Class and Race in the USA Labor Movement: The Case of the Packinghouse Workers

 Harry Targ

Historic connections between organized labor and African Americans have been problematic.  During the period of modern labor history, that is, from the formation of the CIO in the 1930s, to its merger with the AFL in 1955, and into the present, labor's struggle against racism has been mixed.  On the one hand, as Philip S. Foner describes it, the American labor movement throughout much of its history has practiced racism in its internal organizational policies, in its efforts to organize new workers under the banner of labor, and in regard to its advocacy of political positions.  Writes Foner, “from the formation of the first trade unions in the 1790s to the mid-1930s, the policy and practice of organized labor so far as Black workers were concerned were largely those of outright exclusion or segregation.”[1]

 As a prominent institution in American life, perhaps it is no surprise that organized labor has reflected the currents of racism that run deep throughout American history.  However, a close reading of labor history will also uncover significant exceptions to the rule.  That is, various trade union confederations, such as the Knights of Labor in the 1880s, and the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO) of the 1930s and 40s, reflected through words, and sometimes in deeds, the position articulated by Robert Baker in 1902, that the organization of workers should encompass “the cause of all humanity, regardless of race, color, or sex.”  Said Baker: "The more organized labor champions the cause of all labor, unorganized as well as organized, Black as well as White, the greater will be the victories; the more lasting, the more permanent, the more beneficial and the more far-reaching will be its successes.”[2]

 One of the most striking successes in the struggle against racism in the modern labor movement is a little studied labor union, the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA), which formed as an organizing committee in 1937 and continued to represent packinghouse workers until its merger with the Amalgamated Meat Cutters in 1968.  During its 30-years' existence UPWA struggled to organize and fairly represent workers in meat packing plants and collateral industries, fought to overcome racism within the union, and played a major role in building and supporting a burgeoning civil rights movement during the 1950s.  In the words of Michael Goldfield: "The racial practices of the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA) are especially inspiring."[3]

 The UPWA story below is constructed largely from a set of 128 interviews with former members of the union, both from the rank and file and leadership, conducted by Halpern and Horwitz.[4]  Three recently published books add to the literature on this progressive union, helping to create a history of a trade union led by a coalition of political leftists (many members of the Communist Party USA), liberals, and militant Black workers who stood for peace and social justice during difficult times in the United States, particularly after World War II.[5]  In addition to the three new books and selections from the Halpern and Horwitz interviews, I will add a few insights gathered by my own interviews of three leaders of the UPWA.[6]

 On Labor History

 The industrial revolution in the period following the Civil War planted the seeds for a transformation of the workforce in the USA, shifting workers from farm to factory.  With the emergence of modern manufacturing came increasing patterns of control and exploitation of workers.  While many workers were initially skilled craftspersons who enjoyed autonomy and expertise, owners and managers of capital sought to increase control over the processes of work, especially in an effort to speed up production.  Profits could be enhanced further by extending the length of work days as much as physical survival would allow.  Of course, as capitalism grew and grew, profits also would be increased if wages were reduced as much as possible.  Increasing managerial control of the work process, speeding up the pace of work, extending the work day, and cutting wages all stimulated the creation of labor movements to challenge capital's prerogatives.

 In the 1880s a confederation of unions that embraced the skilled and unskilled, men and women, Black and White, organized as the Knights of Labor.  While its history was short–lived, it fought for the eight-hour day and introduced into USA labor history a principle of inclusiveness that would flower and grow in the 1930s and beyond.  Also in the 1880s, a trade union confederation called the American Federation of Labor formed, bringing together unions representing primarily skilled workers.  Under the leadership of its first president, Samuel Gompers, the AFL built an organization that, despite ups and downs, survives to this day.  Whereas the Knights practiced inclusiveness, the AFL as it unfolded gave primary support to the organization of skilled workers, and over time tilted toward segregation among affiliated unions, so that Black workers would be represented in totally Black unions.  The AFL also accepted unions into the federation that constitutionally prohibited Black workers from membership.

 From 1905 until World War I, a militant union, the Industrial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, organized hard rock miners, textile workers, and others.  The IWW rejected political action, championing a syndicalist vision of a new world order, organized around worker control of the economic life of the country.  Since the IWW rejected electoral and other more conventional politics, it was not involved in struggles around de-segregation and voting rights.  However, the IWW championed the inclusiveness of all workers and rejected racism.  Given their brand of revolutionary activity, Wobblies were hounded by the state and by vigilantes until, by the 1920s, they were virtually crushed.

 After an interregnum of state repression, company unions, and company welfare schemes to keep workers from organizing, the 1930s saw a huge wave of political mobilization and labor organizing that led to the formation of the CIO.  Some union leaders, led by John L. Lewis of the miners, withdrew from the AFL to form the CIO, because the former group refused to organize industrial, or so-called non-skilled, workers.  Between 1935, at its founding, until 1940, the CIO unionized four million workers.  Unions emerged in such industries as automobile manufacturing, electronics, steel, rubber, and meat packing.  The great flurry of working-class mobilization was stimulated by the exigencies of the Great Depression, the exclusiveness of the AFL, and the groundbreaking work of communists and other leftists on the shop floors, who had worked for years to plant the seeds of the idea of industrial unionization.  By 1955, over thirty percent of the American workforce was in unions.  The AFL and CIO, the two major trade-union confederations, had over 100 member unions in them.  Then the two confederations united, the legacy of which survives today as the AFL-CIO.  This constituted the melding of the old craft unions founded before the 20th century with the newer industrial unions of the 1930s.

 Meat Packing

 The processing of meat was one of the earliest mass-production industries, developing a detailed division of labor that became a model for most subsequent manufacturing.  The corralling, slaughtering, and dressing of meat products for shipment around the country became possible when the refrigerated railroad car was developed.  By the turn of the century, meat was processed in huge centers in Chicago, Omaha, and Fort Worth, with smaller operations around Iowa and Minnesota.  Meat packing plants were scattered throughout the South and Northeast as well.  The meat processing center from the 1880s to the late 1950s was in Chicago.  The stockyards, housing the ‘Big Four’ packers (Armour, Cudahy, Swift, and Wilson), employed thousands of workers.  Because the work was so dangerous and unpleasant, it was largely carried out by the most marginalized sectors of the working class.  First, this included primarily immigrants from eastern and southern Europe.  During the great migrations from the South, both before and after World War I, Black workers gravitated to the packing plants, leaving behind their lives as sharecroppers.

