New Con Game by Michael Harrington M.A.O
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Industry Sells EDITED BY MICHAEL HARRINGTON New Con Game By Michael Harrington M.A.O. - V -LOW Rf t~ Sept. 1980 Vol. VIII No. 7 $1 N THIS L ABOR DAY, 1980, .America's union men and I S.flG women are confronted by a WE.RE ..... # JI ~. ?'i~ llli .-.: INSIDE unique, unprecedented chal -~." !f. ·t lenge. .A sophisticated corpor· Women's Work, p. 5 ate elite is pushing for a re Why can't a woman get paia like a man? verse New Deal, for radical, Despite laws requiring equal pay for equal structural, and reactionary work, women still make less than men. Gus change. Tyler explores the structural nature of the In the thirties, most of the rich op low-wage ghetto. posed their own economic salvation, damning Franklin Roosevelt, who was Trouble in Paradise?, p. 9 rescuing them from the greatest collapse For years we've looked to Sweden as a model capitalism had ever known, as a "traitor" for the road to socialism. Yet labor strife this to his class. Jn the eighties, the upper spring almost brought the country to a halt. strata understand that significant traps John Stephens assesses the current labor mood formations are required, and they propose and draws suggestions for American labor. to design them for themselves. If they Lawrence Frank Conversation with Reuther, p. 12 succeed, reform will act to preserve, and Victor Reuther talks about coalition-building, even strengthen, the status quo. That is labor strategy, and hope for change. of great moment in the long run, but it also has to do with the immediate poli On the Left, p. 13 tical agenda of the labor movement. For '' These schemes Harry Fleischman reports on the Socialist In- instance, the battle over the nature of assume that American ternational, DSOCers and anti-draft work. structural change · will focus during the management can pro Furor over Families, p. 14 next several months on the kind of tax The right has seized family politics as a rally cut W ashington should adopt. Will it vide solutions rather ing cause. Kate Ellis cautions the left to weigh further maldistribute wealth and cheat than-as shown by the its response. working people, or will it include pro tection for the worst victims of the cur case in auto and steel Facts and Fears, p. 16 rent crisis, such as jobless auto and steel create problems.,, Will the new immigrants take more jobs away workers? from American workers and drive wages down? In this special report Roger Waldinger Understanding the Problem dissects facts and fictions. Corporate America knows that there is a problem. In June, Felix Rohatyn, in· Democratic Agenda, p. 20 vestment banker and perhaps the most so When the Democrats came to New York, phisticated corporate liberal in .America, some discovered that liberalism wasn't dead. wrote, "We can no longer assume that a gradual piecemeal approach will work; definition of the crisis, but aU of them Roosevelt and at times ma.de 1 ~gly the rules of the game have changed to share a common core. Amitai Ea.ioo..i of leftist critique of the Carter v-.=-is:n such an extent that a re-examination of the White House staH observed. "In tion, but for all the radical r~ :and the entire structure is needed." Bruineu the period of mass cooswnptioo in :he d.mns for bold innovation, the ..:ei:idus Week devoted an entire issue to the "rein United States, however, not enoogh wu tria.lization" program of the right is just dustrialization" of America, a word that plowed back into the underlying sectocs, one more exercise in "trickle-down · eco surfaces on the Kennedy left, in the such as the infrastructure of the ap'12.l lJODllCS. Anderson center and on the Jack Kemp goods sector, to maint.ain and apdue Similarly, the Carter administra· right. It stated: "Bred during a century of them." Therefore, Etzioni said, there lion s rcindustrialization program. while economic preeminence, based on the ex must be "private belt tightening. ' B111i scdung to satisfy- corporate interests but ploitation of an internal frontier, Amer neu Week was less delicate, writing. appearing to help American workers, is ican attitudes arc not suited to a world " ... unions will come under pressutt to a dismal rehash of doomed proposals. economy that has become increasingly Umit wage gains in the first phase of re. Tbcte must be, Busineu Wtek at· integrated ... where much of U.S. tech industrialization." Economic translation: gues, a new "social contract." Unions will nology has migrated abroad and where consumption is bad, investment is good. have to hold down wages as their part of energy independence is rapidly becoming Political translation: unions are bad, cor the deal. • Io return, both government a wistful memory." (It should be noted porations are good. and bus.mess will have to present convin that technology did