568
IRVING HOWE
peculiarly sectarian mentality not to see the tremendous potentialities
of the recent UAW demand for something approaching a guaranteed
annual wage for blue-collar workers.
Simply to stop at the point where formerly rebellious groups
are "absorbed" into society is - to miss the point. For what the
young radicals fail sufficiently to see is that when a major social group
breaks into the welfare society, then - even though full justice is by
no means done - the society nevertheless undergoes an important
betterment. The United States after the "absorption" of the labor
movement is a different and, on the whole, better society than it was
before. By a certain judgment the unions have succumbed to the
system, though we should remember that only rarely had they claim–
ed to be its intransigent opponents. Yet even in their relative quies–
cence of the last few decades, the unions have performed an extremely
valuable function: they have maintained a steady pressure, more than
any other institution, in behalf of domestic social legislation which
benefits not only their own members but a much wider segment of
the population.
If -
it is a large if - the Negroes succeed in establishing them–
selves within the society to the extent that the labor unions have, there
will occur changes which can only be described as major and per–
haps revolutionary - though there will not have occurred that
"revolution" which various kinds of ideologues hope the Negroes will
enact for them. Were such victories to be won by the Negroes, there
would probably occur a settling-down to enjoy the fruits of struggle.
But if past experience is any guide, there would follow after a certain
interval a new rise in social appetites among the once-insurgent
group, so that it would continue to affect the shape of society even
if no longer through exclusively insurgent methods.
Is there, however, a built-in limit to this process of "invasion"?
Almost certainly, yes; and by habit one would say, the point where
fundamental relations of power seem threatened. But we are nowhere
near that point, a large array of struggles awaits us before reaching
it, and we cannot even be sure, certainly not as sure as we were a
few decades ago, that this point can be located precisely. The history
of the Left in the twentieth century is marked by a series of dogmatic
assertions as to what could not be done short of revolutionary up–
heaval; the actuality of history has consisted of changes won through
