Re: [Marxism] An analysis of the DP convention that works better

["Dayne Goodwin" <daynegoodwin@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 9/1/08, Fred Feldman <ffeldman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> . . .
> In fact, the Democratic Party sacrificed itself to absorb (even more than
> contain) the civil rights movement and keep it within the framework of
> capitalism.
>
> Does anyone recall a  Congressional Black Caucus before 1965. Not to
> mention
> an Obama campaign, etc.
>
> Did the Democratic Party change its imperialist spots. No. Did the
> structure
> of the Democratic Party change?  You bet it did.
> Fred Feldman



Isn't it the Democrat Party's job to deflect, contain or absorb mass
progressive and potentially revolutionary movements for social change?   It
may at times be a costly job but that is the Democrat Party's role in the
capitalist's two-party political structure/system for "democratic"
governance and management of capitalist class society where a tiny
capitalist minority is ruling over a huge working class majority.

I am puzzled by your assertion that the structure of the Democrat Party
changed, Fred.
I hope that you will elaborate further.

It was in G. William Domhoff's first book _Who Rules America?_ (1967) that i
got some initial understanding of what i came to consider the reality of the
capitalist's two-party political system.  I had recently glanced at
Domhoff's 1991 book _Blacks in the White Establishment? A Study of Race and
Class in America_ (co-authored with Richard L. Zweigenhaft) and i looked for
it, wondering if they had commented on 'structural change' in the Democrat
Party.

I ended up looking at their latest book _Diversity in the Power Elite_
(2006) where they say in their concluding chapter:

"The impetus for greater diversity, as we have stressed, did not come from
within the power elite but was the result of external pressures brought to
bear by the civil rights movement." [p.244]

"In what may be the greatest and most important irony of them all, the
diversity forced upon the power elite may have helped to strengthen it.
Diversity has given the power elite buffers, ambassadors, tokens, and
legitimacy.  This is an unintended consequence that few insurgents or social
scientists foresaw.  As recent social psychology experiments show and
experience confirms, it often takes only a small number of upwardly mobile
members of previously excluded groups, perhaps as few as 2 percent, to
undermine an excluded group's definition of who is "us" and who is "them,"
which contributes to a decline in collective protest and disruption and
increases striving for individual mobility.  That is, those who make it are
not only "role models" for individuals, but they are safety valves against
collective action by aggrieved groups." [p.245-46]

[Major reason given by Senator Ted Kennedy for his endorsement of Obama
relatively early in the Democrat Party primaries: 'Obama can bring renewed
legitimacy to our political system, especially among young people.']

"The black and white liberals and progressives who challenged Christian,
white, male homogeneity in the power structure starting in the 1950s and
1960s sought to do more than create civil rights and new job opportunities
for men and women who had previously been mistreated and excluded, important
though these goals were...The idea was both to diversify the power elite and
to shift some of its power to underrepresented groups and social classes...
But as some individuals made it, and as the concerns of social movements,
political leaders and the courts gradually came to focus more and more on
individual rights and individual advancement, the focus on "distributive
justice," general racial exclusion, and social class was lost." [p.247]

"We therefore conclude that the increased diversity in the power elite has
not generated any changes in an underlying class system in which the top 1
percent of households (the upper class) own 33.4 percent of all marketable
wealth, and the next 19 percent (the managerial, professional, and small
business stratum) have 51 percent, which means that just 20 percent of the
people own a remarkable 84 percent of the privately owned wealth in the
United States, leaving a mere 16 percent of the wealth for the bottom 80
percent (wage and salary workers).  [p.248]

Domhoff and Zweigenhaft say that the structural changes in capitalist
society since the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s amount to the
'power elite' recognizing the need to incorporate a very small percentage of
women and minority "tokens" and "buffers."  If that is the degree of
structural change in capitalist society generally, what structural change
has developed within the Democrat Party?

Dayne
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