 Packinghouse workers, experiencing horrible working conditions and insufficient wages, sought to secure union recognition as the Amalgamated Meat Cutters.  Two long and bloody strikes (1904 and 1921) were defeated by the companies.  During both strikes, many African-American workers were temporarily employed to break the strikes.  Since Black workers suffered from economic circumstances as desperate as those faced by the striking White workers, and since they were excluded generally from unions and consequently the benefits they would gain from unionization, these so-called ‘scab’ workers felt no loyalty to the strikers or the union.  In the aftermath of the two defeats, hostility towards Black workers rose, and Black resentment of Whites increased as well.  For years, remembrances of racism and scabbing impaired any effort to create a common front against the packers.

 UPWA (CIO)

 The atmosphere and historical circumstances changed in the 1930s.  First, the depression hit working people very hard.  Twenty-five percent of the work force was unemployed by 1933.  Industries were working at 40 percent of capacity.  In big cities, vibrant radical movements began to surface.  Communists organized Unemployment Councils whose task it was to protect debtors from being evicted from their apartments.  Also the Councils organized mass rallies and marches against unemployment and poverty and, on occasion, marched with throngs to city welfare departments demanding relief.  Communists and other radicals were particularly active in Black communities.  Also, the Communist Party mobilized mass campaigns to save the Scottsboro Boys who had been charged with raping two White women in Alabama, a charge that was clearly untrue.  The mood of despair turned to militancy in cities and towns around the United States.  Many Black citizens began to participate in the street militancy.  These militants included those who were to work in the packinghouses.  Inside the packing plants, Black workers had the most difficult and demeaning jobs and worked for lower wages.  However, in terms of meat processing, Black workers were situated in strategic locations such as the killing floor.  If they chose to stop working, the whole process of slaughtering and dressing meat would grind to a halt.  Also in the major packing center, Chicago, the percentage of the work force that was Black was as much as 30 percent by the 1930s.

 Both Black and White workers had come to the view that wages and working conditions would only improve when the work force became unionized.  Also, Black and White workers both realized that successful unionization would not occur until and unless they combined to support unionization.  This recognition, combined with the experience of working with radicals on community action, the clear role of communists in the effort to organize a packinghouse workers union, and the demonstrated work of the left in anti-racism campaigns nationally, all influenced the militant African Americans who assumed significant roles in organizing the union.  White workers, often former union members from the days before World War I, and cognizant of the pragmatic necessity for solidarity, joined the struggle as well.

 The first independent local of packinghouse workers was formed in Austin, Minnesota, by some old Wobblies in 1933.  In 1934 there were general strikes of workers in various industries in San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Toledo, Ohio.  In 1935, John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers, walked out of the national convention of the AFL to form the CIO.  Thus was launched the effort to organize unskilled industrial workers all across the industrial landscape.  Also, in 1935, Congress passed the Wagner Act, which legalized the effort of workers to form unions.  In this multidimensional context, Herb March, a communist organizer who had been working in Kansas City, arrived in Chicago to initiate the drive to organize the packing houses.  In 1937, Black and White packinghouse workers with CIO approval formed the Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committee (PWOC) to begin the union building process.

 The ‘Big Four’ meat-packing companies resisted the initial organizing efforts.  Armour, the first target of the PWOC, resisted efforts to get a master agreement that would apply to all plants.  Such a master agreement would institutionalize the union in the industry, an outcome that all the packing companies opposed.  However, despite efforts of a discredited AFL union (the Amalgamated Meat Cutters) to counter PWOC presence in the Chicago Armour plant, and despite a pre-election visit to Chicago unions by the newly formed House Committee on Un-American Activities, the PWOC won majority support from workers for the new CIO union in 1939.  Shortly thereafter, PWOC signed separate agreements for all Armour plants, a clear prelude to the master agreements the union sought.  The initial accords, while not involving wage issues, did increase vacations, guaranteed at least 32 hours of work, and improved grievance procedures.  Almost two years later, contract negotiations between Armour and the PWOC led to the signing of the industry's first master agreement in September, 1941.  The accords included a ten-cent-an-hour wage increase.  This was followed by agreements with Cudahy in November and Swift in April 1942.  Finally, Wilson was forced to sign an agreement in March, 1943 by the National War Labor Board.  Also in 1943, PWOC became the United Packinghouse Workers of America (UPWA).  CIO militancy, the tidal wave of organizing throughout American industry, the particular role of White left activists and Black militants, and the emerging production needs brought by the onset of World War II all together stimulated the successes of unionization efforts in the meat packing industry.

 While a wage-freeze agreement in support of the war effort was accepted by government, the corporate sector, and the leadership of the labor movement, PWOC was able to secure a variety of improvements in fringe benefits and working conditions during the war years.  While labor, capital, and government all endorsed wage and price controls over the course of the war, government and capital did agree to not challenge the presence of unions in plants across the country (so-called ‘maintenance of membership’ agreements).  However, as the war drew to a close, many unions in the CIO made demands for increases in wages.  They claimed that prices in fact had increased by 45 percent during the war, while real wage increases were capped at 15 percent.  While workers at the home front saved money, both because of much overtime and limits on commodities to purchase, their wages fell further and further behind prices and company profits.  When corporations resisted pay hikes right after the war, unions in auto, steel, electronics, railroads, and meatpacking went on strike.  The 1946 strike wave was the largest in U.S. history, affecting 4.6 million workers or 14.5 percent of the work force.

 The strike in packing began on January 16, 1946.  The next day, the Amalgamated Meat Cutters offered to settle in those plants in which they had locals with a 15-cents-an-hour raise.  The packers refused, but a government fact-finding board was established to investigate the claims of the competing sides.  Further, the Secretary of Labor ordered the meat-packing plants seized under provisions of the War Labor Disputes Act.  After UPWA threatened not to return to work under the order, Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson assured the union that he would urge adoption of any recommendations of the fact-finding board that were accepted by the packing companies’ unions.  By March, a 16-cent hourly wage increase was recommended by the board and accepted by the packers and the unions.  The Office of Price Administration granted the packers a raise in meat prices to compensate for the wage increases.  Later in 1946, at its national convention, the UPWA elected Ralph Helstein as its new union president with the broad support of a ‘left-center’ coalition in the union.  Over the course of the next several years, the UPWA leadership would tolerate Communist Party members and other radicals in the leadership and rank and file of the union, while walking a careful, straight line in support of mainstream CIO policies that became increasingly anti-communist.

