Notes on the US Left
Julio Huato, October 14, 2002
Introduction
On 10/6/02 I went to the Not-In-Our-Name rally in NYC Central Park's East
Meadow. According to some, there was a crowd of about 25 thousand demanding
to stop the war on Iraq and the violations of individual liberties at home.
Not bad, if viewed in context. A step in the right direction. It has great
potential, but I'd like to focus here on the challenges as future
demonstrations are being planned.
[1] A Critical Assessment of the Peace Rally
The last two paragraphs in the New York Times' note about the rally are very
telling:
First, the fatalistic quote attributed to a New York University professor:
<"Maybe," she said, "something has to start before it can be stopped."> She
referred, apparently, to the war on Iraq.
Then, the words by the Bard College student: <"It's like pop culture,
concentrated teen angst," she said of the rally. "The rhetoric is too
heavy-handed. That's the problem with American activists. They need to
simplify." Someone on stage railed against police brutality and she rolled
her eyes.>
Actually, these two things go together: (1) our ability to actually change
US policy in a reasonable period of time and (2) the composition and tone of
the movement.
In my opinion, besides the lack of focus exhibited at the rally, the tone
was set to a large extent by the apparently radical youth. In the second
part of the rally, most speeches I heard were of this type. Of course, the
participation of young people is necessary -- it must be welcomed and
encouraged. But if we expect working-class and middle-class Americans to
shift on to the left and approach the views of dyed-haired,
pierced-and-tatooed college students about this matter of grave concern
then, indeed, the war will start and go on (and may even finish) before that
happens.
In fact, the only way I can imagine for that to happen is if the war goes
on for a long while and begins to turn in a steady stream of US casualties.
That's a big if. And who desires such a thing? Not me.
Iraq is not Vietnam. In my view, the argument against the war on Iraq is
not that it will prove costly or impossible for the US to pull off. I think
the US alone can win the war and overthrow Saddam at a relatively low cost.
The issue is not that the US cannot. The issue is that the US should not!
But even if Iraq were like Vietnam (Kristoff in the New York Times warns
that people in Iraq will fight back). Still, if we wait for "average"
Americans to radicalize, by then a lot of the damage would have been done
already.
No. The movement has to be much broader to succeed. In fact, only until
the parents of those college kids that were cursing yesterday from the stage
(i.e., people who work, are taxed, vote regularly, and fund political
campaigns) take action massively, a change in policy will be effected.
Otherwise it won't or it'll take much longer. The argument, tone, and style
of the movement have to adjust to appeal to these people. The sooner we
realize that, the better.
Working-class and middle-class Americans will actively oppose the current
policies, foreign and domestic, if they perceive their interests to be
threatened by such policies. And, in my opinion, it is very clear that
their interests, both in the short and long run, are jeopardized by the Bush
doctrine abroad and the Ashcroft doctrine at home. In spite of the
relatively low turnout at the rally, I believe a great deal of Americans are
ready to embrace this. I believe, they just need a more cogent rationale.
The case can be made that waging a war on Iraq will not help things in the
short run and will prove disastrous in the long run. Maybe the case has to
be made in layers, on different levels, adjusted to different audiences.
There are issues that cannot be ignored. For example, the rationale has to
state how specifically the US should deal with Saddam's threat (which does
exist, particularly to people in the Middle East).
To give an outrageous example of what I have in mind, consider
BusinessWeek. In its last issue, the magazine ran an editorial criticizing
the US unilateralism. It was not a very shy critique considering its
source. This week's issue will feature an excerpt from a book by Jeffrey
Garten, The Politics of Fortune. This book is a critique of the Bush
unilateralist doctrine in foreign policy from the perspective of American
capitalists. Garten is no lefty. In fact, he is an academic at Yale and
worked for Kissinger and Cyrus Vance in the past. (Upon request I'll send
the BusinessWeek's piece titled "A Foreign Policy Harmful to Business.")
We all know what an average reader of BusinessWeek magazine looks like.
That's why, in my opinion, in the political debate, arguments like Garten's
pull a lot of weight. These opinions are seriously pondered by the average
BusinessWeek reader. Again, radical college students and the old Left
should not be dismissed. For now, they are a catalytic force. Let's hope
they don't drag the movement backwards in the coming months. The immediate
goal is to switch the country's policy tracks. In order to do that, the
Left cannot afford to reject allies like Garten, that is, if it wants to
win.
