Social movements (was Re: [lbo-talk] DIY abortions)

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at videotron.ca
Thu Mar 2 19:46:11 PST 2006


Wojtek writes:


> --- Marvin Gandall <marvgandall at videotron.ca> wrote:
>
>> Wojtek and Chuck - the most unlikely of bedfellows -
>> are united in building
>> an iron wall between political action and social
>> action.
>
> Where did I say that the two are separate? I argued
> to the exact contrary, that social movements need
> political and instituional support to succeed. Without
> that support they usually do not get very far.


>Nor do I claim that social movements are irrelevant...
======================================================== I objected to your comment below, which quite clearly dismisses social movements as irrelevant:


>In reality, it is the
> political elites that decided to implement social programs...They co-opted
> social movements they saw instrumental to that purpose simply to gain
> legitimacy. If the "right" movements were not already available, they
> would
> have been created for that purpose. But if you think that the elite was
> seriously threatened by a bunch of rioting thugs - you must be dreaming.
> The US state faced far more serious challenges and emerged victorious from
> them, so there is no reason to believe that they succumbed to a few
> troublemakers.
===========================================================
> Likewise, social movements contribute to a social
> change, but without institutional support their effort
> would not account to much. Just think about it - the
> US government, or ruling elite if you will,
> successfully defeated powerful enemies domestically
> and abroad. They crushed the Southern rebellion, they
> defeated the organized labor, they defeated Japan and
> Germany, not to mention smaller countries, they even
> outlived the USSR. They have the capacity to
> neutralize, if not defeat, every enemy on Earth. Can
> thus anyone in his right mind seriously believe that
> they succumbed to a bunch of stone throwing youth?


> If a social change takes place, be it the Civil Right
> smovement here, or the Solidaity movement in Poland,
> or the "velvet revolution" in Czechoslovakia, etc - it
> is because a window of opportunity has been open -
> there are power elites controlling institutional
> resources that were willing to cooperate with social
> movements to institute changes.

Who, besides yourself, characterizes social movements as comprising "stone throwing youth" and worse? This caricature resides in the imaginations of those who fear and disdain the unwashed hordes. It doesn't correspond to the history of the trade union movement, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, the gay and lesbian movement, the environmental movement, the successive antiwar movements, or any other other mass movement of the left you would care to name over the past century.

Nor has anyone suggested that whatever reforms have been won, were won by forcing the full capitulation of those in power. Reforms often fall short of what is being asked for, in the same way striking workers often have to settle for something less than what they were demanding. The political authorities, like company managers, also have to calculate that it is more cost-effective - in this case, politically - to grant the reforms that to incur continuing protest and disruption.

Do you really think all this is not widely understood on this list? Do we really need to take the time to argue this? Your thinly-veiled misanthropy in the guise of iconoclasm is becoming tiresome, at least to me.



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