 The political stances of each of the ten UPWA districts varied, with radicals particularly popular in Chicago’s District One; District Three covering Iowa, Nebraska, and Colorado; and District Six in the Northeast.  As the cold war and anti-communism heightened, some districts would pass resolutions supporting Henry Wallace or opposing USA foreign policy, while other districts would refrain from such positions or overtly oppose them.  As packer-union struggles deepened in 1947 and 1948; as the coalition of manufacturers, Republicans, and Southern Democrats moved more actively against labor; and as the AMC sought to gain control of locals in packing plants, conflict between the left-center coalition and right-wingers known as the ‘CIO Caucus’ heated up dramatically in the UPWA.  Many of the conflicts involved issues revolving around the cold war and anti-communism, and different conflicts emerged in the late 1940s around issues of racism in UPWA locals and how active UPWA should be in the struggle against racism in communities and the nation at large.

 Anti-communism and racism

 In 1948 UPWA again engaged in a general strike against the ‘Big Four’ resistance to wage increases.  Because the USA cold war policy was developing, along with anti-communist zeal and the opposition to the campaign of progressive presidential candidate Henry Wallace, the level of support to strikers was not as strong.  After nine weeks in which the meat packers held firm, injunctions were issued, police hounded strikers in various locales, and nonunion labor replaced striking workers, the UPWA called off the strike and returned to work.  Six weeks after the strike, the UPWA met for the most contentious convention during the entire life of the organization.

 In an intensely fought election for union leadership, president Helstein was reelected after a challenge from the CIO Caucus.  The Caucus warmly endorsed the Truman presidential candidacy and his cold war foreign policy, favored purging the left from the union leadership, and generally took an anti-communist stance.  Helstein's reelection allowed for the continuation of a left-center coalition that would more or less remain intact until the union merged with the AMC in 1968.  This left-center leadership would remain critical of USA foreign policy, would endorse trade union militancy, would encourage rank-and-file political activity in communities, and would take a pro-active stance against racism in the union and the nation.  Subsequent to the 1948 convention, and throughout the 1950s, UPWA would investigate racism in the union, establish Anti-Discrimination Committees at the national level of the union and in each local, would run workshops on racism in American life, and would fund and actively work for the burgeoning civil rights movement.  UPWA would become a significant political force in those communities where it was strong (such as Chicago) and nationally.

 To a considerable degree the transformation of the USA political economy  was shaped by technological change.  In the meatpacking industry, automation decreased the number of workers needed to produce the meat product and increased the possibility that production could be decentralized in hundreds of small-sized processing plants (where work forces are smaller, less organized, and more vulnerable).  While UPWA was growing as a progressive political force in the USA in the 1950s, technological change was destroying the material base of the work force in the industry itself.  Ultimately, with declining workers in the industry, declining UPWA membership, and continuing competition between UPWA and the old AMC, the leadership realized that it must consolidate to maintain any presence in the meatpacking industry.  Consequently, in 1968 AMC and UPWA agreed to a merger.  In 1978, the enlarged AMC merged with retail clerks into the current United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), a much larger union with a meat packing division.

 Why Study the UPWA?

 Even though the old UPWA no longer exists, its story is one of class struggle and a sustained struggle against racism.  It is important to revisit this history to better understand the positive role of the labor movement in these struggles as well as the negatives and, perhaps, to learn lessons that might still have value to the role of a revitalized labor movement today.

 Roger Horowitz writes that the UPWA was a union engaged in ‘social unionism’.  By this he means a union engaged in activities addressing the needs of members as workers, as citizens of local communities, and finally as part of the working class in general.  Most trade unions in the 20th century have practiced ‘business unionism’—engaging in bargaining and negotiation on behalf of workers' shop floor interests, but not engaging in broader political struggles.  Concretely, this has meant that many trade unions have not engaged in the struggle against racism in their unions, communities, or society at large.  As has been suggested above, the history of efforts to organize in meatpacking plants was fraught with defeat and bitter conflicts between White and Black workers.  Strikes in 1904 and 1921 were lost because the ‘Big Four’ packers were able to use racism to divide packinghouse workers.  Armed with this knowledge, Black and White militants struggled to overcome racism as they built the PWOC and later the UPWA.  The 1943 constitution of the new union forbade racism in the union.  Generally, from the outset of the CIO mass movement, the UPWA stood for racial equality in the union, but, as with many other unions, the UPWA did not actively engage in the fight against racism.

 The failed 1948 strike against the ‘Big Four’ packers threatened to destroy the union.  Large numbers of members were forced out, because they were fired by the packers.  Factionalism surfaced, and during the 1948 convention an anti-communist slate of candidates ran for the various union offices.  While the challenge to the incumbent leadership was defeated, president Helstein used the weakened condition of the union to launch an active anti-discrimination program that included efforts to purge union locals of racism and to commit each and every packinghouse local to the struggle for racial justice.  From the late 1940s to the 1968 merger with the AMC, the UPWA distinguished itself in the struggle against racism and engaged in civil rights mass actions, even before the rise of the movement against segregation in Montgomery, Alabama.  The movement in support of civil rights was driven by rank-and-file initiatives from militant Black and White workers in various locals of UPWA, and by the leadership of the international union itself.  Not all members of the 100,000-member union embraced the civil rights agenda and, in fact, some workers from the South and Southwest particularly opposed the unions’ commitment to racial justice and integration of union and society.  Over time, these elements were forced out of leadership positions in the union, leaving union members either civil rights activists or passive supporters of union efforts.

 An early spark to the building of a commitment to the struggle against racism occurred when president Helstein hired sociologist John Hope to study race relations in the union.  Hope found high levels of Black participation in union locals (for example Blacks were stewards in 83 percent of UPWA locals and 73 percent of locals had Blacks on executive boards).  However, there were significant reflections of racism among UPWA members (30 percent objected to working with Blacks and 90 percent of southern Whites favored segregated eating facilities).  Also, Blacks had a presence in significantly fewer job categories than Whites.  As a result of Hope's findings, the UPWA at its 1950 convention initiated a broad-based program to expunge racism from union locals.  An anti-discrimination department was established in the union at large, and anti-discrimination committees were established in every union local in the organization.  These were not just symbolic gestures, but rather structures by which racism would be eliminated from the life of the union.

