> Here is what I see as an important issue, as far as Left organizing is
> concerned. The enclosed posting argues that the development of NGOs (in
> Latin America, but the argument can be extended to other regions as well)
> has a detrimental effect on Left organizing, because:
>
> 1. It tends to divide the poor/working class consitutencies and make them
> compete against each other;
>
> 2. It tends to coopt community leaders and professionals to organizations
> that are utlimately dependent on donors;
>
> 3. It tends to promote neo-liberalism.
>
> I think that this critique represents a quite popular on the Left view of
> NGOs. That view holds NGOs against a romantic notion of spontaneous
> popular movement and concludes that NGOs are too tainted with compromise to
> be useful to the Left's emancipatory project.
>
> I also think that such a view is probably one of the gravest mistake the
> self-proclaimed lefties make, at least from a Marxist point view. From a
> Marxist perspective, a successful social movement takes advantage of- and
> attaches itself to- social changes caused by the dominant mode of
> production (instead of fighting those changes). The expectation of a mass
> workers movement taking over capitalist enterprises was based on the
> material foundation created by capitalism - a large working class
> "produced" by the factory regime. Thus fighting factory regime (as utopian
> socialists did) was considered counterproductive from a Marxist
> revolutionary project's point of view.
>
> Therefore, assuming that a successful Left organizing should subsume (i.e.
> appropriate and transcend) social institutions and organizations created by
> the dominant economic forces:
>
> 1. The social fragmentation NGO critics talk about is caused by modern
> capitalist development, not by NGOs. NGOs are but an expression of that
> fragmentation.
>
> 2. The mass "Left" movements in the 19th and early 20th centuries grew out
> of social solidarity that had its roots in a peasant society. That society
> was all but destryed by capitalism, and the type of solidarity it created
> is for the most part gone. That means that those who are waiting for a
> mass popular movement reminiscent of the struggles in late 19th and early
> 20th centuries are waiting for Godot, indeed. Today, such movements belong
> to the "Left-files." They ain't gonna happen, because their
> social-economic basis does not exist anymore.
>
> 3. Given that NGOs are an expresion of social changes brought about by
> capitalist development, they are the most promising platform for Left
> organizing. Unfortunately, that field has been hopelessly dominated by
> foundation liberals with Left almost totally absent. Thus, the left is
> missing its best opportunity, IMHO.
>
> 4. In that light, the Left should stop dreaming about "organizing the
> masses" and instead devlop "middle-range" strategies for using NGOs (also
> called "civil society") as an organizing platform.
>
> Any comments?
One of Petras' points is that NGO's have co-opted *actual* mass movements and led them into a kind of peaceful coexistence with neo-liberal capitalism. These mass movements were very real. They developed out of class struggle between the peasantry and lower end of the working class with the domestic and international bourgeosie. e.g. the one that developed in S. Africa,Chile,Haiti and many other countries in the early 80's. Many of the shantytownmovements developed a critique of the status quo that was explicitlyanti-capitalist as a foundation for moving beyond the current international order. Many radical, organic intellectuals existed in these movements who have since gone to work for NGO's. The NGO's on an ideological level,preachthe postmodern, post-marxist globalization thesis that assumes away classstruggle because the transnational capitalist class is too strong to be resisted in any meaningful way. Rather, what the poor and the working classshould be doing is accomodating themselves to the new reality and developingniches in the domestic and international markets.Capitalism can be madeto benefit everyone. The Grameen Bank is the example here. One of the most prominent theorists who argues this is David Korten. The hope is that through local collective action, thosemarginalized by globalization (the majority of the population) can return to afictional past of producers or farmers markets, barter and subsistence agriculture. The problem with all this is that it does not improve anybody's life, does not alter class or power relations, diffuses progressive challenges to the status quo, makes the poor dependant on the rich for charity, is perfectly compatible with neo-liberal capitalism and reaffirms capitalistideology by vitiating the claims of libertarians that what the poorshould do is organize themselves to efficiently use the charity that the rich providethem. Moreover, the people involved in these programs will come to see that they are fully dependant on their masters for their existence and thus will come to believe that a world without masters is neither desirable or possible.
I believe Patrick Bond has done a lot of work on these issues and hopefully can be elicited for a short comment.
Sam Pawlett