> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Doug Henwood
> You may recall that I've defended the AFL-CIO against claims that
> it's a gang of hopelessly complicit reactionaries. But what, aside
> from holding up this card, has Sweeney done to show that he's a
> socialist? Endorsing Gore? Going before a business audience and
> begging to be their junior partner? Supporting the IMF refunding?
How about unionizing 600,000 people last year, including the largest number of private-sector employees in two decades, giving them some democratic control of their workplaces?
There is a snobby anti-union attitude among many socialists, but unions are the partial socialization of a corporation, replacing arbitrary despotic control into a system where democratic voice plays a role in setting the rules of work and compensation and creating an enforceable system for protecting workers rights within those rules. For intellectuals who don't spend eight hours plus per day in a workplace (or have large areas of professional independence), that may not seem like any form of socialism, but it is often a dramatic change in power relations and democratic control.
State control of an enterprise with arbitrary workplace authority is a hell of lot less socialism for the the workers involved than a decent union contract in a capitalist enterprise. Not recognizing this is the basic intellectual failure of those socialists favorable to authoritarian state regimes that called themselves socialist or communist.
So every aggressive unionist, whether they call themselves socialist or not, accomplishes more for socialism than the average intellectual nattering away.
But Sweeney has fought for far more than being a "junior partner" (your term I would note); the fight in Seattle was just part of a more general challenge to singular corporate authority over the economy, from supporting union corporate campaigns to supporting living wage ordinances to supporting social legislation. It may not be as comprehensive as you would like, but from union tactics to social legislation, the direction has been in the direction of social control of the economy.
Now the lack of comprehensiveness is your beef. You don't like incrementalism and don't think step-by-step reforms will work. That's fine and the disagreement with strategy is valid, but it is intellectual arrogance or stupidity to pretend there has never been an incrementalist strategy in the history of socialism.
If Sweeney spends his days fighting for the rights of workers and calls himself a socialist, who are you to claim he is lying about his ultimate goals? Whatever sweet words he may say at business forum, the capitalist press sure does not mistake them for agreement with business goals, so why do you? Why do you assume he is lying to his allies when he takes out a membership with DSA, but is being completely straightforward when addressing hostile business opponents?
As I said about Steinem, if someone wants to attack you, they will ignore any positive proof of your good faith and left credentials and take negative evidence of bad faith more seriously than your capitalist opponents.
Sweeney is not a leftwing revolutionary, but he is obviously committed to significant socialization of the economy. I have no idea how far he would go, but it is clear that his endpoint is far to the left of the present political spectrum, so why the emphasis on excommunication rather than embrace in socialist solidarity (whatever criticisms you may want to reserve)?
-- Nathan Newman