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NAT HENTOFF
to deal with the current situation. They are for national economic
planning, for massive social spending to generate jobs, for upgrading
various social benefits, etc." But he ignores the fact that organized
labor is so intertwined with the Democratic party that it shows no
signs of being willing to fight hard enough for its program. There
is
no
indication that labor will dare risk a confrontation with the leadership
of the "consensus party."
I do
think
that as cybernation cuts further into labor's strength
and numbers more unions
will
be ready for a coalition with the
underclass. But those who advocate broad coalition
now
forget that
the groups they want to ally are moving at different speeds. In
their analysis of the need for institutional change, those involved
in action beyond civil rights (SNCC, the Northern Student Move–
ment, etc.) are much more radical than organized labor, church–
men and most white liberals. The young radicals can work with
the older groups on specific projects. But for the young to form any
strong alliance with labor as it
is
now would be to slow down markedly
the process of any real change.
Harrington and many of the younger new radicals disagree more
fundamentally about the very nature of the "unfinished revolution."
What should the goals of the new Left be? In the June-July, 1965,
Liberation,
Staughton Lynd speaks for those who, like myself, are
opposed to the coalitionism defined by Harrington and Bayard
Rustin. "The civil rights movement, so often called a revolution,"
Lynd asserts, "is thus far no more a revolution than the trade-union
movement of the 1930's. Presumably the definition of a revolution
is that the direction of society'S affairs shifts from one group to
another, and the economic foundation of political power is trans–
formed so as to make this shift permanent. A revolution in
this
sense-and not merely public works planning by an Administration
whose power rests on private ownership and lack of planning-seems
to me required both to prevent war and to satisfy the needs of the
other America."
If
Harrington's claim that "the unions are the largest, most
politically significant force for economic and social change in the
United States,"
is
true, we are condemned to stumbling meliorism
while the conditions of the poor worsen. Certainly Harrington does
not maintain that present labor leadership is committed to the kind
