111en101y of Michael Harrington mcetmgtoo. Philadelphta DS, \ dclegaces co San Diego National Convenoon hard at work. pa g c 26 • D cm o c rat i c L c ft ; Mi\'cnniurn Part One Talkin' About a Revolution: How Being Online Has Changed Our Lives BY ANDI!-EW HAMMER use the same compute1 screen, and ul ones. It is no\\' possible for someone timately we arc all lnoh.,ng at the same in Ne\\' York and someone in New In the past ten years, the Internet glowing box Ill our offices and Zealand to have a daily correspon has gone from being a novel i1wen homes. The difference 1s that we pro dence, or even a real-time written dis tion used b} lmtvers1t1es, sctenttsts, gram this network ourseh-es. cussion, on the drafting of a political go\ crnment agencies, and a few Al the same time, the use of e document. E·mail ltsts (which connect mail means that communication about any number of u'>crs to the same string people JO the know, w a center of communicati1)0, ideas, and commerce of messagcs now used nullions round the globe. through one central Part libran·. part tclcvis1un, the \X'orld address) and chat rooms abound, Wide \Xcb (\\•\v\\~ or 'the Web' -- J graphicall~ -based multimedia method where issues of the of prO'l;1dtng information through day as \veil as the the Jnternet) has made It possible for politics of particu · an) one interested in anyrhing to sim Jar organizations arc ph enter a word JOto a search page, discussed and de and find something somewhere on the bated. Internet th.tt addresses that rop1c. 'Jl1c fact that For the sodalist movemenr, the so many people are \\ \V'\X has in some \vays been rhe now cunnecred, greatest equalizer we have ever had, with far more to in that our ideas arc made as ac ces connect in the fu siblc to the public a~ major news out run.:, has gi\'en rise to lets. But as \\ ith any new technol< >gi the idea of online cal development, there arc both light democracy, where and dark sides to the Internet'~ entry people arc actually into our lives. able to vote those ideas can occur between people through their computer. That's crucial World Without Borders in a wa\· that has ne,·er before been in more ways than one, because along possibl~. The creation of the online with ideas, and the ability to shape The ability of the \\'eb to make in campaign, in which people use Web them, comes the accessibility lo those formanon available without regard to based petitions, e-mail li~ts, and e-mail ideas by people who may have felt time or space has me:mt that anyone lettcr-writtng campaigns to raise excluded in the past. People with dis with an idea can publish it and put Jt a\\·areness about a parucular issue, has abilities who may find it difficult to JO front of our faces jusr as easily as allo\,·ed people to participate m po ha\'C their ideas heard in a traditional corporationc; and major media out litical activi-.m instantaneous!) frnm setting, elderly people who find travel lets. The obvious benefit of this for anywhere on the planet \\'hile ir's more difficult, or simply people whose live:-: socialists and others on the left is that common to have an ongoing politi or income level make it difficult to we are finally ahlc to break out of cal campaign brought onto the attend face-to-face meetings or pub the financial constraints on our ability Internet, the p:1st few years have seen lic forums arc now enabled to take a to reach the public h} conventional campaigns on 1s~ues originated online, scat at the discussion table through means (printing costs, broadcast and such as the Free Burma Coalition. In online forums. prim media access, travd, etc.), and the case of the J ubilce 2000 campaign 1\s we cross over into a new cen can now reach millions frum one to relieve world debt, the \\i'cb was tury, we may haYc achieved the faint computer tu another. The acccssihil used tn expand the mcH'cment by beginnings of a form of democracy it) of an idea no longer hinges on helping to create new international that heretofore was only imagined by what CNN or The Nm· York times branches of a mm•cmcnt that had science fiction writers. The world is will tdl us, or what books and publi started out in Hrnam. smaller, the barriers between us are c:uic)ns our libranes and ~hops ch< iosc Yet more important is the nb1lity tbcorc.tically shrinking. and our poten (or more significantly for our move not cinly to d1i;cm·cr and 1oin in with tial to build a truly international move mtm, don't choose) to stock. In the cxistmg ideas, but to use the I mcrnet ment is great. But before we get too online world, CNN and DS1\ both to panicipate in the crcatwn of new carried away with all of the wonder- come over the same phone lines and :Vfillcnnium Part One • D c m o c r a t i c L c ft • p a g c' 27 ful things this new technology can do, sought out and created places online