NEW RADICALISM
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employment, massive public works, social investments, etc., although
you recognize that demands for this kind of program do play an
immediate, transitional role in the politics of the new radicalism.
But how does one get America to confront this new reality
?
You
say "a new politics" must elect "a greatly changed Congress," which
means you look toward a parliamentary (Congressional) transfonna–
tion. To achieve this, you argue, a coalition will indeed be necessary.
But, according to you, labor, the liberals and the religious refonners
-all
of whom would be parts of the coalition you are calling for–
are not "ready at this time to move beyond me1iorism." Finally, you
see that the tax dollars in the official anti-poverty effort will not
subsidize the poor in a revolution against the status quo.
From this grim perspective, you base the hope of the new radical–
ism on three developments. First: the young militants will go into
the slums in every part of America and help the poor find a voice.
Second: you predict that the middle and lower-middle classes might
be rendered useless by technological change and thus made receptive
to
united action with the organized poor (or to Fascism, one might
add). And third: you say that change in definitions of work may
well push the labor movement to a much more radical position. Then, a
really effective coalition could be fonned with the newly enfranchised
poor and the radicalized middle, lower-middle and working classes.
Such a coalition would allocate resources to satisfy social needs,
improve the quality of education and provide a material basis for
new definitions of work, such as that represented by the job of
teacher's aide. There would still be a planning, centralist sector, but
as
a result of changes in values and the greatly increased individual
participation in the democratic process the voluntarist and decentralist
sector would become dominant.
I would quarrel with some of your fonnulations and emphases
(of that, more in a moment) but I certainly agree with the drift of
your thought and even take pride in having helped popularize some
of these ideas during the last few years. But where, then,
is
the chasm
between the old radicalism and the new?
Except for a few sectarians, no American radicals, whether
veterans of the thirties or recruits of the sixties, believe that the
workers are, on schedule, more impoverished and more revolutionary
or that nationalization alone solves everything. But more than that:
