On 2010-07-29, at 12:16 PM, Carrol Cox wrote:
> On the whole, however, I find your portrayal a bit more convincing than
> Marvin's -- since it fits with my tendency to see economic slump as a
> negative for left activity…
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It's my view also, as should be clear from my many comments on this and other lists. There is a close, though not algebraic, correlation between working class militancy and whether labour is in short supply or in surplus in an expanding or contracting economy. This unoriginal observation was not at issue in my discussion with SA. Our disagreement grew out of my comment that I did not see much protest around unemployment and foreclosures in the US today compared to the level of activity organized by the CP in the 30's. SA considered that I was exaggerating the role of the CP, and that is the point on which we engaged.
You eagerly accept that 10,000 dedicated members of a left wing organization is more than political chump change, occasioning another of your regular exhortations to "just get out of our your armchairs and organize". What you often miss, though, which I hope this discussion will help clarify for you, is that organizing is insufficient in itself; it depends on who is being organized. The CP which grew during the Depression was "embedded in all major industries and neighbourhoods". Ten thousand or even 25,000 leftists concentrated on university campuses and their surrounding neighbourhoods can have little more than a marginal impact on national politics, as the Nader/Green Party campaigns most recently illustrated. The tiny propaganda circles of the kind you are involved with in Bloomington, Indiana, which you offer us as a model, are on the farthest reaches of marginal political life. Nor is it a matter of radical students and intellectuals "going to the workers" and conjuring up a movement. The socialist movement grew in it's heyday because it was organically linked to an insurgent working class. It couldn't have developed outside of one. Left-wing intellectuals were drawn to and contributed mightily to the direction of the militant workers' organizations, but they did not bring them into being, which seems to be the operating assumption of idealists like youself.
All of which, of course, is meant not to discourage you from doing what obviously gives you a great deal of personal satisfaction, is well-intentioned, and harmful to no one.