comes an 011/i11e ghetto composed only Jet's take a look at some of the prob where they can exchange ideas among of those who have computers, spend lems we've already encountered. themselves, much as they have had to a great deal of time online, and have do m the real world. However, the either the stamina or stubbornness to Ivory Terminals and goal for those of us online should be argue endlessly amongst themselves 1 0ffhftl Masses' to check the way we are communi about the minutiae of their organiza cating, to make sure that there is the tion. The larger issues, the whole mem While lower prices and aggressive more important human dimension. bership, and the community we ad programs by both business and gov Not far from that problem is one vocate for are left behind for the sake ernments have worked to make com that affects not only our movement, of the cyber-jockies, who may not puters more available to the masses, but all organizations that involve some even be members of the organization most people in the world rema1n sort of appeal to their members and the forum is based upon. Things like offline. Of those who are online, the the general public. The level of dis mentoring, and the acguisirion of demographic 1s still predominately course on the Net is so guick, so fas knowledge 10 the context of life ex middle to upper class males in indus cinating, that ir becomes very easy for perience, arc often replaced by naked trialized nations. To be sure, there are political actiYists of all stripes to de opinion derived from sweet-sound thousands of people actively using the velop and attach a false sense of mean ing documents of position and prin Internet in Bolivia, Azerbaijan, and ing to their online communications. ciple not based in any real social prac Ghana, but the concern that the \V/c in the American left are well aware tice. The problem is that for better or Internet excludes developing nations that we have hisrorically lacked a sig worse, none of this contemplating is certainly valid. And even within na nificant base in our communities and philosophising makes it out into tions that are highly connected to the that is, any kind of real day to day the real world, and even it does, words Net, class, gender and race are issues political involvement with the people alone do not translate themselves into that have to be considered when we we claim to represent. The danger ts actions. It's people who do the translat start talking about how great it is that that for some of us, the Internet has mg. So while the Internet does pro "everyone" is onlinc. They're nor, and become a substitute for that face ro vide us a mar\'clous opporruntry to you can be assured that this article is face action in the community. Those reach out to the world around us like not the only place where you will read who are more comfortable ventmg ne,·er before, we have to guard against about the danger of a brave new their brain on a screen (where they are becoming so absorbed in the com online world of creativity, conversa ensconced in a virtual, Platonic "round munit) online that we disappear from tion, and commerce that leaves out table" of intellects) than they are deal the other community; the one that sup millions of working and poor people. ing with real Hve working people, run plies the phone lines and electricity, as And women. They are going the risk ofgetting lost in a sea ofonline well as water, underfunded transport onHne in increasing numbers, but that pontificating that becomes an ivory and cducauon, and almost no health brings us to another issue regarding moat around the proverbial ivory care except for those lucky enough to how the Internet has worked 1n prac cower. The virtual communit) replaces have insurance. More than the tele tice as opposed to the ideal. As I men the actual one, talk itself becomes a phone or radio or television, the per tioned above, the text of an e-mail substitute for action, and people see sonal computer is changing the way list takes away all of the physical char their online musings as accomplish we work, think, learn, buy, and com acteristics by which we would nor ments when they arc really nothing muntcate. It's an opportunity to build mallr judge the various authors of more than parts of the same ongo a truly global village, and in the pro messages. But what it does nor take ing conversation we always seem to cess of coming closer together, to re away i~ the socialization of men and carry on among ourselves. shape the ways of the world. But in women into roles given to us long ago. Across the political spectrum, we order to do it we need to Man} of us have seen the television have seen online communities spring dccommodify and democratize the studies of classrooms that show boys up where a particular group of new web order. constantly