NEW RADICALISM
533
under "corporate liberalism" and its equally crucial absence under
fascism, one may be permitted to ask this question: assuming that the
evil has so permeated society and has accumulated so much con–
centrated power, what counterforce would be required to destroy it?
Would it not have to be a majoritarian popular movement, consist–
ing not simply of a stratum of students and the poor, but of Negroes,
the organized labor movement, the liberal middle class and other
segments of the population? Is this not a coalition of forces welded
into a movement capable of exercising power
democratically?
In the face of this need, what is the response of the new radicals?
It is to define the necessary as the unattainable (which explains why
the new radicals are not optimistic). Thus, Hentoff writes: "For the
more radical goals, such as a guaranteed annual income and a redefini–
tion of work, some new radicals do see the possibilities of a coalition.
But not yet." Then when? When sections of the middle class are hit
by the technological revolution, when the unions respond to the loss
of membership caused by automation, etc. (One wonders how the
new radicals, given their view of the Establishment's monolithic im–
pregnability and the pervasive corruption, can be confident that the
unions will respond at all or that the reaction of the middle class, left
to itself, won't be toward fascism.) In any case, until these folks are
radicalized by a deteriorating situation, there is no basis for coalition.
Coalition must occur on the terms of the new radicals because "they
tend to believe that to focus
all
one's energies on an illusory goal like
'full employment' or on such other transitionally important but ulti–
mately inadequate programs as massive public works, reduced work–
weeks and greatly expanded retraining programs is not to be radical
enough. [The italics are Hentoff's. As if anyone is focusing
all
his
energy on these goals!] But they are not especially sanguine that they
can convince others in time."
Woe for the rest of us who cannot recognize revealed truth, for
in the immortal words Hentoff attributes to Tom Hayden, "Bitter days
will pass if ever sweet ones come to be."
I submit that this arrogance is not new. It is a distillation of the
worst catastrophist varieties of sectarian leftism, and its resurrection in
the sixties leaves one speechless.
In the name of precisely what new radical program do the new
radicals abjure coalition for now?
