The 1978 election provides fresh evidence of a rightward shift by politicians of both big business parties. Republican and Democratic liberals compete with their right-wing counterparts in "law and order" and antilabor rhetoric. The right-wingers up the ante with phony tax-cut gimmicks that benefit only the rich and, in some instances, with open racist demagogy.
The absence of any independent, mass political voice for labor, the Black community, and their allies has guaranteed a near monopoly for the rightist rhetoric of the capitalist politicians in the electoral arena and mass media.
Unfortunately, some radical commentators confuse this fun-house mirror image of American politics with the real views of American working people and with the real relationship of class forces. Such a misperception leads to highly pessimistic forecasts.
"No, the new right' is not going to take over the country in November," concedes Irwin Silber in the October 18 issue of the Maoist-leaning weekly Guardian. "But the 1978 elections may well
prove a way station on the road to such an objective . . . . This neofascist political tendency is using the forthcoming election to strengthen its hold over the Republican Party, make inroads in the Democratic Party, and popularize the principal issues on which it hopes to build a mass-base following in the years ahead."
"No, the new right' is not going to take over the country in November," concedes Irwin Silber in the October 18 issue of the Maoist-leaning weekly Guardian. "But the 1978 elections may well
prove a way station on the road to such an objective . . . . This neofascist political tendency is using the forthcoming election to strengthen its hold over the Republican Party, make inroads in the Democratic Party, and popularize the principal issues on which it hopes to build a mass-base following in the years ahead."
Silber's errors begin with the implication that the rightward thrust of electoral politics is caused by the growth of the "new right." In fact, this shift is a product of the basic policies of the U.S. rulers.
Beginning in 1971, and with escalating force since the world depression of 1974-75, the U.S. capitalists have tried to solve their economic problems-such as their weakened position in world trade-by an offensive against the rights and living standards of all the oppressed. This has meant chipping away or reversing the economic gains made by union members over many years and the advances toward equality won by oppressed nationalities and women. It has meant slashing public services, from mass transit to schools to medical care.
Since the two-party system is controlled by the capitalist class, the electoral "debate" reflects their basic political course. Liberals suddenly emerge as "new conservatives," while open right-wingers get fresh wind in their sails. The "new" rightists operate as the most vocal reactionary forces within the political strategy set by the ruling class.
By presenting the "new right," rather than the ruling class and its parties, as the driving force behind the attacks on the oppressed, Silber lays the groundwork for supporting liberal capitalist politicians against "fascist" rightists-perhaps in a 1980 remake of the Johnson-Goldwater race of 1964. Although the Guardian itself has taken an abstentionist course in recent elections, the "lesser evil" stance implicit in Silber's analysis has many advocates, ranging from the Communist Party to the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee.
This is not Silber's most serious error, although it is bad enough. In misestimating the strength of the right, Silber takes no account of the resistance by those under attack. Yet the fighting capacity of working people has been powerfully demonstrated in recent months.
Beginning last December, coal miners carried out a 110-day strike that saved their union. In the process, they overruled an incompetent national leadership and defied government strikebreaking.
The reverberations of this battle are still being felt in the labor movement. Postal workers this summer overwhelmingly voted down the first contract that Washington and union officials tried to force on them. And impressive solidarity among the divided rail unions shut down almost all rail traffic for several days this fall.
The growing activity in solidarity with the Black freedom struggle in southern Africa together with the spate of demonstrations this spring and summer against aspects of racist oppression in this country-are indications that the pace of the Black liberation struggle has stepped up, despite the setback represented by the Bakke decision.
At mid-year the capitalist media were chortling over the imminent demise of the Equal Rights Amendment and denouncing demands for extension of the time allowed for ratification as violating the rules of the game.
But when 100,000 people turned out July 9 for a pro-ERA demonstration called by the National Organization for Women, the tide began to turn. A thirty-nine-month extension was adopted by Congress, and for the moment the most vociferous "new right" opponents of the ERA have lost momentum.
These developments are only the most striking indications of the massive radicalization now taking hold among working people. As yet, this radicalization finds little reflection in bourgeois electoral politics. But it has not gone unnoticed by top labor officials. They are feeling pressure to step up verbal attacks on Carter and to promise a more militant course.
Nor has the deepening radicalization gone unnoticed in the ruling class and its government. The stiff resistance by workers to attacks on union rights, the determination of women to beat back efforts to sink the ERA, and the growing fear that Black anger may be reaching an explosive point is causing them to move more cautiously than they would like.
Thus Carter's vaunted program against inflation-while thoroughly antilabor in its goals-was far from the crackdown against wages, job safety regulations, and social service spending that the capitalists want. Carter drew back from attempting any severe new measures to enforce his program for "givebacks" from working people-measures that could risk a head-on confrontation with a radicalized working class.
The real picture of the class struggle in the United States is different from the image of a steady drive toward the right presented by Silber. In fact, the forces opposed to the ruling class have grown stronger in the past year.
Developments in U.S. politics support the Marxist view that the deepening of the capitalist social and economic crisis will impel working people toward massive resistance to the onslaught of the ruling rich and toward fighting for a workers government. Only if workers are defeated in the giant battles ahead will it be possible for the ultraright to develop the mass following it would need to vie for power in this country.
What prevents Silber and many other radicals from accurately weighing the real changes under way in this country? The key lies in their isolation from the social forces that have the power to drive back the ruling class offensive.
The Guardian, for instance, is a radical newspaper without links to a revolutionary party rooted in the unions, the communities of the oppressed nationalities, and other areas where the radicalization is taking place. It lacks access to the real day-to-day changes in the thinking of working people.
Because they are isolated from the actual battle against the ruling-class offensive, formations such as the Guardian are susceptible to impressions conveyed by the bourgeois media and politicians about the state of mind of American working people. And the ruling class is on a concerted campaign to spread the idea that the American masses are plunging headlong to the right.
The Militant and International Socialist Review are better situated to see the realityand not only because of our Marxist outlook. We are helping to build the Socialist Workers Party, a revolutionary party that is rooting itself in the factories and communities where the oppressed and exploited live, work, and struggle.
Through daily contact with co-workers and neighbors on the job, in the unions, and on the picket lines, SWP members experience the real political development of working people in this country, not simply the one charted by contending bourgeois candidates and newspaper editorials. The course of the American workers and their allies is toward a deepening of their political independence, militancy, and readiness to go into action.
Because the SWP understands what is happening in the United States today, it is free from the pessimism permeating Silber's analysis. On the contrary, the SWP is in the thick of every battle of the oppressed and exploited against the rulers' offensive. Its aim is to build the mass revolutionary socialist party that is needed if those battles are to end in the victory of the working people and the creation of a new society.
Those who believe with us that American working people represent a progressive force destined to put an end to all oppression and injustice should take their place in the Socialist Workers Party.
The Militant
NOVEMBER 10, 1978
VOLUME 42/NUMBER 42
https://themilitant.com/1978/4242/MIL4242.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment
Comments