r:using their hands to an people around one organtzation be swer guestions (even when the) 're not gin talkmg about that organization, Afldre111 Ha111111er is the lt/'ebn1aJ/er far sure they know the answer), while the drafting policy, and making decisions DSA, afld has designed a 11111JJber of Web girls wait to be called upon. Unfortu without even realising that 50 people sties far the soda list 11101>en1ent, including nately, the lnrcrnet hasn't changed that engaged in an online forum is not the fonalist lntematio11al )t/'on1en. He is the at all, and it's not likely to as long as organization, and is nor properly rep Co1111111111fratio11s Director far !he foterna sn many of the men online continue resentati\'e of that organization. The tronal Leag11e of Religious .focialisls, and result is that the number of active par to feel that each one of their many a Jvn'ter. contributions is essential reading for ticipants in an already small organiza us all. To their credit, women have tion is shrunk even more by what be- p a g e 28 • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • Millennium Part One Interview: Stephen Eric Bronner WITH MICHAEL J. THOMPSON DL: What gives social democracy, to which people with more radical "explicit. " !Fhat ir the co1mectio11? ls it or liberalism in general, mlidity or positions could retreat an Millennium Part One • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g c 29 ticc. In the 20di century, a$ one promi Bur it is also true that the way people foster a new sense of obligation to nent leader of the labor movement ;ue educated, the mO\•ies they sec, the the Third \Vorld and alw bring the once stated, "\\'e can sec the socialist books they read, the music they hear Vietnam \'\'ar to an end. \\1hen King future appearing as present." In other can either foster political action or in was killed, it was at ~fcmphis at a words, you could literally sec the con hibit it. Ultimately, however, a pomt strike of sanitation workers and he nection between an ideal and the way comes \\hen you say to yourself: the was crying co de' clop the poor It was being rcafo.cd. \\ hen ~Ian.: and arbitrar) exercise of power simply people's mo\'cment, a 1110\cment con .Marxism bi.:c.unc popular it was be isn't just and something has to he done cerned with economic equality and lie\'cd that the working class was to quell that. social justice in the United States. growing and you could sec this Now, that's what I mean by say If you think of these three mo through the rise of the great social ing that the type of theory you choose ments brought together 1 think )OU democratic parties. In Germany is a function of a certain moment of have the framework in which your around 1875, there were about 30,000 practical decision. Mine is a very weak nc\\' movement should operate. Now, orgaruzed l\1arxist workers. By 1912 position; it doesn't offer rhe certitude whar insticution will bring this about? there were o\'er four million. This of historical materialism. lt obviously ~1)' sense is that this is a question that, was something that rang true through puts socialism on the dcfcnsi\'e, and to a certain extent, has to remain out Europe and so, any working class so it must since all it has is an ethical open. It would he nice co han! a party. person could say, capitalism is indeed claim backing 1t up. But l think chat's But bringing a party about is not that creating its gran:diggers. l think that simply true. I bclic\'e my philosophi easy, especially in the US where, shall the belief in an ine\'itable re\'olurion cal posidon reflects the practical situ we Sa), existing laws pr0\1de a disin which would bring about a society in ation we're in and I don't think there's ccnti\'e to the formation of third par which the free development of each a party any longer which still works ties. I can envision an organization, is a precondition for the free de\'cl with the assumption that C2pitalism is something like the po1)r people's opment of all has lost all its guaran going to collapse on "scientific moyement, that is neither reducible co tees. This is no longer a fo•cd goal grounds." By the same token - gi\'cn a collection of single interests nor a which can inform our practice. It's the rise of the Greens, the refashion political party. true, of course, that even orthodox ing of old communist panics, and the The key point is to move beyond Marxists spoke ofthere being a choice growth of oppositional factions the fragmentation we arc currently between socialism and barbarism. within the social democratic main experiencing because I fear that the But the fact of the matter was that stream - it no longer rcaUy matters current problem with the left is that everyone at that time believed they what party you're in whether it's as a we arc in a situation where the whole knew which would win out. And that feminist or as a member of the is less than the sum of its parts. was the great success of~1arxism. Its NAACP or as an ecologist. Is an in teleology guaranteed commitmenr; dividual willing to foster the class ideal; DL: Dou one dispeme 11ith the 11otio11 ef people h.