Memo: The "S" Word

To: Joshua and all other interested parties
re: The "S" Word: A Short History of an American Tradition...Socialism (Verso, 2011)

Not so long ago-- before the #occupy movement, but still it was July-- you posted a short piece called "Every time the Left Sins God Sends Another Working-class American to the Tea Party." You argued that the American Left needed to appropriate the American history of radicalism and socialism without leaving it to the right:

Many Leftists articulate American working-class needs by using overly intellectual rhetoric. The Left does not need to dumb down information, just break it down. Many Leftists use other countries' revolutionaries and revolutions as symbols of liberation and outright ignore American equivalents. What about heroes of struggle such as Thomas Paine,John Brown, and Mary Harris "Mother" Jones? What about celebrating movements such as the BOSTON TEA PARTY?

Particular aspects of this kind of discussion always worry me, especially appeals to the War of Independence and the Tea Party. I wrote, in a comment:

We cannot, and should not, attempt to out-jingoize the Right (which isn't your point, but the issue could be lurking there). The radical left has a much stronger history with abolitionism, the IWW and union activism (Eugene V. Debs, anybody?), and the Harlem Renaissance, than the transfer of power from the British to American bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the symbolic reference points take on gravity from organization rather than the reverse.

Like I said, things were different then. While I never took the Tea Party seriously (which is much easier to do when you're not surrounded by it), that astro-turf bus tour has been quickly forgotten behind the strength of the Occupy movement. But that doesn't mean that our discussion has  become academic. What of the American history of socialism and radicalism?

It turns out we're not the only people thinking about it. John Nichols' The "S" Word  is an important re-examination of American socialism. The book is structured chronologically, with Chapter 2 dealing with Tom Paine, Chapter 3 with the abolitionism of Abraham Lincoln, Chapter 4 with the successes of socialist governance in Milwaukee, Chapter 5 with the anti-war movement during World War I, and Chapter 6 on the contributions of socialist thought and practice on the civil rights movement.

But let's not make any mistake. Chronological or not, the book opens with two chapters that ought to shame Republicans for their (mis-) appropriations of Thomas Paine or Abe Lincoln, who were much more open minded than contemporary Fox News conservatives, who proposed and considered ideas that were much more socialist than most Democrats would mull over today.

From there Nichols turns to the local electoral successes of socialists, primarily in Milwaukee. But his larger point is that many of the ideals we on the left work with have a much longer history than is commonly assumed.

There is nothing new, nothing "modern," about this understanding of the need to cross lines of race, creed, ethnicity and gender in order to make a fundamental change. Joseph Weydemeyer, the follower of Marx and Engels who advocated "true socialism," organized the American Workers League in 1853 with the stated purpose of uniting workers "without respect to occupation, language, color or sex" (179).

You read the number correctly: 1853. Nichols argues that avowed socialists have worked for over a century and a half toward transforming the lives of Americans against some of the most fierce political opposition (see the chapter on the opposition to World War I).

I don't want to carry on too long, given that this was supposed to be a short memo. Let me say a few more things in shorthand. The primary weakness of Nichols's book can be summarized like this: too much love for Edward Bernstein's followers, and not enough for John Brown. Meaning that Nichols heavily favors electoral action, and does not discuss what the historical significance of revolutionary violence, or non-statist political organization, might mean (which is in part understandable given that the right currently holds a monopoly on extra-state violence). Also, he makes numerous appeals to American socialism as an  American tradition and not just a foreign imposition--but we really need to be careful with this kind of rhetoric, for it appeals to many of the shared assumptions of a country built on settler colonialism (though Nichols does not ignore this issue; see p. 70).

However, these criticisms should not overshadow the merits of The "S" Word. Given that the first chapter and the afterword situate the history of socialism within contemporary debates, the book might just be the general starting point for reconsidering the history of American radicalism. Given that the Democrats have largely abandoned many of the concerns that allied them with the working class and the civil rights movement, in favor of a politics of progressive verbiage, it may well be, as Nichols writes, "that the only word of the left that still has any meaning is 'socialism.'"

