On 2013-10-22, at 8:55 PM, michael yates wrote:
> Carrol offered some remarks on helping to foment radical change. His critics say that we must be able to connect what we say to actual problems faced by people and not just say the problem is capitalism. Now nowhere has Carrol ever said that the problem is capitalism without also discussing something specific. He said some time ago that we should abolish the prison system. There was a lot of hooting from the peanut gallery about this. Yet millions of men, women, and children are locked up or in the parole and probation systems, and these people have mothers, fathers, children, etc. Most are poor. So this is a very big problem for millions of people. I can't think of a single reason why, in agitating around the prison system, or any other problem, why we can't talk about capitalism. It seems stupid not to. And more stupid now than ever.
In fairness, I don't recall the peanut gallery, as Michael describes it, ever hooting at reform of the grotesque prison system in the United States. In fact, it's quite possible there is majority support for reform of the system within the black community, which is disproportionately victimized by it, as well as a significant degree of support from white liberals. Demands calling, for example, for a halt to the construction of new jails and prisons and for drastically reducing the prison population have met with some success.
But I haven't been able to detect any demands, nor a scintilla of support, for the outright abolition of the prison system - certainly not within the general population, nor even within the far left, except perhaps, as in Carrol's case, in the context of an imagined post-capitalist utopia. But as a matter of practical politics, for left-wingers of all persuasions, the call for abolition would be viewed as, at best, a distraction and, at worst, as deeply divisive in the construction of a program offering the possibility of mobilizing workers around their most pressing needs.
Michael is clearly not insensitive to these pressures. His own program for a New Freedom Budget, co-authored with Paul Le Blanc, and based on the earlier one advanced by the civil rights movement in the 60's, has a number of excellent demands but nary a mention of abolition of the prison system (though I think one calling for its reform would have been appropriate). The Yates-Leblanc program calls for:
1. Full employment. 2. Adequate income for all who are employed. 3. A guaranteed minimum adequacy level of income for those who cannot or should not work. 4. Adequate and safe housing for all. 5. Health care for all. 6. Educational opportunity for all. 7. Secure and expanded transportation infrastructure. 8. Secure and expanded Social Security. 9. Food security for all. 10. A sustainable environment. 11. Cultural freedom and enrichment for all (arts, parks, sports, recreation). 12. Reduction in the inequality of income and wealth, to ensure the realization of these objectives.
http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/18757-black-america-and-a-new-freedom-budget
In this respect, I think Michael is wrong to criticize Wojtek, whose position is closer to his own than is Carrol's. Perhaps I missed it, but I haven't seen Carrol offer any specifics, other than to say that capitalism is the problem and the prison system needs to be abolished - full stop. If he has said more than that, all to the good.