-new that down the road the and work for working people within crisis as the s1arti11gpoi11I far one's rritique creation of a JUSt society would vali all groups by working for it within ef capitalis111, either rto110111ir or political? date their political sacrifices. No one one's own group? cant,1\larantec, any longer, that the sac SB: You can no longer work from rifices people make m their everyday DL: You OJttline ho11• the 11eu• soda/ 111ove- the assumpaon that the economic crisis live:; can e\'er be \•alidated. 11Jf1/IIfi1il lo lil'I: 1tp to the progmsi1•e tradi is linked to political crisis. The work J\nd what that means is that you tion ef ll'hirh sodalis111 is a part. lf7hat, ing class has become more di\'crsified, can no longer begin with the tradi JJ 011/d a 11tn'!odalist t11ore11Jenl consist of? the idea of a strucniral conflict be tional a~:;uthption that you join a tween classec; no longer leads to any mo\'cmcnt, or t:ike a position, be SB: It makes no sense to simply cas prescribed political response. The re cause you think it will be successful. tigate all social movements. Most of sponse can go to the left and to the Instead, you join a mo\'cment, you rhem have progressive tcnclcnc1es, right. Indeed, if only for this reason, take a position, you stake a claim, be obviously some more than others. My it seems that one must privilege the cause you think it's the right thing to p:iradigmacic movement would be class ideal in theory and organi~cd do. That's the primacy of ethics for the Ci\'il Rights mo\'cmcnt and the politics in practice. \Y./e must once any form of emancipatory form of tradition of .\fartin Luther King. If again begin to unify the common in socialist politics. you think of where King began with terests of workers in.a concrete way. getting blacks the \'Ote, getting them I don't sec any other alternati\'e. DL: JP'ht1! mjomJS that act, lo take a into office, attempting to change the stance and 111t1ke that BY PAUL B UHLE (in part by DSAers), outvoceJ and out would surely have changed labor and the door, replaced by self-described might haYe changed the world, but it Just a few years ago, the story of reformers. 1'1canwhilc, thousands of didn't happen that way, and we arc American labor seemed like one of graduate srudents formed unions, and more than rorty years behind. The those oversold mm ies whicb start out yet more undergraduates looked to grand projecr of labor reform, r.vin grandly, drift into heavy action with labor causes, especially the imanacional to potential labor alliances with stu special effects, and wind down as the sweatshop, as a prime campus issue. dents, women, minorities and others audience heads for the exits. Several Labor teach-ins brought progressive near the bottom of society, has far to mini-generations of young idealists, unionists and campus audiences back go and many well-placed opponents, rpany of them tn DSJ\ or like-minded together in ways iinforcsccn a decade some of them within the AFL-CIO. feminist and labor reform organiza earlier In 1997, "Scholars, Artists and A staff writer for Fonmrd, a news tions, had thrown their energies into \\'riters for Social Justice" (St\\\'SJ) paper which long saw itself intimately the labor movement only to face odds formed, with a ver) DSA like pro allied with a socialist or, later, reformist so daunting that most drifted out gram and the blessings of the Jobn section oflabor, recently commented again. Practically a whole generation Sweeney adminismuion. E'en labor that organized labor's pro-business of radical historians, beading to hiswry looked mon: interesting again. faction had indeed been temporarily graduate school on the wa,·c of anti Ne\·cr, in fact, bad rhings looked bet defeated, bur that success in a heralded war campus uprisings, had declicaced ter for democratic socialists since the drive to "organize high-wage work itself to rediscovering the secret his Cold War purge of Lcftwtng uruons ers in Silicon Valley and across the in tory of working class life "from be and unionists a half-centur) ago. formation technology" could even low," in forgotten strikes and the tur Things were, and arc, regrettably tually overcome momentum in the moil of daily struggles for bread and not so wonderful. An AFL-ClO direction ofwhat the writer contemp digruty Not unlike their activist cous united behind progressive social ruously called "the hkcs of strawberr} ins, they produced a library of solidly movements (peace, antiracism, femi workers." At that point, the ol