 Union contracts were to prohibit any discrimination by companies, not only for employees, but for job applicants as well.  Anti-discrimination conferences were held in the union on a periodic basis, and networking also occurred through national conventions and conferences of union members working for the same employers.  Then UPWA strongly encouraged members to be active in the struggle against racism in their communities.  Horowitz summarizes the full range of UPWA activities, from shop floor to political arena.  In addition to integrating ‘lily-White departments’ on the shop floor and prohibiting discriminatory hiring practices, especially against Black women, “locals attacked discriminatory practices in their communities, primarily restrictions on Black access to bars, restaurants, and public facilities, as well as employment restrictions by local businesses.  Finally, packinghouse workers consciously worked with and influenced community-based organizations, especially the NAACP."[7]

 Black, White Unite and Fight

   Several points can be made about the UPWA commitment to civil rights.  First, as suggested above, the struggle to overcome the long history of racial strife in packinghouses was central to the organizing of the PWOC and UPWA since the 1930s.  Second, Black militants and White radicals played a fundamental role in the creation of an integrated union.  Third, a high percentage of the workforces in packing centers were Black workers, particularly in the industry's central facility in Chicago, where some 10,000 workers were employed.  Fourth, UPWA constructed a union structure that gave real power to rank-and-file workers.  Each department had at least one shop steward to represent the workers; and stewards, by virtue of their presence in the various job sites, were accountable to members.  Also, many locals engaged in militant job actions when foremen tried to speedup production beyond what was called for in the contract, when particular workers experienced discrimination, or when other actions by management were seen as oppressive and discriminatory.  Some locals were more militant than others, but the bottom-up structure of the union encouraged participation.

 Fifth, president Helstein was fully committed to civil rights, as were most of the district directors representing regions around the country.  Also, since the national leadership of the union refused to purge radicals from its ranks, UPWA had in its employ and as officers in union locals many radicals, including members of the Communist Party of the USA.  Since they were among the strongest supporters of rank-and-file union militancy and civil rights, their presence reinforced other factors that stimulated UPWA's activism.  Sixth, the most militant members of UPWA worked in plants in Chicago.  Since Chicago alone had 10,000 UPWA members, and since a higher percentage of Blacks and leftists were in Chicago locals, that city's packinghouse workers set the tone for the organization.

 As a result of these factors, therefore, the UPWA, or at least many locals, participated in active campaigns against racism in plants.  They also fought for integrated neighborhoods.  When Blacks moved into a public housing development in Trumball Park in the early 1950s, race riots occurred.  UPWA members organized campaigns to force the city housing authority to open up public housing to Blacks and to protect them from racist responses.  When hotels where UPWA meetings were to occur barred Blacks from housing, the union pulled out of the hotels in protest.  When the Swift plant discriminated against hiring Black women, the Swift local and the Chicago district launched a public campaign and pressured government to end such practices.

 Perhaps most importantly, UPWA was the first union to support the efforts of the newly formed Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  UPWA sent a check for $11,000 to SCLC during the Montgomery bus boycott, and leaders of the union marched with Dr. King from Selma to Montgomery; in Jackson, Mississippi; and participated in other mass actions.  When Dr. King brought SCLC to Chicago to campaign for fair housing, the leadership of UPWA joined in.  Horowitz argues that “UPWA's antidiscrimination program represented a significant expansion of social unionism” or activism beyond the shop floor.  “Its aggressive policies contrasted starkly with the laxity of mainstream CIO organizations and represented an ‘opportunity found and kept’ by its Black members in a manner paralleled, to a far lesser extent, only by industrial unions expelled from the CIO."[8]

 Conclusion

 A reading of the volumes by Halpern and Horowitz, and the numerous interviews with former packinghouse workers that provide the data for their work, suggests that there is much of historic and contemporary significance in the UPWA.  First, the UPWA, to a degree not achieved by many other unions in the CIO and AFL-CIO, created an integrated union in terms of leadership, policymaking, shopfloor protection of workers, and political program.  Second, political radicals and Black militants provided impetus for the construction of an integrated, class-conscious trade union in the 1930s and 1940s.  Third, the UPWA engaged in civil rights activities in various communities in the North and South, several years before the formation of the SCLC.  Taken in conjunction with the efforts of other leftwing unions, it is fair to say that progressive sectors of the labor movement served as a major stimulus, inspiration, and resource for the rise of the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s.  While some sectors of the labor movement historically have impeded the path to racial justice, it is also important to point out that other sectors of the labor movement have played a critical role in whatever advances toward racial justice have been achieved.

Fourth, the history of class struggle and the struggle for racial justice in fact go hand in hand.  The working class, by virtue of its role in providing labor power for the construction of society, and as the class that experiences the expropriation of the value that it produces, is a leading force in movements of social change.  African-American or woman workers, who often belong to super exploited classes within the working class, constitute sectors that have the possibility of seeing most clearly the exploitative nature of society.  Fifth, UPWA was to a considerable degree a rank-and-file trade union.  It practiced union democracy.  Shop stewards, committees, job actions in the production process, and picketing for civil rights all are expressions of the will of the membership.  All of these activities were institutionalized and encouraged in the life of the union.  Finally, the UPWA story is the story of the success of the old leftwing slogan that still is relevant today: "Black, White, Unite and Fight!"

 Notes

 [1] Philip S. Foner, Organized Labor and the Black Worker, 1619-1973 (International Publishers, 1976).

[2] Speech by Robert Baker, presented to the Central Labor Union of Brooklyn, January 1902.

[3] Michael Goldfield, The Color of Politics: Race and the Mainsprings of American Politics (Ann Arbor; University of Michigan Press, 1997).

[4] Rick Halpern and Roger Horowitz, Meatpackers: An Oral History of Black Packinghouse Workers and Their Struggle for Race and Economic Equality (NY: Twayne Publishers, 1996).

[5] See Rick Halpern, Down on the Killing floor: Black and White Workers in Chicago's Packinghouses, 1904-54, (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1997); Roger Horowitz, `Negro and White, Unite and Fight!':A Social History of Industrial Unionism in Meatpacking, 1930-90 (Champaign: University of Illinois, 1997); and Michael Goldfield, The Color of Politics: Race and the Mainsprings of American Politics (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1997).

[6] Harry Targ, Interviews with Charles Hayes, Ralph Helstein, and Les Orear (Chicago, December 1982).

[7] Horowitz, Negro and White, Unite and Fight!, p. 104.

[8] Ibid., p. 108.

OLD IDEAS STILL HEGEMONIC AS WE GREET THE NEW YEAR

(Originally posted on January 2, 2015)

Harry Targ

Karl Marx in The German Ideology argued in the 1840s that the ideas of the ruling class are the ruling ideas. Almost one hundred years later theorists from the Frankfort School elaborated on Marx’s idea by developing the theory of the “cultural apparatus.” German sociologist Max Horkheimer wrote:

One function of the entire cultural apparatus at any given period has been to internalize in men [and women] of subordinate position the idea of a necessary domination of some men over others, as determined by the course of history down to the present time. As a result, and as a continually renewed condition of this cultural apparatus, the belief in authority is one of the driving forces, sometimes, productive, sometimes obstructive, of human history (quoted in John Bellamy Foster and Robert W. McChesney, “The Cultural Apparatus of Monopoly Capital,” Monthly Review, July/August, 2013).

