Progressives, Power & Saul Alinsky
I really appreciate Marshall Ganz highlighting the importance of civic organizing and, particularly, introducng Saul Alinsky to new folks, since Alinsky was an early bible for me when I first became a political activist twenty years ago.
I do think Alinsky himself might not fully recognize himself in the context of Ganz's invocations of Tocquevillian community-- I mean, Alinsky was the man who gloried in tales of threatening to organize a "shit-in" where poor Chicagoans would protest neglect by taking over all the toilets at O'Hare airport.
Alinsky was not about the virtue of community, but the assertion of the pragmatic power that even the disgarded and poor could wield.
Many progressives are uncomfortable with the word "power," but Alinsky was all about helping ordinary people understand the power used by the elite to keep them down and helping those ordinary folks understand how, by working together, they could exercise power themselves.
I know that Ganz recognizes that part of Alinsky and touches on it in his history, but he somewhat downplays it when he says Alinsky worked so that "the influence of associations could be amplified by public institutions." But the creative aspect of Alinksy in texts like Rules for Radicals was not merely the numerical piling up of associations, but a more vibrant confrontational ethos that emphasized how individuals could go outside elections to exercise power through boycotts, sit-ins and, yes, "shit-ins" if necessary to exercise power.
Ganz criticizes the descendants of Alinsky for speaking the language of "self-interest," and I agree that the langage problem was a weakness at points, but I think that if progressives are too uncomfortable with the language of power and interests, they open the field for blackmail by corporate interests who never tire of such language. How many times do we hear-- cut these taxes or business will leave the state or nation, weaken this regulation or business will leave? And so on.
The Alinsky organizers, like the union organizers who influenced Alinsky's strategies, were about asserting more than just a rhetorical challenge to power but thinking about how to exercise power. And self-interest, when tied to a broad community, has to be seen as legitimate for power to be fully exercised. It's of course better if it's also tied to transcending values as well-- an admitted deficit by some Alinskyite groups -- but power and self-interest can't be downplayed too much.
Alinsky was no saint-- and deliberately created organizing strategies that were based not on the sainthood of participants but appealing to their shared interests. That can be a weakness but it can also be a strength and the progressive movement can only be built on frank acknowledgement of mutual values AND mutual shared self-interest.
Where I fully agree with Ganz is that many online activists mistake electonic networking for organizing itself. Networking and communication are key tasks for organizers-- and the Internet makes those tasks infinitely easier -- but they are not a substitute for the individual training, mutual commitments and jointly planned actions that are the heart and soul of building organizations that penetrate deeply into peoples lives and their communities.
A little whitewashing of history in aid of trying to build (less confrontational) group participation in the future...
It seems that activists are not willing to get their heads bashed the way they were 100 years ago, so glossing over that aspect may get some to participate who would be put off by the unvarnished history. Is this wise? I don't know...
--- Policies not Politics
Daily Landscape
March 28, 2007 11:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Getting ahead of events here, but if Bush signs the supplemental bill funding Iraq occupation, how do we stop the war before 2009?
Thinking outside elections, which haven't gotten the job done.
fairleft.blogspot.com is my blog.
March 28, 2007 11:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nathan, a couple of things. To understand Alinsky I think you have to recognize that he was a student of G.H. Mead at the University of Chicago before he left (without getting his PhD). Scuttlebut is that he was one of Mead's favorites, but wasn't cut out for academia. I think he might have been upset about the rightward direction the university of Chicago was taking. But then you have to understand that Alinsky was basically a Pragmatist in the way that he approached community organizing. He was all about creating a space where protests would work - and he was interested in putting together coalitions of individuals who understood that they were trying to get results and not prove a point. Alinsky was all about process, and that I think it what your post misses.
Because Alinksy was about process I don't think he would agree with you about the differentiation you make between online organizing and what you seem to think is real training for real organizing. Alinksy would be against this type of expertise, the "I know how to organize buddy because I was there at the beginning." I think one of Alinsky's points was that every problem was different and you use the tools that you have at your disposal - and you lost them because you think they are going to work. Online organizing may better deal with the problems we are facing right now -the truth is I don't know, and the truth is you don't either. I think Alinsky would say, look at the problem and figure out how your going to solve it.
March 28, 2007 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
My point (and Ganz's point) about online activism is not one of expertise, at least in the education sense since many online activists have great professional expertise. It's a question of sustained organization building, the day-to-day building of small group structures that sustain organizing and the kind of power-based actions Alinsky and unions focus on.
Online activists tend to focus a lot on the media, since that's a more diffuse target for a diffuse network. More specific targets require more specific organization, which is the key missing element in some online work. Not all, but it is an issue.