Millennium Part One • D c m o c r a t i c L c ft • p a g c 31 votes neede p a g e 32 • D c m o c r a t i c L c ft • MilJennium Part One George l\feany and Lane Kirkland th·iscs, <.:specially the foreign-born, sors. The Pan American Federation of would u.;;e global realities to gain as blacklisting good unionists and Labor. hunched \\'ith secret gm·ern sist::tnce of corporations and inrelli spreading "red scares" through the ment funding, and the intellectual as gencc agencies to crush radical or press and politicians' rhetoric. It was sistance of turncoat former socialists, 1.:galitanan challenges at home and this brutalization, along with appeals was intended to place control of all abroad. ro race and ethnic prejudice, which Latin J\merican unions in Gompers' And \'Ct such intcrprcrationc; do doomed the Knights and the labor hands. By the time of his death it was not fulh nplain the tragic misdirec party movement. A Democratic Party a dead letter, and the attempts during tion of tit .\mcrican labor main which then represented the revanchist the 1930s ro establish U.S.-controlled stream. \\e need to consider bnefly South, triumphing over a racially unions supporting American oil cor the anti-Gompers altcrnati\·es. The mixed Populist movement by playing porations in Mexico also failed. turning point of American labor was the "race card" even as lynchings ac Gompers also failed American la about a century ago. Jf the Ameriam celerated, along \'l:ith exclusion of bor. including the .i\FL itself, in an working class up to that point had African-Americans from jobs and other kev regard. \\'hen the First been deeply .di,·ided b) race and residences taken over by new Euro \X'orld \\ar broughc a sudden short ethnicity, it was nonethelec;s impres pean immigrants in northern states, age of labor, working people; and ex si\'c 111 its sometimes ferocmus mili· brought Gompers home to the idea perienced unionises, including many tancy and the willingness of consid of a poht1cal coalition suited to his socialists, mobilized to strike in un erable sectic ir1s to rnke on realities, like purposes. TI1ereafter, the notion of a precedented numbers, and to orga the organizaoon ofAfncan-American labor ticket or even the demand that nize so successfully that by 1919 Jn· workers that European counterparts Democrats embrace small "d" demo dustrial unionism seemed around the did nor face. The Krughts of Labor, cratic principles in race, gender or true corner. Gompers so successfully de a half-million strong wich female 111a· class terms, were viewed with ex mobilized militants that when business jo1i1ies in man) factories, h:ld begun to treme hostility. Gompers demanded howled "Bolshevism," and Prc.sident throw labor's weight against che eco his ''cut" from the electoral spoils, al Woodrow \\'ilson's reign of oppres nrnnic authorirnnanic;m of corpora though he consistently exaggerated the sion spread from vigilante violence to tions by simpl) caking over daily op real effects of labor legislation within police raids to lengthy jail sentences, eration of producing goods. 1\ labor Congress, and ignored the influence labor ca\'cd in before the coming parry, followtng the rise of the Re of industrial unionists propelling poli corporate counreroffensivc. By the publican Part} organized just thirty ticians to make concessions co the middle 1920s, nearly e\'erything won years earlier, w.is next on the agenda. "safe" union movement so as to up ·had been lost. especially for unskilled Then came ferocious repression, root the dangerous ones. industrial workers. follow1ng the explosion of a bomb Gompers did not succeed in in Chicago's Haymarket, rck:asingpo building a global labor empire, the I Iistory docs not really repeat ic licc and induscry thugs against radi fondest dream of his last years and sclf, and yet so much of labor history cals' offices, bearing and arresting ac also the fondest dream of his succes remains largely trapped within this tragic framework. \'Ve forget too eas ily how thousands of craft workers, from highly skilled German wood workers at the center of Chicago's 1880s anarchist mm·cmcnt, to railroad And in PartTvvo: men and machinists following Eugene Debs, to the necdlctrades women workers of the 1909 "Cprising of the Part Two of DL's special Millenniwn 20,000" sought to make their own Issue will include articles by: way coward a generous, egalitarian, in clusive labor movement. \Ve frrget Joanne Barkan, Paul Berman, even more easily the crucial role of thousands of pro-Communist immi Billy Bragg, Martin Duberman, grants rallying grassroots support for Barbara Ehrenreich, Paul Loeb, industrial unionism during the 1920s- 30s and urging racial equalit). \\e for David Moberg, Richard Rorty and ger how much positi\'c influence la bor wielded within the political world