But why should we try to attract people with liberal inclinations instead
of appealing to people with radical inclinations? Shifting the tone towards
liberalism will put off the latter and it may not attract the former. Well,
the left has to take the chances if it wants to get anything done.[2] Capitalists and capitalists
In my opinion, for the purpose of the current discussion, we may classify
capitalists in the US as: (1) those who benefit from poverty, inequality,
instability, uncertainty, and conflicts, (2) those who benefit from more
economic opportunities, certainty, and stability, and (3) those who don't
care one way or another or who have their bets evenly spread.
The three types are capitalists. They are driven by the profit motive. We
should not attribute to them intrinsic virtues they do not have. That means
that, under certain conditions and if they think they can get away with it,
most will avoid taxes, lay us off, cheat and abuse whomever they can. Of
course, the classification is simplistic. In reality, there are all sorts
of shades and mixes, and people move around. But that doesn't invalidate
the classification. The issue here is that it matters how they make their
profits. These conditions will push them to adopt different positions on
the different issues of the day. I'll describe the first two types next.
(I'm very tentative about this as I have no time to try a better factual
description of the relative weight of these groups of capitalists, but I
find it crucial to make the distinctions.)
The first type is the most dangerous. These are military contractors, big
oil ventures, the prison economy, etc. Roughly speaking, they tend to be in
industries where competition is pursued less by quality improvement and
innovation than by government patronage and networking among the powerful
and influential. I'd even include some big farming, tobacco, and sugar
production. These are the adventurous, unscrupulous type of capitalists
that "know how to deal" with the leaders in the Third World: bribing
high-ranking officers, selling them weapons, propping them up, and getting
rid of them if stand in their way. Understandably, these capitalists have
little regard for international law and multilateralism. They will
emphasize military muscle and nationalism. Their economic interests will
foster their views of the world as a zero-sum game, where they are to
protect their lot and enhance it by force or threat thereof. They are used
to making big quick profits and use governments for that.
The second type may not very different in a moral sense. But it's clear
that their economic interests make them crave for stability and certainty in
the world economy. Those are the conditions that allow them best to grow
and thrive. Their financials depend crucially on foreign revenues. They
are the ones who push for laws like those that punish US corporations that
bribe foreign dignitaries. They emphasize international cooperation,
international law, multilateralism, etc. They would even be willing to give
up the use of force internationally as long as there is a credible and
legitimate way to enforce order and stability in the world. Their profits
are at stake. I think most US corporations of international scope fit or
would like to fit into this category. Garten is right in saying that they
have much to lose if chaos prevails in the world. Furthermore, some of
these capitalists seem to understand that poverty and inequality in the
Third World impose a huge opportunity cost on them. They think that if the
poor countries were less poor, that'd mean more business for them. So, they
are not opposed to improving things in the Third World. Unfortunately this
doesn't necessarily mean that they are willing to put their money where
their mouth is.
I believe economists like Stiglitz rationalize their interests aptly. For
instance, Stiglitz has argued in favor of land reforms in the Third World in
order to reduce inequality and set off capitalist growth. This is truly
remarkable given that, during the Cold War, US governments and ideologues
opposed even the most timid land reforms. They were regarded as the prelude
to full-fledge communism. The CIA overthrew Arbenz in Guatemala because he
was promoting, not communism, but a land reform! Like old, pre-Marxist
political economists, now Stiglitz, a respected member of the Anglo-Saxon
economics establishment, says that land reforms are not only okay, they are
necessary for capitalism in the Third World!
I'd go further. This is linked to claims by economists such as Torsten
Persson and Guido Tabellini ("Is Inequality Harmful for Growth? Theory and
Evidence," Unpublished Paper, 1991), George Clarke ("More Evidence on Income
Distribution and Growth," University of Rochester, Unpublished Paper, 1993),
and Alberto Alesina and Dani Rodrik ("Distributive Politics and Economic
Growth," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 1994) that, as demonstrated by
careful econometrics on credible international data, there is a robust
negative correlation between wealth and income inequality and economic
growth. In other words, inequality - the sine qua non condition for
capitalist production to exist - sabotages long-term capitalist growth.
Capitalists whose profits depend on technological innovation and
international growth must be paying attention to these findings.