March 28, 2007 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Newman says:
And, immediately,
I would think that the "virtue of community" is "by working together [people] can exercise power themselves. In fact, this comes fairly close to a reasonable definition of the idea of community. So I'm not sure why it is important to make this distinction.
The Preface to Rules for Radicals is on-line, at a website very appreciative of Alinsky's thought and work. This paragraph seems pertinent here:
The point is that Alinsky locates community first, meets it on its own ground, and works within its constructs.
aMike
March 28, 2007 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Marshall describes a basis for democratic renewal. There certainly is a new progressive promise building on the work of 30 years and a new opening for change. The question is, can we win that progressive change and fulfill the promise?
______________________________________________
It’s inspiring to read Marshall’s contribution—it’s sweep through history from de Tocqueville to Alinsky is breathtaking; his optimism about the hope for a Democratic Renewal is inspiring. May it be true (and I also think it is). He ends by addressing, “what has changed that may be giving organizing a new lease on life, especially in electoral politics?” and suggests four reasons:
- close elections that mean organizing makes a difference
- the Internet and organizational connectedness combined can matter
- labor’s recommitment to organizing
- people’s ability to enter into relationships with one another to articulate common purposes and act on them.
All this is true. And more. So for this commentary, I’ll note a few other things that are part of the flowering (explosion?) of organizing and where it leads with a democratic promise—in other words, can we win for progressive change?. For the last 30 years, we have been on the political, organizational and policy defensive. We counted victories, mostly, when we stopped bad things from happening (or only being ½ as bad as they could have been)—and it was right to celebrate that. It was a period of right wing movement that controlled the debate and most of the major levers of power in the country. So even though the country was nearly evenly divided in its interests/opinions, the right wing was in power. We had to struggle hard just to keep up with where we had been.We are now, hopefully in a new period. The prime reasons for this are: a) real (objective) conditions (brought on by the excesses, unchecked power and arrogance of the right wing, corporate influence on economic, social and international policy) have driven people to look for (and fight for) an alternative. The war in Iraq, Katrina, Terri Schiavo, the corruption (Abramoff, Foley), the lies (all of the above) and the lack of addressing most people’s concerns as opposed to their own concerns surpassed the limit of public tolerance.b) the right wing control (hegemony) is fracturing and it is not clear that it can be put back together. While the progressive forces have always been more diverse (by race, class, interests) and often less willing to march in unison, the division of the right that have also been there (but were subjugated to combine conservatism and winning) have come unglued. The economic conservatives and the social conservatives and those pursuing an international expansion have come into conflict with each other. A majority of people are turning against the right. What they turn to is not yet clear.We cannot will a movement into existence, but we can be ready for when that time arrives—and we have prepared leadership, built organization, developed insights about how to work and how to work together. And now we have an opening. Less forged around a vision of what should be than around an aversion to what should not be.It is now, when there is this opening, that the extraordinary work which has been taken shape over the last 30 years really will pay off. Still we don not know if it is enough to win and be progressive.- Strategic insights that combine winning and being progressive and the realization that there is a tension between the two and a need for the two to go together. There is a progressive alternative that is worth fighting for (you do need to stand for something based on moral values to attract real support) and you need to be serious about winning to turn the promise of being progressive into a reality and not just a dream (and the perfect can’t be the enemy of the good). We realize that we need to a) really improve people’s lives, b) give people a sense of their own power and c) change the relations of power and structures of power. This is one of the reasons that building organizations matter. So to be a progressive means we need to be serious about winning. And to make winning worthwhile, it needs to be about things that matter to people and reflects our moral values.
- We’ve learned to play an inside and outside game as we did on stopping Social Security privatization, which was the first effective stopping of the Bush juggernaut and the first indication of this new democratic promise. There union (AFSCME and AFL-CIO and others) and community and state based groups (USAction) and MoveOn and think tanks (Campaign for America’s Future) and others came together working with the Democratic leadership with common message, common purpose and common strategy. And now the campaigns are multiplying on the budget, on the war, and other key issues.
- We learned to build both on issues and elections. Before 1980 progressive organizations were rarely involved electorally. The NAACP continued to do voter registration (thank goodness) and ACORN began to engage in local electoral politics and the League of Conservation Voters moved to electoral work. But most other progressive groups were not moving in this direction, while the right wing had learned from the organizing of the progressive forces from the 60s and combined it with electoral impact from the start. Now we have serious combining of electoral and issue organization—America Votes moving a coordinated get out the vote operation in key states; Progressive Majority identifying and supporting new kinds of true progressive candidates as a farm team for the future, and many, many other efforts and organizations in the same vein.
