STEPHEN ROUSSEAS
concerning the "radicalism" of organized labor and its far from
enlightened attitude towards the Negroes, Harrington sees no alterna–
tive but to hang on to
his
only remaining hope-the unions. It would
have been the better part of valor to say that
all
was lost-that
old-style socialism had become irrelevant for the American experience.
But
this
he could not bring himself to do. And so he hopes to revitalize
the now affluent proletariat by combining them with the civil rights
movement. But I suspect he really has no great expectations on
this
score. His own analysis should prevent him from having any at
all.
Under present conditions of underemployment, any fusion of the
rank and file of labor with the civil rights movement must be dismissed
as sheer fantasy. And under conditions of full employment, the need
for such a fusion will be largely absent. All that can be said about
Harrington is that one must admire his refusal in the face of the
facts to regard himself as a walking anachronism.
Between Hentoff and Harrington, my sympathies lie with
Har–
rington. But what neither has succeeded in providing us with is some
explanation of why American liberalism has failed to respond to the
crises of our times.
American politics in the postwar era has gone through several
stages. Its major characteristic, however, has been the end-of-ideology
approach to social problems. This new kind of political philosophy
measures the present in terms of the past. It recognizes that the
problems of the thirties have been largely solved. Mass unemployment
is no longer a problem, the trade cycle in the postwar period has been
significantly dampened, the welfare state is fast coming into being,
and President Johnson's vision of the Great Society is little more than
a cleaning up of the few remaining odds and ends that have been
carried over from the New Deal.
If
we are not living in the "abundant" society we certainly have
achieved the "good" one. Ideology no longer has a political role
to
play, as Harrington seems to recognize, however ruefully. The "true"
radical has tempered
his
passion, as Harrington tells us, and is content
to take his progress a step at a time. Politics, in short, has become
boring and differences between the candidates of our two major
parties minuscule-as President Johnson has so dramatically illustrated
since
his
election.