Ideas do not spring from the air nor do they arrive untarnished by social reality from Gods and religion. No, as suggested by Marx, Horkheimer, Foster, McChesney, and other theorists, ideas are weapons in the continuous struggle for economic and political domination. Herbert Marcuse added that the “necessary domination” over people comes from pleasure and enticements in addition to threats of force. If the image of pleasure does not mollify the people, then threats of impending pain can be transmitted from parts of the “cultural apparatus” (education systems, mass media, the internet, patterns of child rearing, religious institutions), thus legitimizing the application of force.

 

As we prepare for a new year with hope for positive social change, it is worth reflecting on three central concepts communicated through and justified by the “cultural apparatus:” markets, police, and the war system.  Markets offer the image of growing pleasure. Economists and politicians reiterate over and over again that economic development and political stability require the free flow of markets-- buyers and sellers, investors and speculators, workers and bosses, and the commodification of everything. The idea of markets permeates political discussion and is presented to publics as intimately connected to democracy, freedom, and cultural advance. Markets may serve as one mechanism among many to distribute goods and services but are not, as the ideologues suggest, the fundamental way of organizing society. But we hear over and over the promise that markets will bring to all humanity. And market fundamentalists add that government programs, visions of the public good, and community constitute a threat to markets and ultimately human betterment. On television, the internet, in schools, and everywhere in the cultural apparatus people are encouraged to consume, enjoy, think primarily of themselves, and remain obedient to the ongoing order. 

According to the cultural apparatus not all people, because of their own shortcomings, will be beneficiaries of the pleasures of the market. Consequently, societies require the construction of police forces to maintain order. In societies where the threat of violence exists, police are necessary to protect the citizenry from the violent, the crazed, and the “hateful” who see race or exploitation behind their misery. The cultural apparatus communicates images of violence and mayhem in society such that people are convinced that police and prisons are the only institutions that save us from a brutal “state of nature,” based on killing, rape, and robbery. General sentiment, reinforced by the criminal justice system, suggests that for majorities of the US population police should be free to act as they choose. 

 

Finally, politicians, pundits, security analysts, and many scholars point out that human nature is flawed and as a result there will always be wars. During the brief periods when the United States is not actively engaged in war, policy makers ruminate on how the United States must be prepared for the “next” war. Visions of a peaceful world are beyond the scope of the economic and political system because there are aggressive, greedy, and crazed nations and terrorists in the larger world.

In sum, markets, the police, and the war system constitute key concepts embedded in the cultural apparatus and are central to the interests of the ruling class. The formulation of these key concepts is left purposefully vague here as is the description of the cultural apparatus because every aware participant in the political process can fill in detailed examples. Whether one “consumes” film, videos, computer games, music, television, print media, or education, examples of the messages about the legitimacy of markets, police, and the war system are readily available. The same self-reflection can be made about the level of centralized control of the cultural institutions that shape peoples’ consciousness.

Therefore, while global corporations, banks, police forces, and militaries constitute material sources of power and control, they are maintained also by core ideas about markets, police, and the war system. In short, ideas matter. 

Transforming society therefore is about changing ideas and who distributes them as well as the economic and military institutions themselves.  

  

THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORDER REAPPEARS 50 Years Ago: A Radio Interview and Essay

 A radio discussion of the New International Economic Order:

https://soundcloud.com/user-240416425/2023-01-07-1500-grass-is-greener-targ-on-the-nieo-and-the-global-south

Harry Targ

 https://progressive.international/blueprint/collection/7e2256c4-1bb2-49a3-bf78-a3e0bc6160d2-new-international-economic-order/en

“The Progressive International inaugurated a global process to build a New International Economic Order fit for the twenty-first century at a multilateral summit in midtown Manhattan in partnership with UN Permanent Representatives, sitting and former ministers from eight governments across the Global South. You can watch the proceedings.” (No. 49 | Build the New International Economic Order in Havana).

https://youtu.be/TwhNhRmVEJM

 

 https://act.progressive.international/nieo/

 

The Third World Demands a New International Economic Order: History of an Idea

 

The brutal overthrow of the Allende government in Chile in 1973 was reminiscent of traditional US. activities as world policeman. The impact of the coup on the Chilean people in terms of economic justice and political freedom was negative in the extreme. The bloody victory of counterrevolution in Chile and elsewhere, however, came at a period in world history when the rise of Third World resistance to U.S. imperialism was reducing the prospect of more Chiles in the future.

 

By the 1970s, the worldwide resistance to U.S. and international capitalism was growing. The revolutionary manifestation of this resistance was occurring in Southeast Asia, Southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, the Middle East, and Central America and the Caribbean. During the Nixon-Ford period, the United States and its imperialist allies lost control of the Indochinese states, Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau. South Yemen, Nicaragua, Iran, and Grenada would follow later in the decade. The Rockefeller Foundation and leaders of colonial powers and multinational corporations and banks formed the Trilateral Commission in 1973 to strategize about how to crush rising dissent in the Global South.

 

Along with the rise of revolutionary victories and movements throughout the Third World, a worldwide reformist movement began to take shape around demands for a New International Economic Order (NIEO). Its predecessor, the. nonaligned movement of the 1950s and 1960s, had been nurtured by leading anticolonial figures such as Nasser of Egypt, Nkrumah of Ghana, and Nehru of India. Their goal was to construct a bloc of Third World nations of all ideological hues which could achieve political power and economic advantage by avoiding alliances and political stances that might tie them to the United States or the former Soviet Union. The nonaligned movement saw the interests of member nations tied to the resolution of "north-south" issues, which in their view were of greater importance than "east-west" issues.

 

After two decades of experience with political independence from formal colonialism, revolutionaries who believed that economic exploitation resulted from the structure of the international capitalist system were joined by Third World leaders who saw the need to reform international capitalism. Consequently, a movement emerged, largely within UN agencies, such as the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), increasingly populated by Third World nations, that addressed Third World poverty and underdevelopment (https://unctad.org). This movement presupposed the possibility of reducing the suffering of Third World peoples without necessarily bringing an end to capitalism as the internationally dominant mode of production.

 

To counter the declining Third World percentage of world trade, fluctuations in prices of exported commodities, foreign corporate repatriation of profits earned in Third World countries, technological dependence, growing international debt, and deepening crises in the supply of food, Third World leaders were forced by material conditions and revolutionary ferment to call for reforms. The inspiration for a NIEO movement came also from

the seeming success of OPEC countries in gaining control of oil pricing and production decisions from foreign corporations.

