Greetings Economists,
On May 7, 2008, at 9:15 AM, Jim Devine wrote:
if this proposal were instituted from above (i.e., as part of some law
decided upon in Washington DC rather than as a result of agitation by
a previously-existing "grassroots" mass movement), it might easily
create mass resentment not only against the "pointy-headed
bureaucrats" in DC but also against environmentalism.
Doyle;
The idea really is just an interesting way of considering present
conditions and what might have some impact. Some communities like
San Francisco have done something like this by closing the Bay Bridge
for repairs. The paid Holiday is a long way off. But Marx proposed a
kind of social security plan for workers long before it came into being.
Rather what Robert is saying is a link to a potent mass uniting
technique to address what we know is a car culture problem that won't
go away, and gets more pressing over time.
My picture in my mind is the Montgomery Bus Boycott. That was two
decades of effort to pull off. The thirties, a reform era like the
present Obama era starting up, laid the ground work for serious
challenges to Jim Crow.
I think what we can challenge is something like Hillarys base of
support in the culture. These workers fled by car to the suburbs to
escape the challenges they faced in the central cities. They diffused
the pressure of uniting workers in unions. The decay of the suburbs,
the force upon the culture to reverse course back inward is going to
be what the capitalist and the workers face.
Re-build the U.S workers culture - without cars as the main way of
disuniting workers - gives an opening about uniting workers by
organizational techniques based upon the prevailing need to re-build
the housing system without suburbs. One element in re-building a
class based social/political movement. But a good starting place for
considering what it takes to make a mass movement. I'm no rush for a
quick fix. But I can see us identifying potent areas of organizing
options.
Carrol writes;
The problem with any proposed "large scale social shift" is that in most
instances the proposed change is achievable only after a large scale
shift has ALREADY been achieved. The only significant large-scale shift
in my lifetime has been the elimination of Jim Crow in the South, which
was confirmed by legislation but which was actually brought about by the
massive illegal activity of a minority of the population. (I include the
northern urban riots as well as the mass civil disobedience in the
South.) Other significan social changes at the time were merely
derivative from that.
Doyle;
I think that sums up the last period of mass movement. The small
minority pushing for change modeling methods that worked during the
period. I would say about now, the Obama era is a reformist era with
unknown potential. That energy and climate crisis presents a large
scale challenge that has uniting elements in it for a culture. The
working class of the suburbs are going to be displaced. The racist
power of the old style South of Jim Crow is weakening in the face of
the culture of uniting. Just as Boston whites stopped affirmative
action as part of the Reagan era swing right, now the force of uniting
culture to solve energy and climate change offers hope of workers power.
Unity offers many avenues of change. Perhaps workers organizations
now strongly influenced by immigrants can rise from the bottom to meet
a uniting culture half way into social change?
thanks,
Doyle Saylor
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