Every Time the Left Sins God Sends Another Working-Class American to the Tea Party

The Left in the US must blame itself for its weakness and inability to draw in lager numbers of working-class Americans into its fold. Walter Benjamin wrote that, "behind every fascism is a failed revolution." The growing popularity of the Tea Party movement in the US is the resulting failure of Leftists to address righteous popular anger over corrupt politics. I think there are several reasons for this.

Many Leftists articulate American working-class needs by using overly intellectual rhetoric. The Left does not need to dumb down information, just break it down. Many Leftists use other countries' revolutionaries and revolutions as symbols of liberation and outright ignore American equivalents. What about heroes of struggle such as Thomas Paine,John Brown, and Mary Harris "Mother" Jones? What about celebrating movements such as the BOSTON TEA PARTY? What is so amusing about the right-wing using the Boston Tea party, as a symbol of their movement, is that its very history undermines much of their political positions. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 sabotaged commerce, destroyed private property, and broke the rule of law, for the greater moral value of actual justice, opposed to legal injustice. The Boston Tea Party of 1773 fits more into the tradition of progressives than so-called conservatives. On a more extreme level,one could argue that the Boston Tea Party has more similarities with the Earth Liberation Front than it does with the Republican Party or the twenty-first century Tea Party.

I argue that the Tea Party is not truly conservative anyway. Two of the most popular politicians in the Tea Party movement are Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann. Both are women. Women being involved in politics and having the right to vote is not a conservative value, if "conservative" means going back to the proverbial good ol' days. The Founding Fathers, limited in their wisdom, would have told them to stay home, make babies, and cook for their husbands. It was liberal women and radical women that fought the law to get the right for women to become active members of politics. Liberals and leftists are accused of breaking with tradition: for picking and choosing ethics opportunistically. That is exactly what the right-wing does. When there was prayer in public schools there was legalized racial segregation and children working in sweat-shops: most right-wingers do not openly claim to want all of those things, hence they are not truly conservative, they are right-wing liberals.

A large portion of the Tea Party's constituency rightly are disgusted with the bank bailouts that Bush started and Obama continued. Somehow the Tea Party has convinced working Americans that this is socialism. Big finance manipulates the government to save capitalism at the American public's expense and this is socialism? No my fellow Americans, this is the natural outgrowth of Capitalism. The saddest naivety is the belief that big business is a better alternative to big government. The world is not marching into global one-world-order-socialism, it is crashing into disaster neo-liberal capitalism. Why is Republican Congressman Ron Paul viewed as a fringe politician and not fully endorsed by the financial sector? Because he has faith in the "free-market." Big capitalists do not want a free-market, they want Government to intervene on their behalf: in favor of capitalists and against the working-class or any other obstacle. Big business favors its international agenda at the expense of America or any other country, NAFTA is a good example. These are some of the points the Left in America should be exposing to the public at large. This great country is falling apart, is being ripped apart, and the actual creators of this destruction need to be stopped.

I picked two music videos. One is an official Tea Party Video and the other appears to be an average American musician. The lyrics in their songs demonstrate much of what this blog discussed.

The Socialist Tour of Père-Lachaise

The only really touristy thing that my wife and I have done in Paris so far is a visit to the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise (the rest of you can take the virtual visit here). Just so that my street cred isn't damaged, I want to make it clear that I did not go to visit Jim Morrison's grave. We did, however, take a non-sectarian socialist tour of the cemetery.

Auguste Blanqui (1805-1881)

Saint-Simon (1760-1825)

Nestor Makhno (1889-1934)

Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) with, unfortunately, graffitti

A Memorial for the Communards (some of whom were shot at this wall)

 Paul Lafargue (1842-1911) and Laura Lafargue (née Marx, 1845-1911)

Paul Éluard (1895-1952)

Adrien Lejeune, the last communard (1847-1942)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961)

And I feel that we can't leave out a few non-socialists:

Théodore Géricault (1791-1824), with a reproduction of The Raft of Medusa

And, finally, Richard Wright (1908-1960)

Helen Keller : Great American Woman Activist

This post better get many hits and I mean it!!! I'm tired of how marginalized Helen Keller is by the Left (and everyone else for that matter). Let us be honest, Keller fits into a condescending role of cutesy survivore victim. Even this youtube has a somewhat childish aesthetic. No matter how great her legacy, she is never presented in the heroic way Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. or Che Guevara would be. Helen Keller struggled for the rights of the disabled, she was an ardent Socialist, fluent in several languages, spoke live to the Japanese after the bombing of Hiroshima, and lashed out at Nazis for burning books. There are too many things to write and say about her. At least this documentary clip does give brief highlights of her incredible history. She deserves a special place for the American activist in particular. She belongs in posters on radical college students walls. If only she would have donned a beret instead of a bonnet.