 

Two special sessions of the General Assembly of the UN in 1974 and 1975 on the NIEO "established the concept as a priority item of the international community" (Laszlo, Ervin, Robert Baker, Jr., Elliott Eisenberg, and Raman Venkata, The Objectives   of the New International Economic Order, New York, Pergamon, xvi). The NEIO became a short-hand reference for a series of interrelated economic and political demands concerning issues that required fundamental policy changes, particularly from wealthy nations. The issue areas singled out for action included aid and assistance, international trade and finance, industrialization, technology transfer, and business practices.

 

Paradoxically, while the NIEO demands were reformist in character and, if acted on, could stave off revolutionary ferment (as did New Deal legislation in the United States in the 1930s), the general position of the Nixon, Ford, and Carter administrations on the NIEO were negative. European nations were more responsive to selected demands, like stabilizing Third World commodity prices and imports into Common Market countries, but the broad package of NIEO demands continued to generate resistance from the wealthy nations, which benefited from the current system. Nabudere correctly understood the interests of Third World leaders in the NIEO when he wrote that:

"The demands of the petty bourgeoisie of third world countries are not against exploitation of the producing classes in their countries, but of the domination of their class by monopoly. The demands therefore for reform—for more credit to enable the petty bourgeois more room also to exploit their own labor and extract a greater share of the surplus value. This is unachievable, for to do so is to negate monopoly—which is an impossible task outside the class struggle." (Nabudere, D.Wadada,  Essays on the Theory and Practice of Imperialism, London, Onys Press, 1979).

Therefore, the NEIO, commodity cartels like OPEC, and other schemes for marginal redistribution of the profits derived from the international economy would not go beyond increasing the shares which Third World ruling classes received from the ongoing economic system. But minimal benefits to workers and peasants would accrue. Third World successes against monopoly capital, however, would serve to weaken the hold the latter had on the international system. Ironically, while opposing channeling Third World militancy in a reformist direction, such as the NIEO, had the opposite effect of generating a new militancy among masses of Third World peoples where it did not exist before. Those workers, peasants, and intellectuals who gained consciousness of their plight in global structural terms through their leaders' UN activities realized that NIEO demands were not enough. It was feared that they would come to realize what Nabudere argued, namely:

“But in order to succeed, the struggles cannot be relegated to demands for change at international bodies, mere verbal protests and parliamentary debates, etc.  Therefore, demands for a new economic order are made increasingly impossible unless framed in the general context of a new democratic revolution; the role of the working class and its allies is crucial to the achievement, in any meaningful way, of a new international economic order.” (Nabudere, D.Wadada,  Essays on the Theory and Practice of Imperialism, London, Onys Press, 1979.180).

    

 And now in the contexts of demands for reconceptualizing international relations away from fissures between “great powers” to those between the rich of the Global North and the poor of the Global South, the NIEO is being revisited in the contexts of environmental catastrophe, grotesquely growing economic inequality, massive migration, religious fundamentalism, and civil and hybrid wars. Progressives in the Global North should support demands, though modest, for an NIEO.

With Escalating Tensions Between the United States and China While Serving as a Co-Belligerent in Ukraine, the Time is Ripe For the Revitalization of the Peace Movement

 Harry Targ

 

 So Why Isn’t That Happening Right Now? And What Can Be Done to Change That?

 The history of the peace movement is replete with successes and many failures. Peace movement solidarity has been intimately connected to anti-racist, pro-labor, women, and environmental struggles for decades. When Dr. King and Mohammed Ali connected the evils of Vietnam with racism and poverty at home, proponents of peace and social and economic justice gained in strength.

 Today the movement is dispersed because peace activists are appropriately struggling to defend what remains of democracy, women’s’ right to choose, gun control, medical care for all, and other critical issues.

 Meanwhile the multidimensional character of war continues. War and terrorism on the world stage persists including the systematic use of hybrid war techniques to starve populations in states defined as enemies, the spread of new high technological instruments of slaughter, economic sanctions against governments defined as enemies of “democracy,” the danger of the return to big power conflict, and continuing increases in military spending. But, what we might call “the war system” is not only about peace but about economic justice, saving the environment, and ending racism and sexism as well. 

 Therefore, it is useful to step back and analyze “the time of day” on a worldwide basis as to global class forces and their ideologies, contemporary techniques of empire and their consequences for the lives of billions, individual global crises; and to assess the fundamental structures of President Biden’s stances on war, peace, and foreign policy in general. 

 The Ruling Class Agenda for the United States Role in the World

 

[Source: countercurrents.org]

  From a Washington Post editorial, May 21, 2016:

“Hardly a day goes by without evidence that the liberal international order of the past seven decades is being eroded. China and Russia are attempting to fashion a world in their own illiberal image… no matter who takes the Oval Office, it will demand courage and difficult decisions to save the liberal international order. As a new report from the Center for a New American Security points out, this order is worth saving, and it is worth reminding ourselves why: It generated unprecedented global prosperity, lifting billions of people out of poverty; democratic government, once rare, spread to more than 100 nations; and for seven decades there has been no cataclysmic war among the great powers. No wonder U.S. engagement with the world enjoyed a bipartisan consensus.”

The Washington Post editorial of 2016 quoted above still clearly articulates the dominant view envisioned by U.S. foreign policy elites: about global political economy, militarism, and ideology.

First, it is inspired by the necessity of 21st century capitalism to defend neoliberal globalization: government for the rich, austerity for the many, and deregulation of trade, investment, and speculation.

Second, the Post vision of a New World Order is built upon a reconstituted United States military and economic hegemony that has been a central feature of policymaking at least since the end of World War II even though time after time it has suffered setbacks.

In addition, despite recent setbacks, grassroots mass mobilizations against neoliberal globalization and austerity policies have risen everywhere, including in the United States. However, The Washington Post speaks to efforts to reassemble the same constellation of political forces, military resources, and concentrated wealth, that, if anything, are greater than at any time since the establishment of the US “permanent war economy” after the last World War.

Historian, Michael Stanley, in an essay entitled “‘We are Not Denmark’: Hillary Clinton and Liberal American Exceptionalism,” (Common Dreams, February 26, 2016) pointed to the ideological glue that has been used by foreign policy elites, liberal and conservative, to justify the pursuit of neoliberal globalization and militarism; that is the reintroduction of the old idea of American Exceptionalism. The Biden administration conceptualization of this ideology is presented as the struggle between “democracy versus authoritarianism.”

American Exceptionalism presumes the world has little to offer the United States. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans on foreign policy is whether the exceptionalism still exists and must be maintained or has dissipated requiring the need to “make America great again.” Leaders of both parties, however, support the national security state, high military expenditures, and a global presence—military, economic, political, and cultural.