- We learned more technical skills and put them in the service of our organizing—targeting, messaging, using voter files, basing more of our work on research for what is needed and analyzing the results to see that we build on what works and not only on our wishes.
- The internet and blogosphere and new media are part of the new architecture of this new era. We no longer are only consumers of the corporate media, but can create our own methods of communication, combine with our organizing and add to our action.
- and the emerging movement, built on and also beyond all of the step by step approaches, is the immigrant rights movement—a powerful promise of the future and a contested ground for our politics and our values.
- The flowering of many diverse kinds of organizations over the years—by geography, by issue, by constituency, by function (think tanks, and communications and organizing and elections)—is paying off as we find ways to come together. Unions, often ignored by earlier progressives, are exercising their muscle and are more understood as a core of any effective democratic revival. Women, transformed by the movements of the 70s, are a strong voice for a change and organizations from EMILY’s List and Feminist Majority and Women’s Voices/Women Vote and other groups engage women and their concerns. African American political power is a key progressive center, still needing to struggle for an equal opportunity in this society. Young voters have, for the first times since they got the right to vote, been increasing their participation because of the changed reality and the myriad of groups ranging from Youth Vote to USSA. GLBT community understands that their interests lie with others for progressive change and the lists go on and on. And we are understanding more the need to reach out to mainstream America, to suburban, exurban and rural areas, if we are to meet the challenge and build real majorities.
8.. Donors have been coming together to also function strategically, seeing the many parts that are needed to be both progressive and winning.Yet we also face enormous obstacles.The right still may come back together, distancing themselves from the economic conservatives and build on the worsening conditions.We may still fracture over differences on important issues—like how to end this dreadful war, how to set new priorities when so many needs are unmet.Will the contradictions of our progressive forces divide with the strains of unaccountable corporate power still wielding its influence on issues about the daily concerns of people’s lives from health care to college tuition to what is of value. Will we ourselves succumb to the view that guided the right wing that we are on our own or will we unite around the concept that we are in it together?Yes, there is a promise of a democratic revival—hopefully, not even a revival, but a building of something new based on the work that has been going on for those 30 years, on the values that have endured and on the new wisdom we have gained to walk through the new opening and face the challenges that still lie ahead.March 29, 2007 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
When elections are near the discussion of suppressing the vote is in reality about the peak in efforts to suppress communities of peoples.
This does not just occur during election periods, but it is the period that the Democratic Party is showing its self-interest in the subject.
To be thought of as a champion, a leader, a fixer of problems, a power broker for the community to mobilize the community and project its interests the political party or anyone else interested in community advancement must be there long term when its self-interest is lowest and community interest or need is the highest.
We are discussing the story of public interest. An overarching umbrella protecting the group in the storm today. Others keep the umbrella functioning because they know the storm may be over them tomorrow.
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Today, are we searching for I deals or Ideals?
-Thinking
March 29, 2007 5:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
Nathan
I a curious as to your thoughts on "Organizing within the Party" (issue based organizing)as opposed to "Organizing the Party" (party buildling). My own view is that "The Road to Victory is Through the Precincts" and that developing active, highly energized, fully functioning Precinct Party Units is the key to success (this is party building).
I believe that a fully functioning precinct unit can "cultivate progressive political community" at the local neighborhood and precinct . This really a form of grass roots organizing. This is a kind of internal organizing is "inclusive" in that its aim is to bring together all residents within the precinct who share the core values of progressive liberalism. It is the kind of organizing that brings persons from different interest groups or policy perspective into the the Democratic Party (which is, in my view, the only viable vehicle for carrying progressive political values forward into the polling booths).
I reside in the Minnesota Fifth Congressional District (Keith Ellison’s district) where we have 223 precincts and my gardening aim is to see 1,000 Political Garden Parties Bloom (or Back Yard Barbeques, Party Room Get-Togethers etc.)
Neighbors talking to Neighbors, this is where the action is -- from my perspective. This his how political relationships are nurtured.
In my mind, the action is not with the single issue activists – and especially not with those hard sale approach has the tone of a "true believer".
Nor is it with some stranger (a community organizer or political field worker) knocking at my door. These are "vote harvesters" who sole role seems to be to "objectify the voter" as a number on a rating scale (strong Democrat, etc., etc.)
This is not to say that there is not a place for "community organizing" on single issues. But if there is a strong Party organization at the precinct level, it can -- among other things -- organize the "Forums" where those issues can be aired and then promote those forums -- through the communications networks that it has cultivated-- to ensure that those forum are well attended.
What I am suggesting here is that the place to get involve is within the Democratic Party at the local level. Curious to know whether you agree or disagree and why.
