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Lipset pointed out in an important piece on the concept of
neoconservatism,· in that epoch Harrington already had labeled his
liberal and socialist opponents as neoconservatives, in order to
isolate old hard-line anti-Stalinists who were still New Dealers, but
who "remained strong in their opposition to the Communists and
continued to support the war in Vietnam." These members of the
liberal community were read out of its ranks by Harrington, whose
terminology was meant to show those to his political left-New Left
students in particular- that "self-described Left social-democrats
like himself and Irving Howe" were not nonradicals, "that there was
a difference between them and right-wing hawkish social
democrats." Actually, however, as Harrington is forced to acknowl–
edge, men like Hubert Humphrey, Pat Moynihan, George Meany,
and Bayard Rustin all were supporting welfare planning, statist
and New Deal policies, and were part of what Harrington once
termed the "invisible social democracy" inherent in mainstream
trade unionism.
Harrington, however, at various points in his book, cannot
refrain from taking potshots at his former comrades, who created
their own social democratic group, Social Democrats U.S.A. Har–
rington is inaccurate in his description of the Social Democrats'
origins. His text makes it appear that after the split over support of
George McGovern, the "pro-war" right-wing opponents formed the
Social Democrats, while he and his supporters formed the Demo–
cratic Socialist Organizing Committee. Actually, Harrington split
from the already formed Social Democrats group. And contrary to
his assertion, the group-apart from a few of its members-did
not
support the war in Vietnam. It is on record as giving its support to
the Negotiations Now movement that sought to end the war. In–
deed, Harrington's attack on the Social Democrats as "pro-war" is
comparable to that made against him in the early sixties by New Left
militants who sought
to
undermine his autIiority by condemning
him for supporting the war.
Ever anxious to prove to his New Left comrades that he and
Howe "were not the staid, Cold War social democrats they imag–
ined," Harrington favored a push to the left. At one point he sar–
castically rejects the charge that he is politically motivated by
"hostility to the Social Democrats." Yet, he continually singles them
' "Neoconservatism: Myth and Reality ,"
Society,
July/August 1988, pp. 29-37 .
