Harry Targ
The Problem
In the 1980s, Mike Davis compared the left in Europe with
the left in the United States. He claimed that the American left benefited from
being positioned in a multiplicity of single issue groups as opposed to a
European scene dominated by Communists, Socialists, and Social Democrats.
Thirty years later in the United States, the crisis in capitalism has deepened,
gaps between rich and poor have grown, and levels of poverty have risen while
access to health care and education has declined.
In addition, a broad array of groups have emerged shaped by
identities and issues involving the environment, civil liberties, police
brutality and gun control. While the crises deepen across all these issues,
activism increases. Debates have emerged about strategy and tactics to fight
reaction and advance some kind of 21st century socialism. “Poles of
activism” include those who pursue constructing “left unity,” expanding the
Occupy Movement, and/or “building a progressive majority.” It should be acknowledged
at the outset that the distinctions made below emphasize the differences of
activist approaches which many advocates do not see as mutually exclusive.
Particularly, those who advocate for left unity see that project as intimately
connected to building a stronger more effective progressive majority.
This presentation will describe each approach briefly and
suggest that they parallel and reinforce each other
The “Debate”
Mark Solomon in an important essay “Whither the Socialist Left?
Thinking the ‘Unthinkable” (Portside, March 6, 2013) discusses the long history
of socialism in the United States, the brutal repression against it, damaging
sectarian battles on the left, the miniscule size of socialist organizations
today and yet paradoxically the growing sympathy for the idea of socialism
among Americans, particularly young people. He calls for “the convergence of
socialist organizations committed to non-sectarian democratic struggle,
engagement with mass movements, and open debate in search of effective
responses to present crises and to projecting a socialist future.” Again, the Solomon article does not
conceptualize “left unity” and “building the progressive majority” as separate
and distinct projects but as fundamentally interconnected. For him, and many
others, the role of the left in the labor movement and other mass movements
gave shape, direction, and theoretical cohesion to the battles that won worker
rights in the 1930s.
Solomon’s call has stimulated debate among activists around
the idea of “left unity.” The appeal for left unity is made more powerful by
socialism’s appeal, the current global crises of capitalism, rising
mobilizations around the world, and living experiments with small-scale
socialism such as the construction of a variety of workers’ cooperatives.
Effective campaigns around “left unity” in recent years have
prioritized “revolutionary education,” drawing upon the tools of the internet
to construct an accessible body of theory and debate about strategy and tactics
that could solidify left forces and move the progressive majority in a
socialist direction. The emerging Online University of the Left (OUL), an
electronic source for classical and modern theoretical literature about
Marxism, contemporary debates about strategy and tactics, videos, reading
lists, and course syllabi, constitute one example of left unity. The OUL serves
as resource for study groups, formal coursework, and discussions among socialists
and progressives. Those who advocate for “left unity” or left “convergence” celebrate
these many developments, from workers cooperatives to popular education, as
they advocate for the construction of a unified socialist left.
The Occupy Movement, first surfacing in the media in
September, 2011, initiated and renewed traditions of organized and spontaneous
mass movements around issues that affect peoples’ immediate lives such as
housing foreclosure, debt, jobs, wages, the environment, and the negative role
of money in U.S. politics. Perhaps the four most significant contributions of
the Occupy Movement include:
1.Introducing grassroots processes of decision-making.
2.Conceptualizing modern battles for social and economic
justice as between the one percent (the holders of most wealth and power in
society) versus the 99 percent (weak, economically marginalized, and
dispossessed).
3.Insisting that struggles for radical change be
spontaneous, often eschewing traditional political processes.
4.Linking struggles locally, nationally, and globally.
During the height of Occupy’s visibility some 500 cities and
towns experienced mobilizations around social justice issues. While
significantly less today, Occupy campaigns still exist, particularly in cities
where larger progressive communities reside. Calls for left unity correctly ground
their claims in a long and rich history of organized struggle while “occupiers”
and other activists today have been inspired by the bottom-up and spontaneous
uprisings of 2011 (both international and within the United States).
A third, and not opposed, approach to political change at
this time has been labeled “building a progressive majority.” This approach
assumes that large segments of the U.S. population agree on a variety of
issues. Some are activists in electoral politics, others in trade unions, and
more in single issue groups. In addition, many who share common views of worker
rights, the environment, health care, undue influence of money in politics,
immigrant rights etc. are not active politically. The progressive majority
perspective argues that the project for the short-term is to mobilize the
millions of people who share common views on the need for significant if not
fundamental change in economics and politics.
Often organizers conceptualize the progressive majority as
the broad mass of people who share views on politics and economics that are
‘centrist” or “left.” Consequently, over the long run, “left” participants see
their task as three-fold. First, they must work on the issues that concern
majorities of those at the local and national level. Second, they struggle to
convince their political associates that the problems most people face have
common causes (particularly capitalism). Third, “left” participants see the
need to link issues so that class, race, gender, and the environment, for
example, are understood as part of the common problem that people face.
At this point in time as the recent data set called “Start”
shows (http://www.startguide.org/orgs/orgs00.html
) there are some “500 leading organizations in the United States working for
progressive change on a national level.” START divided these 500 organizations
into twelve categories based on their main activities. These include
progressive electoral, peace and foreign policy, economic justice, civil
liberties, health advocacy, labor, women’s and environmental organizations. Of course their membership, geographic
presence, financial resources, and strategic and tactical vision vary widely. And, the variety of progressive
organizations at the national level are reproduced at the local and state
levels as well.
In sum, when looking at social change in the United States
at least three emphases are being articulated: left unity, the Occupy, and
building a progressive majority. Each highlights its own priorities as to
vision, strategy, tactics, and political contexts. In addition, the relative
appeal of each may be affected by age, class, gender, race, and issue
prioritization as well. However, these
approaches need not be seen as contradictory. Rather the activism borne of each
approach may parallel the others.
Presentation
for a Seminar on Socialist Renewal and
the Capitalist Crisis A Cuban-North American Exchange, University of Havana, Cuba, June 24-28, 2013