many more ... ! from 1936 through 1944, and how close it came during the 1940s to - breakthroughs 10 organizrng Millennium Part One • D c m o c r a t i c L c ft • p n g c 33 southerners, women and nonwhite '/ workers - until the Cold \\'ar anJ I !arr) Truman ended the dream. \\'c forget because the bland and defeated AFL-CIO, at the two orga Soci4hst roruv1Number31 is to be published nizations' merger in 1956, ha Millennium Part One • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g e 35 to unemployment compensation and crate form of liberalism was making Will the socialist legacy keep it on rhe health insurance, progressives and a comeback.Just as Franklin Roosevelt left, or will it be co opted by liberal radicals worked as allies. had stolen the liberal mantle in the ism? Will it link up with mo,·emcnts A different side of the same rela 1930s to cloak state intervention in the in other countries and mount a seri tionship appeared in the Progressive garb of the dominant liberal tradition, ous challenge to global capitalism? party of 1912. The first of three for now Reagan supporters stole it back. Who knows, but the exciting thing is ays under the same name, the Bull Liberalism, or at least neolibetalism, that for the first time in a generation Moose Progressives were led by reverted co its original nineteenth cen it is possible to ask such questions. Teddy Roosevelt, whose pugnacious tury meaning of laissez-faire. personality and presidential popular During the conservative ascen Alan Dawley has 1J1ritten Struggles for ity helped make this the most success dancy of Thatcher and Reagan, pro Justice: Social Responsibility and the ful third party in American history (af gl'essive movements remained alive by Liberal State, and Jl'OS Photographer far ter the Republican party of the 1850s). mounting some of the biggest pro Working for Democracy: American As Roosevelt saw it, the Progressive test marches in the nation's history, in Workers from the Revolution objective was to qujet popular clamor cluding Solidarity Day, the largest la to the Pre~ent. for reform by giving voters some bor rally ever orgaruzed in Washing mild social legislation and business ton; the June 1982 march in New York regulation before they demanded any· against the nuclear arms build-up, the thing more far-reacl1ing. biggest peace demonstration in ln this way, progressivism co11- America history; and numerous ral ta;11ed socialism, in both senses of the lies against intervention in Central word. That is, by incorporating some America. The closest thing to a rein socialist clements within it, and then carnation of the three earlier Progres offering a less radical alternative, pro sive campaigns was Jesse Jackson's gressive reforms changed the system electrifying run for president in 1988. while keeping it fundamentally intact. Although more often called a Any recipe for progressive politics in populist, his main themes of anti-im the first half of the century would perialism and economic justice reso have to indude a big measure of re nated perfeetl) with the Wallace and publicanism, plus a sigruficant portion La Follette campatgns, while his at of socialism (minus revolution); the tention to gender and race -from mixture was then poured into the stew the racial battle ground to economic of capitalist society, stirred with the common ground- showed the im prominent issues of the day, and put pact of the Sixties. on the stove to boil off the scum. Jackson may have helped pave the Today's progressive revival takes place way for Bill Clinton, JUSt as La Follette under different circumstances. Fe\.v opened doors for Roosevelt, but this people around the world, if asked for time the eleccion of a Democrat did the name of our desire, would say not end conservative ascendancy. Socialism. With the collapse of com Health care reform was defeated; the munism and the severe weakening of mid-term election was a debacle; and leftist movements everywhere, the the best that could be said of the 1996 prospects for major structural reform election is that things stopped getting from below, let alone revolution, seem worse. Progressives were thought to more remote today. be a dying breed To one author, they Any revival is affected by the had been left for dead. To another, parlous state of liberalism. Ever since in what passed for optimism, they only Ronald Reagan made "liberal" a dirry look dead. word, the heirs of the New Deal/ So the current rebirth of progres Great Sociery have been running for sivism comes as something of a sur political cover. Many found their cam prise, facing a most dangerous time, ouflage in being "progressive,'' but swaddled in a blanket of uncertainty. while they were in hiding, an unregen- \X"ill it be strong enough to sutvhe? p a g e 36 • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • Millennium