Stephen from Minneapolis
March 29, 2007 7:27 AM | Reply | Permalink
My political science professor, a self described libertarian Republican who described Barry Goldwater in class as a fascist, loved Alinsky. He did so because Alinsky helped individuals and communities stand up against the "common good" being shoved down their throats.
Invoking Alinsky is always abit dangerous for those who like to see big governmental programs designed to solved problems. Whether urban renewal or busing or a host of other issues Alinsky provided the tools to stand up against all manner of "do-goodism."
Daniel A. Greenbaum
March 29, 2007 8:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Whether urban renewal or busing or a host of other issues Alinsky provided the tools to stand up against all manner of "do-goodism."
I would say your characterization of Alinsky misses what he really stood for. Perhaps you professor is to blame for trying to link Alinsky too closely with libertarianism. Ever read "Jesus and Alinsky?" That writing really gets to the heart of Alinsky.
I am not disagreeing that urban renewal or busing hasn't been misguided at times or at least had adverse side effects but that was far from the thrust of Alinsky's work.
March 29, 2007 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is such a great post Nathan. I totally agree with you about progressives needing to get comfortable with things like claiming power and taking power. I don't see how its possible to employ a successful political strategy without determining where your power is and how to wield it. I wonder if this is why many progressive groups stuck to a legal strategy to get their wins in the 70's (wait, was that an idea you told me that I am just repeating back to you?)
One of the reasons that political machines worked was they embraced power, rather than running away from it. The problem (or rather the problem in addition to massive corruption) is that those political machines become service providers to their constituents and therefore are invested in keeping those constituents dependent on the political bosses rather than empowering constituents to improve their communities.
March 29, 2007 1:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
It was my professor that conveyed his view that Alinsky stood for small groups standing up against overpowering forces. I picked the examples as we read "The Urban Villagers" by Herbert J. Gans and "Beyond The Melting Pot" by Nathan Glzer and Daniel P. Moyinhan.
If this is not really in agreement with Alinsky's views thank you for letting me know.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
March 29, 2007 1:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah, we should be comfortable with finding and exercising political power.
But... the more I read about Alinsky (who's been pushed into the news as an influence on Obama) the more I think... WTF?
I mean, if this Alinsky guy tried to convince me to join just about any organization, I think I'd dismiss him as either a crank or a scam artist.
That was harsher than I meant it to be, by the way. I appreciate what he accomplished and I respect it, was just thinking about how I'd react if a guy like that tried to convince a guy like me to participate in a "shit in" at O'Hare, in the present day.
And, honestly, were I to meet the guy tomorrow and he were to try to convince me to do that, I'd either laugh in his face or never let him finish his pitch.
And it's not because he's too radical. If anything, he's not radical enough these days. It's more that the whole pitch is outmoded and doesn't speak to the individual enough.
That's my take, anyway.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
March 29, 2007 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
I kind of think your desire to join something depends on your personal circumstance at the time. Sometimes the more marginal you feel the easier it is to do extreme action. Sometimes the more marginal you feel the harder it is for you to do extreme action because you are more vulnerable to suffering from collatoral consequences (like if you get arrested at a protest and you have an hourly wage job you are totally SOL).
March 29, 2007 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Destor23 says
I think Nathan Newman's paragraph needs to parsed more closely. I'm going to try to do it, and if I'm wrong about it, I'm sure he'll correct my interpretation.
Nathan Newman Says (with my emphases added)
Amike's Interpretation:
Read Smith's essay. I think you'll like it. He's a prose-master of the first quality and others of his essays also deserve more attention.
aMike
March 29, 2007 4:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
What a very pleasant response. Thanks! To summarize, I suppose Alinsky would not object to being called a "do-gooder" himself as he joined in struggles for the commoner. It's amusing to think that someone links Alinsky to libertarianism when so many referred to him as a "commie."
March 30, 2007 4:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think any time people get into an online v. traditional organizing discussion then people are missing the point. I haven't seen any online organizer that has completely new strategies. They simply use new tools to carry on the old strategies in different ways.
I can imagine a progressive organizer in 1930 still refusing to use the telephone because he was convinced it was less personal and not enough people had them yet. The telephone completely changed the way Americans socially interact, and only a fool would refuse to use that tool today. So, why would people dismiss using the new tool of the internet which is having an equally large impact on society?
Any professional organizer who is unable or unwilling to incorporate the internet into his work is not doing his job and should be fired. It's just as foolish as someone refusing to use that new-fangled telephone technology that changed the nature of organizing so much.
Likewise, online activists must accept that using online tools alone is not enough. If you really want to make an impact you still have to pick up the phone and knock on doors.
This should never be an either/or discussion.
Will Reynolds
April 2, 2007 9:01 AM | Reply | Permalink