Techniques of Empire Today  

 Although the imperial agenda, and the ideological precepts justifying it, has remained the same for two hundred years the techniques of empire have changed as growing resistance at home and abroad and new technologies dictate. Changes in warfare, other violence, and imperial expansion include the following:

 -Wars are internal much more than international and casualties are overwhelmingly civilian rather than military.

 -The global presence of some form of the United States military is ubiquitous-between 700-and 1,000 military bases, in anywhere from 40 to 120 countries

 - U.S. military operations have been privatized. It is estimated that ninety percent of such work is being done by 110 contractors.

 - “Unmanned Aerial Vehicles” have been used to kill alleged enemies everywhere.

[Source: wilayah.info]

 -U.S. agencies, such as the CIA, have been engaged in the increased use of assassinations and efforts to undermine governments. So-called “non-government organizations” fund dissident groups in countries the United States seeks to destabilize.

 -So-called “humanitarian assistance” is used to support United States policies in the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America.

 -In sum, the United States increasingly has used economic tools—economic blockades, trade sanctions, covert financing of pro-US politicians in other countries, and condemnations by some international organizations to undermine, starve, and ultimately, it is hoped, to entice people to overthrow their governments. These techniques, often labeled “hybrid war,” are being used against Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Iran, and some thirty other countries.

 Imperial “Trouble Spots”: 2022: NATO/Ukraine and a New Cold War

In the last week of June, 2022, three months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine starting the recent and ongoing war, the long-advertised NATO summit opened.  Before the meeting the organization’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced that it would increase NATO’s “high-readiness military forces from 40,000 to over 300,000,” an increase of troop levels by 650 percent over the past. 

 

NATO director Jens Stoltenberg advocated for more NATO funding at NATO summit. [Source: foreignpolicy.com]

Subsequent to the announcement, leaders of NATO countries met in Madrid from June 29-30 and made key decisions to advance the organization and militarism in Europe and around the world. According to a NATO document the 30-nation military alliance identified “Russia as the most significant and direct threat to Allied security” and referred to “China for the first time,” and included “other challenges like terrorism, cyber and hybrid.”

Perhaps most troubling from a peace point of view was the document’s announcement that deterrence and defense would be enhanced by “more troops and more pre-positioned equipment and weapon stockpiles in the east of the Alliance, enhancing NATO’s eight multinational battlegroups…” Diplomacy was not discussed.

NATO plans included recommitments of each member country to provide 2 percent of their GDP to the organization’s budget and invitations to new members, Sweden and Finland. NATO documents refer to the Russian threat and “China’s growing influence and assertiveness.”

For the first time other attendees included representatives from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and the Republic of Korea presumably in regard to the China “threat.” In addition, the NATO press release referred to a recommitment “to the fight against terrorism and addressed NATO’s response to threats and challenges from the Middle East, North Africa, and the Sahel.” And finally, the NATO partners made long term financial commitments to addressing the climate crisis.

At the closing press conference, the NATO Secretary General indicated that “we face the most serious security situation in decades.” Subsequent to the NATO Summit the war in Ukraine, on all sides, escalated.

The Asian Pivot

In 2011, U.S. spokespersons announced that the country would shift resources and attention to Asia from the Middle East, an area with demanding security and economic interests. Although U.S./Chinese dialogue continues the United States has criticized China’s repositioning of what it regards as its possessions in the South China Sea and threatens any Chinese actions in relation to Twaiwan.. The United States has expanded military relations with Vietnam, reestablished military bases in the Philippines, and has generally avoided criticizing efforts by ruling Japanese politicians to revise their constitution to allow for a full-scale remilitarization. The United States has threatened North Korea over their military maneuvers and has bolstered the South Korean military. Dee Knight has described recent Biden Administration policy proclamations concerning China.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III bumps elbows with Vietnam’s Defense Minister Phan Van Giang in Hanoi, July 29, 2021. [Source: thediplomat.com]

 And corporations engaged in military production and research universities have used the China threat as a justification for increased military spending, research and development, cyber-security and a whole panoply of tools to fight twenty-first century wars.

The Middle East

Most American politicians express their belief that the U.S. must maintain a special relationship with the state of Israel. One of the few active mobilizations for peace today is the worldwide campaign to demand governments, corporations, and other institutions boycott, and divest holdings in what is regarded as an apartheid state, Israel, which oppresses its Arab population and those living in the Occupied Territories. The campaign is so effective that along with national politicians, governors and state legislatures have taken stands against the BDS campaign. Israel continues to expand its occupation of Palestinian land, repress Palestinians within Israel, and is currently not distributing the covid-19 vaccine to Palestinian people, while other Israel citizens are inoculated.

Next to the historic U.S. ties to Israel, Syria, Libya, Yemen and other countries have been torn apart by civil war fueled by western, primarily U.S. intervention, continuing U.S. support of Saudi Arabian militarism, and the fractionalization of states in the region. The Trump administration increased the threat of war with Iran. President Biden, open to returning to the Nuclear Treaty with Iran from which Trump withdrew, has achieved little success in reducing tensions with Iran.

The Saudi Arabian war on Yemen with U.S. support continues and Biden visited Saudi Arabia to secure increasing production of oil, in demand since the onset of the war in Ukraine.

 

Protest outside White House against Saudi bombing of Yemen. [Source: bbc.com]

Africa

Nick Turse has described the growing U.S. military presence on the African continent. A special command structure, AFRICOM, was established in 2008 to oversee U.S. security interests on the continent. Initially, Turse reported, the Pentagon claimed that it had one larger base, Camp Lemonier in Djibouti. But enterprising researchers discovered that the U.S. military had a dense network of “cooperative security outposts,” bases and other sites of military presence, at least 60 across the continent, in 34 countries. The U.S. has defense attaches in 38 countries. 

Turse and colleagues reported on data indicating that the United States has been engaged in secret military training of personnel in many countries, what they called ‘a shadowy network of U.S. programs that every year provides instruction and assistance to approximately 200,000 foreign soldiers, police, and other personnel.”  (Douglas Gillison, Nick Turse, Moiz Syed, “How the U.S. Trains Killers Worldwide,” Portside, July 13, 2016). In addition, as Richard Dunn reported, on April 27, Congress overwhelmingly passed the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act” warning of the need for greater US military presence and support of African nations against a “Russian threat.” In December 2022, President Biden hosted African leaders to announce modest “development” assistance and to warn of China’s exploitative intentions on the African continent.