Part One Signs of Life American History, Memory and Democracy studies and obsesses about American dards for l listory. Commissioned by BY HARVEY J. KAYE historical memory, consciousness and the Bush Administration, but published imagination, and about the grand nar during the Clinton presidency, the ln October 1999, on the eve of rative by which we understand and Standards did not fulfill conservative th<.: new century, we lost another link speak of ourselves as a pt:aple. ambitions. In fact, they tendered a far to the Revolution of 1776 when As Benjamrn Barber observes in more critical and promising set of work crews on the St. John's College A11 A1i.rtocra01 of E1 1f1)1011e, "The story ideas lhan the right could stomach, campus in Annapolis, Maryland we tell about ourseh·es defines not jusr and conservaci\'es quickly sought to brought down the last of the original us but our possibilities." Forget the bury them in an avalanche of hostile L1bl.'rtV. Trees. Beneath those trees, postmodernists' hostilities towards rhetoric. The ensuing conflict, from Americans fashioned a liberation grand narrative. As Joyce Appleby, the AM radio airwaves to the flour movement against Briush rule, and Lynn Hunt and Margaret Jacob point of Congress, clearly demonstrated the turned themseh·es into c1cizcns. out in Te/lit{g the Truth aho11t I Iistory: right's public power and influence, but The I .iberty Tree'~ remO\·al sad "narratives and meta-narratives arc the also, the left's strength in academe. dened me, but my sadness had co do kinds of stories that make action in Howe\·er climactic the Standards with more than the demise of a great the world possible. They make action conflict, the issue of the narratiYe per tree. The tree's final destruction possible because they make it mean sists. Indeed, it reverberates through seemed a warning about the condi ingful." out American public a11d private life. tion of American public life and the ror the past thirty years radical his In 1981, Herbert Gurman cha.Jlengcd prospects for radical-dt:mocracic poli torians have engaged in a struggle to us to remember our original aspira tics. The words of one arborist shape better, reshape - America's tions and take the lead in refashioning sounded like a metaphor for the state historical understandings. Inspired by America's narrati\'C, to more effectively of American democracy: "The entire the movements of the day, many of connect with our fellow citizens. In tree 110\V consists of a hollow shell us cnccrcd the historical profession the cwenty years since, many other his of wood ... " intent upon recm:cring the lives and torians from varied backgrounds We have witnessed conservative struggles that our predecessors had have repeat<.:d Gutman's call. African political asccndance, c.xpanding cor ignored a11d refashioning the prevail American scholar Nathan I luggins porate hegemony, and the subjection ing grand narrative in lighr of those insists in &velatio11s: A111en·can Hisl01J~ of public goods ro market priorities. recoveries. \X'e hoped co comribure A111erirm1 Afytbs that "we should not The rich ha\'c grown grossly richer and to the reformation of public think forget thar the end of our study of working people and rhe poor poorer. ing, deliberation, and agency - and, history is no less than the reconstruc 1\nd we of the Millennium Part Oue • D e m o c r a t i c L e ft • p a g c 37 dresses the problem of "our com about their "connection to the past Glazer does not discount how the mon story". Poet laureate Robert and its continuing influence on their narrative suppressed or marginalized Pinsky commences "Poetry and present lives and hopes". As experiences; nor docs he yearn for res American Memory" by stating that Rosenzweig and Thelen report in The toration of the older epic. Nonethe 'Though the United States is assur Presence of the Past, they discovered that less, his words express loss and lam edly a great nation, the question re while Americans take their relation entation. He relates a tale of declen mains open whether we are a great ship to the past quite seriously and, in sion. He mourns the fragmentation of people or are still engaged in the un their respective ways, actively seek to a grand unifying epic and distresses dertaking of becoming a great people. engage history, most do not readily over what it might portend: "Of A people ts defined and unified not connect their own intimate pasts with course, we can live without an Ameri by blood but by shared memory", any overarching collective or national can epic. But that does diminish us, and he goes on to "seek a vision of story. Americans do, however, recog and it is easy to understand why some our future in the poetry of our past." nize and affirm the value and import of our poets, artists, writers, and