[PEN-L:9419] Re: Max and the Social Democrats

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Antonio Callari wrote:

>These two ways of layering the ground for popular initiatives, as problems
>for and conditions to be managed by the ruling culture/class, lead to two
>different political attitudes. The first option, which is where I suspect
>Doug is [Doug, you can correct me if I am wrong], is that, since these
>initiatives are ruses of the bourgeoisie, they are to be resisted and
>avoided; they are to be branded for what they are, exposed to the world as
>such, etc. etc.. But, if the second understanding (that these are sites,
>with independent centers, that the ruling class/culture intervenes to
>manage) is correct, then the proper political attitude is that the left
>should get in there to fight it out, that these sites become places of
>struggle between the bourgeois way of addressing problems, responding to
>needs, etc, and a progressive/left way of doing it--a way of competing with
>the bourgeoisie.

I don't think things can be declared one way or the other. A lot of the
compromised tenant and community groups of today were militant
troublemakers in the 1960s and 1970s. The Ford Foundation & the rest were
very adept at seducing lots of them, and now they're indisputably creatures
of the ruling class. Now that the routine is so well-established, groups
are almost corrupted from birth, since the first thing you do after
printing your letterhead is write a grant proposal. What is formed is often
determined by what can be funded. Another point: many advocacy groups for
the poor performed horribly during the debate over welfare reform - in
important part because the foundations that fund them emphasize service
delivery within existing parameters over grassroots organization. The
funders also favor geographically or ethnically oriented groups - who are,
by the way, in competition for the same limited set of funds - which made
cooperation very difficult. A third point: I heard from some folks who were
organizing for the New Party in a certain gritty urban neighborhood were
told to stop after having signed up 25 new members. The party leadership
wanted to deal with established community organizations (foundation-funded,
of course) rather than building a real membership base. That's perfectly
consistent with the top-down marketing strategy that Joel Rogers outlined
in his long speech at the Socialist Scholars Conference in NYC - and when
Joel appeared at The Nation's offices some months back, he was travelling
with a former Rockefeller program officer.

So I don't see how "the left," such as it is, can view these sorts of
organizations as sites for duking it out. But obviously that's not the only
way to do politics. But as soon as philanthropists' money takes the place
of a real membership base, then I'd say the outlook is pretty glum.


Doug

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Doug Henwood
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