Tony Benn: Let's Talk About Socialism

Documentary film maker Michael Moore does a great interview with the former British parliamentarian Tony Benn. This clip comes from an extended portion from Moore's documentary "Sicko." The United States needs such politicians, the United States needs socialism. Our capitalist health care system is killing us. US Socialists should learn to articulate their arguments with the clarity of this ol' firebrand.

Latin America and 21st Century Socialism

The July-August issue of Monthly Review contains a translation of Marta Harnecker's Latin America and Twenty-First Century Socialism: Inventing to Avoid Mistakes, which is available online here.

The reader interested in the transformations of Latin America will find much of interest here, including commentary on events on the continent through 2009. Harnecker's focus is the development of 21st century socialism. The electoral capture of governmental power by the left across large parts of Latin America has not followed the revolutionary path of state seizure of 20th century socialism, and thus, as Harnecker argues, requires different metrics. First, 21st century socialism, of course, must learn from the mistakes of the 20th century version. And second, it must also learn from the diversification of the movements instead relying on the model of working class struggle to the exclusion of peasants, indigenous people, women, and others. Finally, it must focus on creating new forms of local and protagonistic democracy to decentralize state power.

Harknecker argues that, while there can be no step-by-step blueprint for socialism, there are three fundamental goals by which we can measure the success of the new Latin American left. She calls this, following Hugo Chávez, the elementary triangle of socialism (p. 43ff):

1. "Social ownership of the means of production." Harnecker argues that increased attention must be paid to the distribution of social ownership so that it does not become state-bureaucratic command over production.
2. "Social production organized by the workers." Like social ownership of the means of production, the modes of production must be organized by workers and not become the prerogative of only management. This requires an educational component to work so that the division of labor cannot coalesce into technocrats and workers. She quotes Allende's critique of technocratic and bureaucratic organization: "since workers had the same rights as any citizen [Allende argued] 'it would be paradoxical if in the heart of the company where they work they did not have equal rights'" (p. 45).
3. "The satisfaction of communal need." Rather than the acquisition of commodities, production needs to aim for the satisfaction of "full human development."

In addition, these new forms of distribution, production, and consumption should be organized with two other concerns in mind: first, a redefinition of productivity to include ecological concerns; and second, an eye toward integration and solidarity with other regional allies.

Much of Harnecker's essay focuses on these features of socialism. Nevertheless, its brevity leads to several omissions. First, I found that the discussions of implementing 21st century socialism sometimes left me wanting for current concrete examples. It helps, in this regard, to be familiar with at least some of the previous literature on Venezuela and Bolivia.

Second, after the initial discussion of international trade relations, Harnecker only revisits the topic in passing. Chávez, for instance, has made a significant effort to create a network of Latin American solidarity in trade and aid, to reduce the influence of US economic imperialism over the continent. Nevertheless, in attempting to establish stronger Venezuelan and/or Latin American economic autonomy he has forged ties with much less socialist sympathies (to put it nicely!). In Changing Venezuela by Taking Power (Verso, 2007), Gregory Wilpert argues that Chávez's ties with, and occasional praise of, leaders in repressive countries can undercut local struggles for social justice. These countries include Belorussia, Iran, Syria, China, Zimbabwe, and Russia. No matter how much skepticism the discourse of human rights warrants, Wilpert writes

Chávez does the peoples of these countries no favor by publicly praising their leaders and strengthening their positions while these same leaders trample on the rights of their people. By supporting these leaders, Chávez makes it more difficult for activists in these countries to fight for social justice (p. 181).

As many Marxists have pointed out, the uneven development of capitalism is central to its continued development and dominance as a system. Let us hope that the 'uneven' development of 21st socialism is only a transitional form.