[lbo-talk] Saul Alinsky

[Chris Maisano]

To me, the biggest reason why the Alinsky organizing model doesn't seem to have accomplished much to change power relations is because it focuses on choosing campaigns that are "winnable" and avoiding the supposed pitfalls of "ideology." Because of this, the big issues come off the table before any activity even occurs and activists learn to continually trim their sails to accomodate to "reality," as we have seen in the flawed strategy many liberal and "progressive" groups adopted around healthcare reform. The Alinsky approach is also completely allergic to any kind of systematic theorizing or long-term vision, and because of this groups like IAF, ACORN, and anyone else who adopts a similar method can't tie individual struggles to a larger goal of transforming society. It's a really frustrating point of view to deal with, and in a lot of ways it's a perfect "left" politics in a neoliberal, postmodern period - metanarratives like Marxism are bad, local

 is good, radical change is impossible, etc.