Socialist Action /August 2000
Nader, Labor and Socialists
By CHARLES WALKER
Once upon a time, virtually all U.S. socialists
refused to support non-working-class political candidates, whether members
of the two dominant capitalist parties or not. At that time, socialists
held that giving even the most critical support to non-working-class candidates,
parties, and electoral currents was tantamount to crossing a picket line.
Moreover, socialists believed that candidates of,
by, and for the moneyed class would betray their working-class supporters
eventually, if not at the first opportunity.
The most outstanding mass leader of the U.S. labor
movement to date, socialist Eugene V. Debs, summed up those socialists'
expectations when he said that he'd rather vote for what he wanted and not
get it, than vote for what he didn't want and get it!
At one time workingmen's parties and tickets were
relatively common, and frequently successful at the local and state levels.
The most influential of those parties was the Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota,
supported by the per capita payments of Minnesota's union members.
Now many self-described socialists have broken
with the legacy of that past, and regularly support "lesser-evil candidates."
The break with the Debsian past was led in part by the American Communist
Party during President Roosevelt's second term; and, in part, by the leadership
of the Socialist Party in the 1940s.
While the Communists' shift was part of a sharp
general change in strategy orchestrated by the Stalinist leadership of the
Soviet Union, the Socialist Party's support for non-working-class candidates
became part of a retreat from independent class politics by social democratic
parties and unions already underway by their European counterparts on the
eve of World War I.
The Labor Party
The socialists who still defend and practice the
class-struggle strategy of Debs's time are a minority within the U.S. radical
labor movement-which itself is much less numerous and influential than it
once was.
Paradoxically, their tendency grows even smaller,
despite the founding of the Labor Party by a small, but substantial segment
of the union officialdom-and also despite a significant trend in the U.S.
working-class electorate. I mean the many Americans who once went to the
polls who now simply refuse to vote, or even to register to vote.
Leftist analysts rightly say that these non-voters
aren't stupid, they simply don't see how voting is important to them. Not
that attempts aren't made to "explain" to non-voters the importance
of their vote: "A single vote could decide a election," "Many
brave boys died to protect your right to vote," "Half a loaf is
better than none."
Nevertheless, many workers, including ethnic minorities,
typically continue to confound union officials, clergy, and politicians
by their massive refusal to cast a ballot.
The founding of the Labor Party, under the banner
of "the bosses have two parties, workers should have one" might
have increased the numbers of socialists and other members of the radical
labor movement who resolutely refuse to back non-working-class parties and
candidates. But it hasn't worked that way. Perhaps in part, that's because
many of the leaders and founders of the Labor Party really don't practice
what they seem to preach.
A look at the endorsements by unions and union
leaders who back the Labor Party shows that most of them still back candidates
of the Democratic Party, a party that they rightly claim is in the hip-pocket
(the wallet pocket) of corporations and investors.
So apparently, the pressures upon even the "progressive"
sector of the labor bureaucracy to stay bound to the two-party swindle are
still greater than the pressures of one political and economic defeat after
another endured by the unions' ranks.
Those defeats and retreats have left the unions
smaller and even meeker in the face of speed-up, downsizing, and the clear
worsening of the standard of living for millions of working families. And
that has come at a time when the boss class is living high on the hog.
Unfortunately, there are socialists and labor activists
who look to the labor officialdom-or the "progressive" parts of
it-to point out which political path to follow, or rather whose tuxedoed
rear end to trail after.
Even more unfortunately, there are union activists
and radical socialists who, though sickened by the union bureaucracy's subservience
to the workers' economic and political masters, themselves encourage awakening
workers and idealistic youth to support "independent" candidates
and parties merely seeking a reform here or reform there. They illogically
see this as a step toward the unyoking of the workers' movement from the
two dominating parties of this nation's (and the earth's) chief plunderers.
Currently, Ralph Nader, the Green Party's presidential
candidate, is receiving support from radical socialists who not so long
ago (perhaps as recently as Nader's 1996 campaign) wouldn't have given Nader
a serious look.
Nader belongs to the Labor Party and the Green
Party. In fact, these days it's not unusual to run across "progressives"
who belong to those parties and others as well; all the while registered
as Democrats.
Reportedly, Nader isn't a registered voter in any
party. But he is not as opposed to the Democratic Party per se as he is
to certain Democrats.
Questioned about the chance that his candidacy
could help elect Bush in a close contest (taking votes away from Gore),
Nader says that he's more worried about Gore taking votes from him.
And he has told the press, "Since there are
very few Green Party candidates running for the House or for the Senate,
the millions of votes that we're going to get ... will more likely vote
for the Democratic candidates for the House and Senate and in that respect
help the Democrats gain control of the Congress" (Reuters, June 14).
To date, Nader hasn't differentiated himself from
the AFL-CIO's protectionist foreign trade stance, rooted in job-trustism
and business unionism. In fact, his supporters should not expect him to
expose the AFL-CIO's protectionist charade:
"You are driving along in Maine or Minnesota
or Illinois, looking in the rearview mirror and there's a big Mexican truck
bearing down on you with a driver who doesn't have to meet the same standards
in reality that U.S. drivers have to meet" (Nader quoted by the Chicago
Tribune, June 25).
Nor has Nader suggested to the AFL-CIO that the
real way to protect jobs lost due to foreign trade or due to strictly domestic
causes is to fight for a reduction in the work week without a sacrifice
of workers' standard of living.
Clearly, no union official trades on protectionism
and appeals to job-trustism more than Teamsters President James P. Hoffa.
Hoffa invited Pat Buchanan to share the rostrum with him at the Teamsters
anti-China trade bill rally in Washington, D.C. And then for good measure,
he draped a blue and gold Teamsters jacket over Buchanan's shoulders.
Weeks later, Hoffa invited Nader to speak before
the union's endorsing body, the general executive board. Afterwards Hoffa
told the press that "no one in the political arena speaks stronger
on the issues important to American working families than Ralph Nader."
The union didn't endorse Nader, but Hoffa did attempt
to place Buchanan on Nader's level. Hoffa declared that both Nader and Buchanan
deserved to take part in the presidential debates with George W. Bush and
Al Gore.
Some observers say that Hoffa and auto workers
union president Steven Yokich are just using Nader to get concessions from
the Democrats. If so, the reputedly "moralistic" Nader hasn't
objected to their ploy:
"Two major unions, the United Auto Workers
and the Teamsters, are using the third-party presidential bid of Ralph Nader,
an outspoken critic of administration trade policies, to pressure Vice President
Gore to take tougher stands on trade or face the possibility of a divided
labor movement on Election Day (Washington Post, June 22)."
"Marxists for Nader"
Unfortunately, some well-meaning labor activists
and academics who profess Marxist convictions support the Nader campaign,
and implicitly the Green Party.
These "Marxists for Nader" give two main
reasons for supporting Nader: One, they agree with Nader's limited, minimal
program; especially his opposition to the corporate domination of this nation.
And two, they do not want to be separated from Nader's supporters and their
allies in labor and academic organizations or circles.
I've got to tell you that I'm sympathetic to folks
not wanting to trash their relations with other activists. But my bigger
concern is not how Marxists explain to those activists why some Marxists
won't back Nader but how they explain at a later date why some Marxists
did support Nader.
Some Marxists strive to be the "living memory"
of the working class. To my way of thinking, nothing short of actual amnesia
should be an acceptable excuse for abandoning for even a single instance
what seems to me to be the most crucial lesson provided by history to our
class so far: The absolute need by mankind for working-class independent
political action!
Socialist Action /August 2000 |