Carrol writes:
> A minority of a population becomes active, and by their actions (even
> before _official_ change of law or institution) they change reality.
> Example: The black riots of the '60s. The world in which those riots
> occurred was a different world, institutionally, from the world in which
> they didn't occur. That changed the attitudes of millions of
> individuals. As far as I can tell there has _never_ been a really major
> change that did not follow this pattern.
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It's inspiring to believe that "a minority can change society" but the
process of change is more complex than that. The protest movements of large
constituences - particularly those which have formed the base of governing
liberal and social democratic parties - can accelerate the process, but
unless their unrest coincides with an underlying systemic need for the kinds
of changes for which they are agitating, it will peter out or be suppressed
by the state.
The legalization of unions and collective bargaining, for example, was not simply designed to contain and channel serious unrest from below, but was also seen as a means of improving the purchasing power, health, and education of the workforce consistent with the needs of a modern industrial economy. Removing barriers to access for women, blacks, and other minorities were also not simply a product of the "rioting" you allude to above but based on a similar recognition by the dominant forces within society that such changes contributed to the efficiency of the system. And while the left generally credits the ending of war in Vietnam to the impressive mass moblizations which it helped lead, the marches and sit-ins were probably less of an incentive to ruling circles to withdraw than the inflationary and other economic consequences of the stalemated military occupation.
If the objectives of the various social movements weren't seen as in some way consistent with - or at least capable of being adapted - to the needs of the the ruling class, they would have been stubbornly and violently resisted until the outcome was decided by the stronger crushing the weaker of the two sides. The public ownership of the means of production has been the outstanding example of an historic demand of the masses which could not, for obvious reasons, be reconciled with the fundamental interests of the system - notwithstanding your claim that "if a minority of the population becomes active...by their actions...they change reality." Until the mass of the population is driven by necessity to take risks and pursue goals it will avoid in ordinary circumstances, it is simply not true that the activities of a minority can change "reality" or the "attitudes of millions." This sounds very much akin to the idealist anarchist notion of "the propaganda of the deed." It is reality which changes attitudes, not the other way round.
I wouldn't see much point in pouring cold water on your faith in grassroots activism, except that I think this excessively "voluntarist" approach to politics, which you share with others, is always seen as a substitute for "reformist" electoral politics - even where lip service, with a nod to the Leninist tradition, is paid to electoralism. On the one hand, you're quick to deny that you have an exaggerated sense of the political possibilities in this period - in fact, you often seem to be more despairing about the current state of the US left and the working class than most others on the list - but you invariably propose a political course which is far in advance of present consciousness and are strongly critical of those who believe that if the masses congregated around the Democratic party mountain won't come to them, the left has to find some way, within the framework of electoral politics, to approach them on the mountain.