I've been arguing with colleagues, friends, and myself about whether -- nationally -- the left should focus its work mainly on (1) a DP insurgency or on (2) agitation and organization of mass actions.
If (1), whether the insurgency should be organized around (i) an "elegible" leading figure (Russ Feingold) or (ii) an "unelegible" but more clearly lefty one (Denis Kucinich, Michael Moore).
Of course, for local action, people starts wherever they are, and the best option altogether may be some mix or combination of the above. But I wanted to clarify the *main* line of action, so to speak. As I typed, I was leaning towards (2). That said, my thoughts are still in flux.
Lately, I've been close to a group of union activists making an effort to reunite the organizations that made possible the 2006 May Day march in NYC and want a big demonstration in the city this year. I can see how this effort could get a boost with more action on other fronts and, also, with the right kind of turmoil within the DP.
That's to give context to my post.
As to Carrol's reply, I find his argument less compelling than shag's skepticism: "Yeah, but what are you *really* doing?" It's about the disconnection between one's words and actions. So it compels to action. Carrol's argument, on the other hand, leads to passivity or -- as I explain below -- act in a sectarian way.
"Sectarian" here doesn't mean that Carrol is calling people to join a political sect, but that his argument favors actions by leftists disengaged from the collective actions of regular people. I don't mean to single out Carrol. This self-perpetuating split is what Perry Anderson called the "tragedy" of Western Marxists. No wonder we rationalize it and construe necessity as virtue.
Carrol wrote:
> The weakness of "the left" (or rather
> the inability of leftists to form a
> coheent left that can legitimately be
> called "the left,") since the early 70s
> is due to conditons entirely beyond our
> control.
The left is weak because of conditions not under our control. But then, we have no control over these conditions because we are weak! So, where does this chicken-and-egg curse break? One possibility is that it doesn't break. We just give up and pray for miracles. But, contradicting himself, Carrol recently pointed out that the loop breaks with action. Action, indeed. But what kind of action?
To the extent the left and the working people are two different entities, there are the actions of the left and the actions of people.
Progress accelerates when the actions of the left and mass actions are in tune, reinforce each other, etc.: when the action of the left helps people's mass actions become better organized, more targeted, more effective. Schematically speaking, the actions of the left are supposed to be guided by strategy. Mass action is supposed to be a raw response to concrete circumstances, needs, and perils -- as people perceive them. The strategy of the left is fantasy if it doesn't connect with the concrete circumstance of masses of people. And mass action gets wasted without focus and organization.
Carrol's argument is contradictory because his call to leftist action is abstract in content. It's a political Hail Mary pass. At best, it is propagandistic (in the old sense of the term "propaganda"). It's a call to be heeded by those driven by intellectual motivations, a small group of people. In nature, it's sectarian action.
This is related to Carrol's misunderstanding of the character of the DP phenomenon.
Carrol views the DP as a solid block under the absolute control of capital. Hence, any engagement with the DP is not only unnecessary, but disastrous for leftists. The DP is a black hole that robs the energy of leftists.
In fact, the DP, as any other social or political formation, is full of internal contradictions, even outright conflict. The influence that the DP has on national politics depends mainly on the state of the left and, ultimately, on the fragmentation and our ideological backwardness as a class. When working people move politically, they invariably use the DP for their ends. In other words, working people with their actions and passivity reproduce the DP. In these conditions, working people will not break free all of a sudden from the control of the DP apparatus. That can only result from a prolonged struggle.
In our times, most U.S. workers willing to take collective political action are unmoved by any goal beyond immediate reforms to capitalism.
Carrol is also in the record arguing that, in the case of crisis, the inclination of people to take collective political action may actually go down. It is also true that these reforms, which in and by themselves require changing laws and forcing executive actions, become achievable when and if people threaten to disrupt the entire legal and political framework.
But people get to that disposition only through repeated trials at reform *within* the framework. It's not only the result of desperation, but also of self assured masses, aware of their collective power, which doesn't come from an endless succession of defeats. The idea that, as a result of unexpected circumstances, an out-of-the-blue political crisis, etc., a spontaneous popular eruption with no constructive aim is going to wind up abolishing capitalism (or supply the energy to abolish it) is a psychodelic dream. Asking the left to predicate its strategy on serendipitous events is akin to giving up.
In our times, the absolute majority of workers willing to move will do so through the DP, notwithstanding their disappointments. That grip will not be broken without a series of struggles. In fact, it's worse: Some people may even go Tea Party or Republican. Carrol thinks that recognizing these facts is to rationalize them and be complicit. But we cannot tackle them in practice without admitting that they exist.
As Marv argued, the actions of the masses will not ignore or bypass the DP, let alone the legal and administrative process by which the government makes and implements policies. Of course, the actions of leftists can ignore or bypass the DP (like the ideas of economists can ignore or bypass the actual economy), but that can only disconnect leftists further from the working people. In other words, by so doing, the left betrays its reason of being or -- to more mildly -- makes itself irrelevant.
Finally, although this sounds like grandstanding, telling others what to do, what I'm *really* trying is to understand and guide *myself*. I don't mean to sound melodramatic, but I've been -- am and will be -- part of communities like this: workplaces, neighborhoods, listservs, unions, political organizations, the left, the working class, and through them the human race.
I was 16 in Morelia when I first got infected by working class politics and Marxism. I remember overhearing a conversation between my mother and an aunt in the summer of 1980, after I told my family I had decided to go to college in Cuba: "He's going to be brainwashed." -- my aunt warned my mother. "He's brainwashed himself already" -- my mom replied with a hint of pride.
By the way, my mother (now in her late 70s) lives in Brooklyn. A 10 year widow visiting me in Brooklyn, she fell in love with a "bracero," and remarried. She marched on May Day 2006, with her husband and my family. She now works for a city agency washing dishes and doing other kitchen work. She wanted to vote for Hillary in the primaries and for Obama in the presidential election, but couldn't because she wasn't yet a U.S. citizen. She is still with Obama. One day last fall, on my way to work, I saw her under a white tent placed in front of Boro Hall, wearing a blue vest and distributing leaflets with instructions on how to prevent an H1N1 infection. She barely speaks three words in English, but she's first to volunteer to help others.
I'll be 50 in a few days. I just had my first colonoscopy last week. I can only envision myself sharing in the collective fate of my class all the way to the end. The lives of people like Howard Zinn, my own parents and children make me want to be a better man.