Realizations of this type even by the World Bank are what underly the sudden
"discovery" by Camdesus that Cuba's socialist experiment, in spite of the
hellish conditions in which it has been carried out, has remarkable
achievements to show!
When the second type of capitalists had to deal with the Soviet Union, the
perceived threat to markets and private ownership at a global scale, they
turned to the first type to protect them, just like storeowners in
Hollywoodized Little Italy turned to Vito Corleone for "protection." This
of course gave the first type of capitalists a lot of clout. Virtually, the
Pentagon budget was (is) theirs, all courtesy of US taxpayers -- and the
rest of the world's seignorage dues to the US Treasury. They were able to
buy the politicians of entire states and establish a system of patronage.
Financially it is known that the Pentagon is the most mismanaged agency in
the US government. How convenient! I'm not entirely sure about this, but
I'm under the impression that there are a few states in the South and West
whose economies depend too much on the Pentagon's and the Department of
Justice's budgets. No wonder politicians from these states are among the
most conservative in foreign and domestic policy. And this all feeds back.
(This coincides with, as Garten says in his book, the discredit of leaders
of corporate America after the "excesses" in the boom, who have more the
leanings of second-type capitalists. So, according to Garten, they better
shut up and avoid criticizing a foreign policy that, if carried through,
will hurt their business in no small way.)
The military buildup during the cold war made the first type of capitalists
very powerful. But there's no Soviet Union anymore, and the only way the
power of the first type can assert itself is if the first type of
capitalists and the conservative middle class are fearful of anti-capitalist
or anti-Western threats. That's why Cheney and Rumsfeld have this sense of
urgency to uncover threats to US capitalism, real or imagined. The 9/11
attack came in very handy to them. In that sense, the terrorits did them a
favor. But as demonstrated by David Armstrong ("Dick Cheney's Song of
America," Harper's Magazine, Oct. 2002), the "Bush doctrine" is the SAME
doctrine, point by point, that Cheney made public back in 1992: "Defense
Planning Guidance for the 1994-1999 Fiscal Years (Draft)," Office of the
Secretary of Defense, 1992. 9/11 just gave them the excuse to try to shove
it down the throats of the US people.
In my opinion, it's clear that the left in the US -- again, if it wants to
grow and win -- has to find common ground with the second type of
capitalists. If the left were strong enough to lead the country by itself,
then obviously no common ground would be required. The fact is, now, the
left is almost irrelevant. It has to become relevant and the movement
against the Bush doctrine abroad and the Ashcroft doctrine at home gives the
left a tremendous opportunity to grow and become an influential political
force in the US. It can seize the opportunity or squander it.
[3] Alliances and the US Left
The US radical left tends to distrust alliances with capitalists that have a
vested interest in reducing instability and uncertainty in the world by
means of enforeceable international laws and credible international
institutions.
However, as it is in a position of weakness, the left has to walk a fine
line, take chances. Otherwise it risks irrelevance or, worse yet,
paralysis. The biggest danger is to spend decades exercising little (or not
exercising any significant) influence on the actual policies of the country,
neither by participation nor by opposition. A left that has no incidence on
the world affairs is a political ghost. They may have their little web hubs
as they used to have coffee places, but as far as being a political force to
be reckoned with, they are nothing. That's the biggest danger. I believe
that a political force that remains marginal for over ten years in a row
needs to do some serious soul searching, change its strategy or its tactics,
do something.
There is no fundamental reason why the left in the US should remain
marginal nowadays. There are never reasons while capitalism exists. But
today even less than ever. There are plenty of hot issues that require a
forceful assertion of left-wing activism, from the slanted constitutional
arrangement that discriminates against people in the most populated (and
productive) states to the defense of the most vulnerable workers to the
reform of foreign policy to take it away from conservative demagogues.
The key here is to think "outside of the box," as the slogan says. The
left needs to revise its old ways and notions about unionism, immigration,
electoral politics, alliance policies, and the role of the US in the world.
With regard to alliances, the dangers of finding common ground with liberal
capitalists are very real, but they are worsened when the left stays on the
margins. Finding common ground with the liberals may be the cost of
becoming relevant. There's no way for the left to become relevant without
taking these chances.
The transformation of US society is a messy process. The purity of
leftwing ideas has to clash with reality. It cannot avoid reality or
content itself with merely pontificating, denouncing, complaining, and
whining. If the US is to become a more progressive society, then we're
talking about a change in the working conditions, living conditions, habits,
and behaviors of hundreds of millions of people. The left is supposed to be
the force that sets those hundreds of millions of people in motion.