Map of U.S. Special Forces operations in Africa. [Source: theintercept.com]

Latin America

The influence of the United States in the Western Hemisphere has weakened since the onset of the Bolivarian Revolution in the early part of the 21^st century. Also Latin Americans oppose the long-standing efforts of the US to isolate Cuba.  However, during the Trump Administration  Obama era “soft power” approaches toward Cuba were reversed. Trump initiated 243 new economic sanctions against the island. Biden has not lifted most of them. Cuba solidarity activists estimate, the economic blockade of Cuba is more severe now than any time since its initiation in 1960.

June 6-10, 2022, the United States orchestrated a “Summit of the Americas,” excluding invitations for Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua. Several Hemisphere nations refused to participate in the meetings in protest. Mexico and other countries in the region have  called for the revitalizing of regional economic and political organizations without United States participation and interference. In the United Nations General Assembly all Latin American countries and virtually all countries in the Global South vote annually to condemn the US blockade of Cuba. While governments in Colombia, Bolivia, and elsewhere have emerged to resume the “Pink Tide,” coups in Peru and Argentina suggest that the right in Latin America (and the United States) are attempting to push back against it.

 

[Source: mronline.org]

The Idea of the National Security State

[Source: twitter.com]

The contradiction that still needs an explanation is the fact that for the most part the American people oppose wars and intervention. This is particularly so in the twenty-first century when so much pain and suffering has been caused by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The answer can be found in a variety of explanations of United States imperialism including what Mike Lofgren has called the “deep state.” Lofgren defined the “deep state” as  “… a hybrid association of elements of government and parts of top-level finance and industry that is effectively able to govern the United States without reference to the consent of the governed as expressed through the formal political process.”  (Mike Lofgren, “Anatomy of the ‘Deep State’: Hiding in Plain Sight,” Online University of the Left, February 23, 2014). 

Power to make critical decisions reside not in the superstructure of the political process; the place were competitive games are played for all to see, but in powerful institutions embedded in society that can make decisions without requiring popular approval. In the end these institutions have involved the United States in death and destruction all across the globe.

And Military Spending Continues

("The spending on contractors continues today at the same rapid clip, accounting for more than half of average Pentagon spending each year. And with Congress poised to approve a $778 billion one-year spending package… Democrats are slashing the Build Back Better bill from $3.5 trillion to $1.75 trillion over ten years. Meanwhile, Pentagon contractors have received $3.4 trillion over the past decade." (Lindsay Koshgarian, "U.S. Military Contracts Totaled $3.4 Trillion Over 10 Years,” Institute for Policy Studies, October 28, 2021).

 And with the war in Ukraine, U.S. military spending in 2022 has exceeded $800 billion dollars. As Raytheon Technologies CEO Greg Hayes said: “Everything that’s being shipped into Ukraine today, of course, is coming out of stockpiles, either at DoD [the Department of Defense] or from our NATO allies, and that’s all great news. Eventually we’ll have to replenish it and we will see a benefit to the business over the next coming years.” (William Hartung, “How Pentagon Contractors Are Cashing in on the Ukraine Crisis,” Quincy Institute, April 17, 2022). In December, 2022, Congress authorized military expenditures of $858 billion (not counting authorizations to agencies that are really engaging in military activities).

 

So Where Does the Peace Movement Go From Here?

Analyses of what is wrong are easier to develop than thinking through ways to respond. This essay opened with a dilemma, a dispersed peace movement locally and nationally. It then argued that the foreign policy elites have had a hegemonic vision of the role of the United States in the world yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And these elites and institutions of the national security state have at their disposal 21st century military technologies to maintain their power in the world.

But a revitalized peace movement can respond to the complexities of “the time of day”. Approaches the peace movement can take in the near term include the following:

1.Articulate a theory, a conceptual scheme, that foregrounds two main elements. First, this “theory” should make crystal clear that there are fundamental interconnections between the economic system of capitalism, militarism, and the ideology of American exceptionalism. The peace movement might work on single issues and aspects of the war problem as circumstances dictate at particular times, but in the main such movements must unabashedly show how economics, politics, ideology, and the war system are interconnected and to end war and militarism, all of the elements must be seen together.

One way to articulate these connections graphically is to think about a diamond shaped figure. At the base is an economic system, at this point-in-time finance capitalism and the exploitation of workers. Above the base at the two side points are militarism on one side and racism, sexism, and American exceptionalism on the other. At the top add destruction of nature. Conceptualizing the war problem in this way we begin to see the connections between the 21st century state of capitalism as a global system and war, racism, sexism, ideology, and environmental destruction.

Second, this “theory” should encourage a shift in thinking about international relations as an issue of the relations among powerful states to a way of thinking that conceptualizes economics and militarism as a “North/South” problem.

Theorists like V. J. Prashad have argued that “older” models of international relations have overemphasized big power conflict at the expense of understanding how the countries of the Global North have exploited, invaded, and transformed the economic and political life of what Prashad has called “The Darker Nations.” To some extend Eurocentric models of international relations have limited the peace movements’ understanding that the object of wars and competition have largely been about countries and peoples of the Global South. (For a useful comparison of a G7 versus BRICS view of the world see https://fb.watch/ebp1ie-34t/)

 

Vijay Prashad [Source: wikipedia.org]

2.Use the theory or schema to develop an educational program that begins with efforts to understand the fundamentals of the war system, that is connecting economics, to class, race, gender, ideology, and the environment. Relate the specific issue at hand: Israel/Palestine, Ukraine, undermining regimes in Latin America for example, to the diamond.

3.Participate in grassroots organizing in solidarity with others, linking issues to the war/peace paradigm. Particular attention should be given to articulating the connections between domestic issues and the war system.

4.Engage in global solidarity. The analysis above has emphasized the forces of global hegemony, or imperialism. Introduce to peace and justice struggles ideas about “North/South connections. That is, the deep structure of international relations for hundreds of years has been primarily about violence and exploitation of peoples of the Global South by nations, particularly from Europe and North America, in the Global North. For the vast majority of humankind economic inequality, starvation, disastrous climate change and a host of interrelated problems take precedence over conflicts in Europe. As V J Prashad has pointed out “war is a crime” and war includes structural as well as direct violence. https://youtu.be/Lg9c0jv6wTA

The tasks of a 21st century peace movement are not different from those of the past. They involve education, organization, and agitation. With the growth of worldwide resistance to neoliberal globalization, austerity, racism, sexism, and destruction of nature, it seems natural to incorporate concerns for peace and the right to national and personal self-determination to the budding radical movements of our day.

( An earlier version of this paper appeared as “US Foreign Policy, International Relations, and Militarism Today” 103-116, Contested Terrains: Elections, War &Peace, Labor, Dialogue and Initiative,2022,  Changemaker Publications).