not "migrate"; the cing evidence that such a sacrifice will pay multinationals that own it did in their Same Old Trickle Down off in the long run by steering the econ· search for higher profits.) Speakers at the Republican conven omy toward higher employment at decent There arc many variations on the tion in Detroit may have quoted Franklin wages. Government and business also To the Editor: chief repository of faith in the president function with the Georgia legislature, Fred Siegel's review of Vladimir as wonderworker is on the democratic rather than seeking out the most compe· Medem's memoirs in the May DEMO· left." tent possible person for this increasingly CRATIC LEFT neglects to mention one No, Professor Hixon, we do not ex difficult job? David C. Williams important aspect of Medem's-and the pect a president to be a "wonderworker." Sumner, Md. Bund's-socialism: their anti-Zionism. We do expect him to be up to the job, The "superb editing" done by trans and the present inept and helpless in To the Editor lator Samuel Portnoy consists of a cumbent is not I want to tell you how much I ap running polemic against Zionism. In The irony of it is tlut President Car pr«Wed the June 1980 issue of DEMO often lengthy footnotes, Portnoy refers to ter lu.s so reduced public expectations of cunc LEFT I particularly liked the lead the Socialist Zionist program as being White House performance tlut many article by Jim Chapin ("Third Party, "replete with radical phraseology" and induding apparently Professor Hixon First Choice?" ) . This concise but ana treats the Socialist Zionists as utopians think he is doing all he can. Unfortunate lytic approach to current realities from a and charlatans. ly, thlS delusion has not spread abroad. democratic socialist perspective is most Should the Bundist contribution be In Europe they hardly conceal their as helpful and fills a real void-at least for ignored? Of course not. But the shadow tonishment that the United States cannot, me, and I suspect other DSOC members of the Holocaust hangs over every dis with 220 million people, produce more (rather inactive, but very concerned) like cussion of Bundism. History, tragically, competent leaders. "Amateur night in the me. Keep up the good work. Let's have proved the Zionists right. White House" is one of their mildest more of the same. Eric Lee characterizations. Thomas J. Elliott Jackson Heights, N.Y. To take one example. Congress is more Claremont. Calif. difficult to deal with than it was ten To the Editor years ago. Why, then, did the President Leller1 Jo Jhe editor m111t be sip:'1. ~ Professor Hixon, in "Reconsidering put in charge of Congressional liaison reserve the right lo edit 1or n'i:J. Political Reality," (June) says that "the the man who had performed for him this Please limit /e/ter1 lo /eu Iha 1j() ~s. Michael Harrington DEMOCRATIC LEFT is published tet: ti=ics 11 'fCU Editor (monthly except July and August : Dem ocratic Socialist Organizing Corn=-, -H Maxine Phillips Broadway, Suite 801, New Yod; ·x 0003. Managing 'Editor Telephone: (212) 260-3270. • :$10 sustaining and institutional: $< ; :S: }() Jim Chapin limited income. Sisned art ~ :he National D1rerlor opinions of the authors. ISS-' - Second Class Permit Paid a.t • ·C"9' Y 2 Ol!MOCllATIC LllPT Sept. 1980 must make sure that rcindustrialization creates new jobs-particularly for blacks and other minorities-and that adequate provtsions arc included for helping workers in dying industries." Note that business is to get tangible rewards right ''[General Motors Chairman] Murphy predicted that the 1980s away while labor is to get a reduced stand would be a 'decade of decisions' in which the 'Me Decade of the ard of living in return for steady work 1970s changes into the 'We Decade,' and Americans finally quit and high pay at some future date. There 'using a little putty here and a quick patch there to get us through is a genuflection in the direction of dying industries, but nothing as specific as the an immediate crisis' and begin to construc handouts for the corporations. And fi. Georgetown Magazine tively attack our most serious long-term nally, government and b11sineJI arc de May/ June 1980 problems: inflation and energy.'' picted as being in charge of the whole operation; labor must trust their decency. Indeed, B11sineu lVeek warns against eight years! Meanwhile, workers are sup future gains" than the Americans. Japan· "lemon socialism," i.e. aid to failing in posed to tighten their belts for the com ese businessmen, that report continued, dustries. And Etzioni takes a position well mon good. believe ". that American firms are too to the right of that corporate publication This same point applies to the tax preoccupied with maximizing short-run by denying that any national economic cut pushed by Jack Kemp and adopted by profits." planning is required.