What is going to persuade a majority of Americans to change their behavior
and take full responsibility for the direction their society takes? Let's
face it, right now the liberals and conservatives connect better with them.
In fact, most people in the US have internalized deeply the ideas of the
ruling parties. They see the world through those lenses. Liberalism and
conservatism are, by conscious choice or by default, THE views of most
Americans. How can we connect with these people without finding common
ground with their currently held beliefs and values? How could the left
ever communicate with them?
Of course, we can always wait for a catastrophic event to shake people out
of their torpor and make them take a fresher look at the ideas of the left.
A portion of the left still feeds the cult of the October revolution, as per
their historical interpretation. So they seem to wait for something like
that to happen again, so that they know what script to follow. In general,
waiting for catastrophic events to bring the left to the political forefront
is a stupid strategy. It's taking big chances. In fact, the left has to
create a lot of trust among the people during regular times, when left-wing
politics cannot be very sexy, so that, should a catastrophe strike, people
can turn to the left for guidance. Once a catastrophe happens, it might be
too late to build trust. Then the people may be easy prey for demagogues
and reactionaries.
Look at what happened after 9/11. How many people fell into the comforting
commonplaces of alleged patriotism, the refuge of scoundrels according to
Mark Twain? And wasn't that what allowed Bush to push his "new" doctrine
and Ashcroft to undo the Bill of Rights? And hasn't that coincided with a
left in disarray, emphasizing their differences instead of their
commonalities? (In London and Madrid, hundreds of thousands oppose the war.
In New York City, a few tens of thousands.) If catastrophes keep coming
this way, what are the specific, concrete reasons why the people of the
United States should turn in mass towards the left for direction in their
dire times? Why should they? What will keep them from turning to the
right?
Let's face it: the left is in no position to defend its ideological and
political purity. It has to engage. The sooner, the better. It has to
give and take, and make mistakes. It has to get its hands dirty, very
dirty, strike alliances that may disappoint some. It cannot remain in its
little niches and lifestyle hubs. That's the main challenge the left has to
face to stay alive. If it can go through that engagement without betraying
its fundamental vision of a fair world for all, that'll be for good. If it
loses its compass along the way, then it'll have to find another one and
keep going.
[4] Alliances - Clarifications
When I say that "a political force that has remained marginal for over 10
years" must rethink itself, I don't mean to imply that 10 years ago the US
left was strong. I just mean to say that if even one generation of leftists
is kept on the fringes of the political process IN THE RICHEST COUNTRY in
the world, then the left has to take a harder look at its view of history,
strategy, and methods.
When I say that the left needs to revise old notions about unionism, I
don't mean to get rid of unions. What I have in mind is either extending
unionization to industries that have so far resisted it, OR to devise novel
ways to enable labor cooperation in these industries. (I also mean that the
way traditional unions act in defense of workers' interests needs
rethinking. But I won't get into that now.)
It has been pointed out that there are branches of the "collective worker"
that have emerged or gained importance in the last two decades or so.
Industries have come and gone, but I doubt workers in, say, "high-tech"
industries are inherently conservative. In my view, the problem is that the
current approach of unions was developed to suit other constituencies:
manufacturing workers in the industrial age of US capitalism.
The key question is: What would drive the new branches of the "collective
worker" into the broader movement? What are their immediate problems/goals
in their workplace and in their communities? How should they be addressed
in the context of the struggle for socialism? Their immediate goal may or
may not be the collective promotion of their immediate economic interests
(compensation, working conditions, etc.). They may require tradeunions or
other structures. I don't know. This is something the left should figure
out, and do whatever it takes to gain them.
I said, "finding common ground with the liberals may be the cost of
becoming relevant." I stand by that. Yes, right now that means "propping
up the sagging Democratic machine" as it shifts to the right. But, in my
opinion, what makes the Democratic party move to the right is not the left's
electoral support. It is the weakness of the left that allows the
Democratic party to shift to the right. Or, to look at the other side of
the coin, it is the strength of the right in the US at the grassroots level,
assissted by an electoral, constitutional arrangement that discriminates
against states where the work of the left is likely to be more fruitful.
