notebook

WHAT
THE
HELL
IS
HAPPENING
ON THE AMERICAN SCENE?

Michael Harrington has written filling

in the background to the American
political scene, much sof which finds
no reflection in the Presidential
campaigns.
of decades has long been a popular
intellectual pastime in the United States. The
Twenties were Prohibition and Prosperity; they
roared. The Thirties were Depression and New
Deal, and they persisted through the Presidential
election of 1948 (there were no Forties as a unit of
social experience). The Fifties, under the benign
incompetence of Eisenhower, revolved around
Cold War and McCarthyism.
Now, almost on chronological schedule, it
appears that the American Sixties are beginning.
It is a matter of mood, of a growing conviction
that things will be different because they must be
different.
Take the last few months. In the early spring,
the sit-in movement of the Southern Negro
students swept across Dixie and touched off
demonstrations and picket lines in every major
Northern city. In May, eighteen thousand people
crowded Madison Square Garden in New York

THE DEFINING

54

to demonstrate for a sane nuclear policy. After

the meeting, five thousand followed Norman
Thomas and Harry Belafonte on a midnight
march across Manhattan to the United Nations.
In July, over fifteen thousand whites and Negroes
were involved in marches and vigils for Civil
Rights during the Democratic and Republican
Conventions.
A couple of years ago, a small group of liberal,
pacifist and radical leaders issued a newspaper ad.
for a sane nuclear policy. The response was
surprising, quick and uneven. Ever since then,
groups of the Committee for a Sane Nuclear
Policy had been springing up (and dying) across
the nation. In the process SANE has attracted
a fairly wide middle class following. Its spokesmen
include intellectuals like David Riesman and
Erich Fromm, and entertainment personalities
like Harry Belafonte, Steve Allan and Robert
Ryan (the presence of movie stars is more
significant than it might seem; this is the first
political action in Hollywood since the blacklist of
the early Fifties).
But SANEs impact (and that of the entire
peace movement) is limited. So far it is a middleclass phenomenon. The AFL-CIO position on
foreign policy is often a bit to the right of the
State Department, and many trade unionists fear
the impact of disarmament upon the job market.
Recently, however, there have been a few small,
but significant, breaks in the labour movement.
At the Madison Square Garden rally, Walter
Reuther, President of the Auto Workers, was a
featured speaker. Here and there, other trade
unionists have followed his lead.
Objectively speaking, peace is the decisive issue
in America. But politically, the Civil Rights
movement has been more dynamic and important.
For one thing, its immediate constituency includes
eighteen million Negroes, more and more of them
living in the big Northern cities where they have
the vote. This means that Civil Rights has a mass,
popular character which the peace movement
lacks. Then, the Negroes have been engaged in
non-violent direct action, fashioning an image of
commitment and participation that is the very
antithesis of the Fifties.
Indeed, the Civil Rights movement is contributing a new elan to all of American life. In the
Fifties, when conservatism and reaction reigned
supreme, there was a general bankruptcy of the
liberal and radical spirit. The very idea of the
capacity of men to act and change their destiny
was obscured or lost. Then came the mass, nonviolent movement of Pullman porters and
domestics, of students, trade unionists and
ministers. It was like a breath of fresh air.

In both the peace and Civil Rights movements,

the dominant tone is one of morality. (So it was,
too, in the campaign to win a reprieve for
Caryll Chessman). In some cases, liberals have
even argued that the economic issue has been
more or less settled by the New Deal. Arthur
Schlessinger, Jr. wrote an appeal for a liberalism
of quality to replace the old liberalism of
quantity, his assumption being that the
material problems had been taken care of. In the
peace movement, this flavour was almost inevitable since the majority of those involved were
living affluently even if the entire society was not.

Overestimating Affluence
Still, although there is the confused beginning
of a debate over economic issues, only a relatively
small number of radicals link up the spiritual
degradation of contemporary America (the mindlessness of mass society) with its basic economic
mechanisms. J. K. Galbraiths book, The Affluent
Society, which has been at the centre of debate,
over-estimates the degree to which the private
sector in the United States brings well-being to the
people (according to a Congressional Committee
report, there are 20 million poor in the United
States; according to the AFL-CIO, over 32
million; and by my figures, in the neighbourhood
of 50 million). But his plea to change the squalor of
public services in an opulent America has become
a major focus for the debate over social issues.
His over-estimation of affluence continues the
complacency of the Fifties (he himself has
modified it considerably, but his unfortunate misnomer has hung on); but his call for a revitilisation
of public services has been responsible for reviving
a certain New Dealish sentiment behind Kennedy.
The trade union movement has not played a
very active role in this discussion. The dominant
mood remains that of the Fifties, when American
labour entered a period of stagnation. Its membership declined and so did its influence and vigour.
The announced goals of the merger of the AFL
and CIO in 1955to organise the unorganised, to
clean out corruption, to intensify political action
were all unachieved five years later.
Still, there are some signs of change even in
this area of American life. The unions are now
moving toward a first class crisis. In the immediate
offing is another recession. More important, long
range trends are developing which make it impossible to continue business-as-usual unionism. In
the auto industry, if production were to double in
1961 the 1955 workforce would not return to the
factories. In packinghouse, some 15 per cent of
the employees were permanently laid off in the