bis And, in The RealA11Jenca11 dream liter of just such a narrative. torians keep on trying." ary scholar Andre\\ Delbanco starts, We definitely should not fail to at One does not have to subscribe as well, b> asserting the necessity of a tend to and appreciate our conserva to Glazer's politics to sympathize with narrative and then advances one fo tive compatriots' continuing anxieties his general argument. However, his cussing on Americans' changing be and fears regarding the grand narra apparently reasonable sentiments de liefs about hope and transcendence. tive. Their writings may tell us things ceive. While sideswiping the academic The matter doesn't only agitate aca we have forgotten or not even real left for promoting race, ethnic, and demics. In The Party'.!' Not Over Yet, ized - al the least, they should serve women studies, he refuses to ac public policy analyst Jeff Faux decries to temind us that the struggle contin knowledge the work of a generation that we have become trapped in a ues. of historians who have directed their conservative public discourse and he In American Epic: Tbm a11d No1v, efforts at transforming, not destroy urges liberals and leftists to develop a neo-conservative Nathan Glazer de ing America's grand narrative. By way new narrative to escape the right's fines an epic as "a story recounting of omission, Glazer essentially repeats hold. Former conservative Michael great deeds." Observing how Arthur Schlesinger,Jr.'s accusations in Llnd ponders "The Liberal Search "Epic ... comes up everywhere when The Dismtiti11g of Al11erira that the left for a Usable Past", and makes a ma one thinks about America," he rightly advocates fragmentation, a claim that jor effort to outline a new grand nar connects "America as epic" co the idea necessarily involved conflating the rative in The Next A111erican Nation. of ''American exceptionalism." He work of Afro-centrists and other More entertaining, but no less serious, notes that the epic which long domi particularists with that of the academic Steve Darnall and Alex Ross have nated American consciousness spoke left as a whole. authored and illustrated U.S., a two of "the American idea ... the Ameri If our efforts perturb them so, volume comic book in which a con can dream ...Manifest Destiny." It em conservatives must get all the more fused Uncle Sam seeks to "remem phasized the newness, the vastness, the distressed to learn that our work ac ber his true identity" while memories openness of America - the freedom tually seems to ha,·e had an influence. and voices propel him on a time-travel thereby granted Americans". More \Vie have far from triwnphed, but - journey through America's past. Hell, over, it told a story of ''Americaniza contrary to what we ourselves have even the conservative faithful feel ap tion" - oflater immigrant generations usua1ly assumed - it appears we have prehensive. One vocal participant at pursuing the dream and, in the pro had some impact on recent generations' a January 1999 Republican gathering cess, transforming themselves into historical memory. The 1996 Survey called "The \'V'eekend", implored the Americans. of American Political Culture shows party's leadership to "TeJJ a better Yet, Glazer explains, in recent de that the overwhelming majority of our story ... the story of what America is cades a more problematic narrative fellow citizens recognize that the na supposed to be, the story of what has superceded the original: "The one tion "expanded at the cost of much America is going to be." grand epic has been succeeded by suffering", "betrayed ~ ts principles by Anxiety about America's grand many fragmentary little epics... The the cruel mistreatment of Blacks and narrative seems universal. Reacting to new fragments create epics that cel American Indians", and "subjected claims that Americans have no inter ebrate the destruction of a domineer women to a male Millennium Part One • D e m o c r a t i c L c ft • p a g c 39 The fact that DSA exists in the land of opportunity (for some) and equality (for some) and greed (for more than some) is a great testament to its validity and meaningfulness. Democratic Socialism and its antecedent movements have produced great progressive advances in spite of the vicious enmity of the greedy few, and it will remain as the motivating force, the seedbed for future advances when they come. And they will come. To solidarity! -Edward Asner 0 Yes, I want to jmn the Dcmocrauc Socialists. J\ly special interest arc: l· nclose l~ IONJ Send to: 0 l•ncloscd ts an extra contnbuuon of DEMOCRATIC SOCIAl.ISTS O F OSSO [J SIOO QS25 co help DS1\ in ns work l··MAll AMERICA 1Kii \'anck trect, 12th fl •Or, ~c"' York, NY 0 Please srnd me more information about DSA 10014, 212 727 8610, fax 72 8616, and Democra11c 5ocialism. web: ww\1.Jsau~a.org