The shift of the Democratic party to the right is clear evidence of the
inability of the left to carry out its grassroots activism and organizing
effectively. In turn, the left's inability to organize and gain credibility
and authority at the grassroots level is to a large extent the result of its
misunderstanding of US society and the direction in which it is moving. If
the left were more in tune with the forces that propel the US economy,
culture, and society, then it could position itself more effectively and its
grassroots effort would be more profitable.
While it is to be the leading force, the left cannot lead if it doesn't
connect at the grassroots level. That means that it needs to be sensitive
to the living and working conditions of the people, sensitive to their
worldview, and adjust its discourse and tactics to these realities. That is
the only way the left's strategy can be advanced. But what I observe is a
left puzzled and resentful about overwhelming technological, economic, and
political shifts it doesn't anticipate. It appears to be always caught by
surprise. Sometimes it even comforts itself by scorning the political
naiveté of the people, but who's being naive here?
If the left could get a better hold of the direction in which the US
society moves, which means get a hold of concrete, modern US capitalism AS
IS, then it would immediately enable itself to be more effective at the
grassroots level. In due turn, the Democratic party would feel real
pressure coming from the left and it would HAVE TO move to the left to avoid
being bypassed. Then, it'd be a much more reliable ally of the left.
Self-preservation is a strong incentive.
In part, this requires that the left gets in tune with local issues and
builds leadership at that level. Most of the work at the local level is
administrative - managing local public resources constructively and dealing
with private interests effectively, handling problems for which there are
very few ready-made solutions. Indeed, very unappealing tasks to leftists,
particularly those who are more drawn to grand moralizing and universal
ideas. Usually, the left emphasizes the dangers of this type of political
participation, as it risks bureaucratization and outright corruption. But
this kind of tedious, constructive, creative, nitty-gritty, and - yes -
risky work is indispensable to establish credibility as a political force.
It is a necessary school for the left. Nobody can fault the US people for
withholding their trust in conducting their nation's affairs to people who
have seldom proved their effectiveness even at the local level.
We don't have to dismiss or be cynical about politicians to notice that
they (Republicans, Democrats, and Independents) are not very principled
people. Or, to correct myself, they do have principles, but if we don't
like them, then they have others. But electoral politics is another area
where the US left needs to rethink its approach.
Reminded of how close the vote was between Gore and Bush, I went to the
Census Bureau's web site and looked at the data. I then pondered the
suggestion that electoral participation in the US has "declined" due to the
"disillusionment" of voters. Well, the data (which show a seesaw pattern
due to the seasonal decline in midterm-election participation) do not seem
to indicate that overall electoral participation in the US has declined over
time. Yes, there's a very slight downward trend since 1978, but it falls
within the statistical error range. I'd say it's trendless. In part this
is due to the fact that the first Clinton election made electoral
participation spike. But if there's decline, then it seems to be driven by
young voters, Hispanics and to a lesser extent whites (a chunk of whom don't
belong to the labor force). Blacks have increased their participation a
bit.
In the 2000 presidential election, about 60% of US citizens voted. 40%
didn't vote. Let's look briefly at the details. By age ranges, people up
to 44 vote significantly less than people after 44. People between 18 and
24 years have the lowest participation. It is obvious that the abysmally
low participation of the youth in electoral politics drags the average down
as the "young" (less than 44) are a large percentage of total citizens. The
poor vote much less than the middle class and the rich. The less educated
people vote less. The highest electoral participation is in the Northeast
and the Midwest. The lowest is in the South and West. People who are in
the labor force vote significantly more than those who are not in the labor
force (and the labor force includes the unemployed). The profile of the
most unlikely voter is a poor, young, Hispanic or white, not in the labor
force, with low education, living in the South or West. The tables are
available at www.census.gov.
In Mexico, some in the left used to argue that the lack of electoral
participation in the 1970s and 1980s showed that people were politically
savvy. People had such high level of political consciousness that they had
already grasped that electoral politics was a sham. They were way ahead of
the left, which was just beginning to gain ground in electoral politics.
So, the people had already "transcended" that form of politics, and were
ready for direct revolutionary action. Everything in apparent concordance
with Lenin's advice in State and Revolution. People who voted were
politically naive if not sold-outs. Of course this was (dangerous) wishful
thinking, which was disproved in the 1990s and 2000 when people increased
their participation substantially, mostly in favor of the political party
supposedly on the right and - less so - to the "reformist" party on the
left. This was when a few revolutionary alternatives were available to the
people, like the Zapatistas, the ERP, and the PROCUP.