course of three years, though production declined

by less than three per cent. In industries like coal
and Northern textiles, there are depressed areas
with continuing levels of unemployment of a
Thirties character.
In this situation, traditional collective bargaining is no longer adequate for the defence of the
workers, much less for bettering their position.
As this is written, General Electric is engaged in
the most anti-union campaign in years. The big
labour organisations with a declining membership
are on the defensive. The companies are in the
drivers seat (in steel, the big corporations can
operate profitably when using only 30 per cent
of their capacity). It is becoming clearer that the
only way out for the unions is through an
intensified political campaign.
But this has not yet begun. There are occasional
signs of movement, as when Arthur Goldberg of
the Steelworkers argues for a national council of
industry and labour. The unions, of course,
support the various proposals for expanding
public services, but this is a far cry from a new
elan in the labour movement. As a result, the
changes taking place in American life at this
point are primarily visible in the peace and Civil
Rights movement.
Why, then, have these limited changes taken
place? In retrospect, it is now becoming clear that
McCarthyism fed mainly upon the intensification
of the Cold War. When a certain relaxation of
international tensions occurred under a conservative Government (the liquidation of the
Korean War, the refusal to intervene in IndoChina), the atmosphere of fear, compulsive orthodoxy and rationalisation for State Department
policy began to dissipate. At the same time, the
huge, inconceivable fact of the Bomb began to
penetrate into the American consciousness. Many
intellectuals who had taken a line of critical (and
less and less critical) support of Washington in the
face of the admitted threat of Communist
totalitarianism, began to think in terms of democratic alternatives. Groups like the American
Committee for Cultural Freedom and writers from
magazines like Commentary turned toward the left.
Another factor in this change is more complicated. The technical achievements of the
Russians have made a profound impact upon the
United States (it could not be otherwise in a
society which saw its uniqueness in know-how).
But the impact has been mixed. Some of the
intellectuals who took up Galbraiths theme about
the inadequacy of the public sector cited cutbacks in defence spending as a major point in
their argument. Kennedy is currently quite assertive on this count and his point is of a piece with
a certain type of New Deal liberalism.

55

But if the spectre of an efficient totalitarianism

has had a certain tendency the strengthen to Cold
Warriors, it has also contributed to the reemergence of social criticism, and a sense of the
necessity of new policies. This consciounsess was
even registered at the Democratic Party Convention in July and it is a confused factor in
Kennedys New Frontier.
Another factor making for criticism has been
curiously bound up with the prosperity of the
Fifties. As the decade wore on, many intellectuals
accepted Galbraiths definition of the Affluent
Society. But some of them began to discover
vices in well-being. A school of popular, middlebrow sociology developed around aspects of the
mass society in America: Packard wrote of hidden
persuaders and status seekers, Keats of automobiles, Givney of expense account corruption.
The end of the McCarthyite atmosphere, a
fascination with the accomplishments of Russian
totalitarianism, a sense of the purposeless of the
Affluent Society: these are only a few of the
elements which are at work in the transition to the
Sixties. Characteristically, they are pressures
which have a maximum impact upon intellectuals
and middle class liberals. And that, too, is of a
piece with the way the Sixties are beginning.
Finally, it is important to understand the
limitations of the hopeful developments which
have taken place so far. Here, an important,
continuing determinant of American politics
looms large: there is in the United States no
political party of consistent liberalism, much less
of socialism. As a result, the Sixties have no
national political focus as yet.
The Democratic Party, which adopted its most
left-wing platform since the Thirties at the last
Convention contains the labour movement, the
Civil Rights and peace activists. It also contains
the racist, reactionary Southern Democrats.
After the Convention, the latter gave a powerful
demonstration of their continuing strength, and
during the August session of Congress, they
joined forces with the Republican opposition to
defeat their own candidate on two major issues
health care for the aged and minimum wage.
They also forced Kennedy to capitulate on the
Civil Rights issue.
This was one more manifestation of the structural stalemate in American politics. Of course
Liberalism is the majority ideology. It carries
Convention, contains the labour movement, the
reactionary wing of the Democratic Party is a
major beneficiary of these victories. Its representatives come from a one-party section of the
country and build up tremendous seniority.
When the Democrats sweep the nation on a
liberal platform, the anti-liberals take control of a

56

disproportionate number of powerful Committee

chairmanships. From these strongholds, the
Southern Democrats alternately blackmail their
own Party or else bloc with the Republican
reactionaries.
For some time, American radicals have argued
that the only way out of this impasse is through
political realignment.
Unfortunately, it is not just around the corner
The Civil Rights movement is the one mass force
in the United States that is moving in this
direction, and that is another reason why this
issue is so crucial to American politics. As the
South organises and industrialises and develops
a two party system, the pressures for national
realignment will increase.
For now, however, the Sixties have no party.
Most liberals and trade unionists will vote for
Kennedy this year, but without much enthusiasm.
And as long as this situation persists, the various
movements which spring up around issues like
peace and Civil Rights are without a national,
political focus. This is the most serious limitation
upon the developments which have already taken
place. Until it is changed, the new spirit will be
unable to stamp its personality upon the decade.

Eric Heffer

Conversations
In Italy

course of my short stay in Italy, I had

the opportunity of a number of conversations
with leading Italian socialists. I talked with
Carlo Meara in Milan, and Giolitti in Rome.
Both of them were impressed with New Left
Review, and showed a great interest in the
development of the New Left Clubs.
Some of my most fruitful discussion centred on
the question of Unilateralism, NATO, Soviet
policy and Active Neutrality. I talked particularly
to members of the PSI (the Nenni Socialists) on
Nennis apparent retreat on the question of
NATO. DeMartina, who is Assistant General
Secretary of the PSI, said that he felt that the
policy of the British Left on the question of
NATO was the correct one. Others, including the
wife of Gateano Arfi, Editor of Mondo Operio,
said that Nenni was silent on the question of
NATO largely for tactical reasons. Others said
that the question of NATO was not so important
for Italy as it was for Britain, and that the main

DURING THE