In my opinion, the kind of "political wisdom" that makes a person today in
the US to withdraw from voting is a useless one. The real way to transcend
electoral politics (if it were necessary) is to do it collectively and in
practice -- not in one's individual mind or in the comfort of one's sect.
We will transcend electoral politics if and when we actually implement
better methods of mass political participation in replacement of the old
ones. If people just don't vote while the political system remains intact,
that's not transcending it. That's giving up. Transcending traditional
electoral politics in practice is a slow, painstaking process that requires
full engagement with the rotten traditional electoral system. If only
because it is by changing little things that people become confident enough
to try the big things.
It seems clear to me that the lack of political participation among
disenfranchised, poor, young, white or second-generation US Latinos is not
the result of a well-digested political experience. Clearly it is the
symptom of a (temporary?) lack of commitment to the political process. It's
the result of political immaturity. If the Census Bureau data are accurate,
then we may infer that experienced working people, with a minimal sense of
history and civics, tend to vote regularly and massively. This is why I say
that the political views of the Democrats and Republicans represent, by
choice or default, the views of most US citizens.
When politically educated people don't vote out of an ill-understood
radical conviction, they are putting themselves at the level of the most
inexperienced, alienated, and politically backward sectors of the US
citizenry. That position will never appeal to serious, seasoned working
people. In fact, by so doing, radicals are distancing themselves from these
"regular" folks, who clearly -- based on their own experience and
understanding -- find electoral politics to be useful. They are saying we
don't care about evolving politically ALONG WITH you - we know better
already. That fosters the disconnect.
I said that "There is no fundamental reason why the left in the US *SHOULD*
remain so marginal nowadays." I have been told that there is, and given
some historical reasons why the US left *IS* marginal nowadays. The breakup
of the old New-Deal Democratic party system of alliances with Labor, etc. I
know the US left IS marginal nowadays. And whatever IS has historical
reasons for being what it IS.
But there is a larger issue here. The left, at least in the Marxist
tradition, has never viewed itself as a victim of irrational, unforeseeable,
and uncontrollable historical circumstances. On the contrary, its whole
historical élan and appeal is based on its claim that it is able to
apprehend the driving forces of history and anticipate at least the main
thrust of events. Why else would it aspire to lead the producers of the
world into building communism? Traditional political forces were the
expressions of an uncontrolled, spontaneous, apparently directionless social
process, namely capitalism. That's why they were subject to "ideology,"
"false consciousness," the "illusion of the times," etc. -- and doomed to
fail. But the left was political expression of the opposite of that.
Historical "Necessity" was being apprehended and turned into "Freedom." The
left was going to clear the ideological fog clouding the social
consciousness while leading the historical process towards new heights.
In this tradition, the left can never blame historical circumstances for
its own failure to read current and future events correctly. In fact,
misreading the main turns of history is an indication of a flawed
understanding of history. It doesn't matter how well activists may cite
Marx, Lenin, or Mao, if they fail politically, then their actual view of
history has been blurred and misled their actions. Whether in a small or
big way, it's for them to figure out. Big political blunders are supposed
to trigger in the left a vast, collective process of introspection and
revision of views and methods, followed up by practical adjustments.
That the coalitions that worked in the past will not work today is a given.
Society is a living organism. Indeed, over the last 50 years, the working
and living conditions of US workers, as well as their gender, race, and age
composition, have changed significantly. Their view of the world - their
political culture - has also changed significantly. No wonder, after
cataclysmic events such as the second world war, the cold war, the Vietnam
war, and the collapse of the Soviet Union - just to mention big ones.
Naturally, in the face of these realities, if the left remains attached to
the methods that worked in the 1930s, it sets itself to fail. The issue
here is whether the changes that have remade US labor and US society are
such that, in the richest capitalist country ever, it is now unnecessary to
fight for a productive structure aimed to meet social needs through social
cooperation? If the answer is yes, the left has no reason to exist. If, as
I suspect, the answer is no, then there are plenty of things to do.
US workers can and should exercise effective historical agency under the
current conditions. To help them do this, the left has to read current and
future historical shifts better. Of course, what can be achieved is never
arbitrary. To some extent, it will depend on circumstances beyond the left
and the workers movement' control. But a careful understanding of the way
this society moves should minimize that.
