[discuss-dan] Election from the past

[harnke@aol.com]

Hello All,


Here are some reflections on the current election and the need for a new 
party by the great American philosopher and educator John Dewey. He's writing 
in 1931, in the midst of the great depression, but the comments seem as 
relevant today.

Ben


The Need for a New Party

By John Dewey in _John Dewey: The Political Writings_ 


THE PRESENT CRISIS


There is a deep-seated reason why the common man is convinced that neither 
the Democratic nor the Republican party represents him or his interests. The 
Republican party has played the role of Providence. It has told the people 
that its leaders in alliance with big business are the guardians of that 
general prosperity which is attained under the direction of organized 
capital. It has declared that when big capitalists were made prosperous, a 
general state of welfare would seep down and be enjoyed by the masses. It was 
not for the masses to do anything; they had only to wait, hold out their 
hands and receive what the gods above would give them. The masses did not 
exactly believe this gospel, but they saw nothing that they could do- and so 
they waited. The conviction that prosperity begins above and then descends 
has been the underlying doctrine of every Republican policy since the War. 
[...]


Unfortunately for the permanent prospects of the Democratic party, its 
leaders prematurely accepted the gospel truth of the doctrine that prosperity 
descends from above. For the Democrats during the process of assuring the 
people that they would be just as "safe" as the Republicans, and in assuring 
big business- and asking for campaign contributions on that basis- that they 
would be as good and obedient boys as the Republican leaders, not only 
habituated themselves to the Republican mode of thought, but committed 
themselves to the policy of alliance with big business. [...]


There is no hope that either of the old main parties is going to change. The 
reason lies even deeper than the self-interest which binds leaders and office 
holders so closely to "business" that they can be freed only by acts of 
treachery. Their mental habits are formed in the pattern of this alliance. 
Conservatism tends to come with age, and the two parties are old. [...] 
Whatever may be the convictions of individuals within the parties, the 
parties themselves are property-minded. In the clash between property 
interests and human interests, all their habits of though and action fatally 
impel them to side with the former. They make concessions, but do not change 
the direction of their belief or behavior.


[...]


WHO MIGHT MAKE A NEW PARTY?


Discontent with the old parties does not of itself compel the formation of a 
new one. The realization that both are alike because both are servants of big 
business is a step toward the creation of new alignment of political forces. 
However, it is a step which does not necessarily lead to organized action

[...]


...Why not bore from within and reform one of the old parties? I speak as one 
who as far back as 1912 hoped for a resurrection of the Republican party, as 
one who has at times in national elections hoped for a revival within the 
Democratic party. But at last I am disillusioned; I am humiliated at the 
recollection of the length of time it has taken me to pass to something like 
political maturity. For, I submit, it is an infantile cherishing of 
illusions, a withdrawal from the realities of economic and political facts, 
to pin one's hopes and put one's trust on the possibilities of organic change 
in either of the old major parties...


Then there are the Socialist and Communist parties. Why should not political 
discontent and unrest express itself through them? Not much need be said 
about joining the Communists. As a party, they are directly governed from 
Moscow... And, aside from the fact that the Communist party does not speak 
the American idiom or think in terms relevant to the American situation, it 
is identified with a fanatical and doctrinaire inflexibility.


The Socialist party, on the other hand, has lost much of its alien 
atmosphere-once mainly German as the Communist is Russian. It has freed 
itself to a large extent from doctrinaire dogmas, though internal division 
within the party on this score has still to be taken into account. Let me 
anticipate my later discussion by saying that I think a new party will have 
to adopt many measures which are now labeled socialistic- measures which are 
discounted and condemned because of that tag. But while support for such 
measures in the concrete, when they are adapted to actual situations, will 
win support from American people, I cannot image the American people 
supporting them on the ground of Socialism, or any other sweeping ism, laid 
down in advance. The greatest handicap from which special measures favored by 
the Socialists suffer is that they are advanced by the Socialist party as 
Socialism...


...The first appeal of a new party must be to what is called the middle 
class: to professional people, including, of course, teachers, the average 
retail merchant, the fairly well-to-do householder, the struggling 
white-collar worker, including his feminine counterpart, and the farmer- even 
the farmer who has not as yet reached the ragged edge of despair. In spite of 
the disparaging tone in which "bourgeois" is spoken, this is a bourgeois 
country; and an American appeal couched in the language which the American 
people understand must start from this fact. Equality of opportunity is still 
an American ideal. The middle class is now concerned as to whether it will be 
able to maintain this ideal for itself, and it believes in realization of the 
ideal for those less fortunately situated. A new political movement should 
aim to protect and render secure the standard of living enjoyed by the middle 
class and to extend the advantages of this standard, in both its cultural and 
economic aspects, to those who do not enjoy it. This should be attended with 
whatever leveling down of the idle, luxurious and predatory group such a goal 
necessitates...


POLICIES FOR A NEW PARTY


In order to be workable, the policies of a new political movement must be 
elastic and must have unified appeal. Recovery of the agencies of the 
government by the national community for the service of the nation meets both 
conditions. It is neither rigid and doctrinaire nor so vague that it cannot 
be translated into definite legislative measures. It is not committed to any 
dogma about ultimate ideals, not to any preordained theoretical scheme as to 
be the way in which desirable social changes must be brought about. 
Negatively, there is a foe that can be located and identified. The usurpation 
of functions of government by an economic group in its own interests gives 
the opportunity for aggressive attack; and a sense of conflict and battle 
that is necessary part of any movement which enlists the imagination and the 
emotions. Much of the confusion and fatigue of tired liberals has been due to 
the fact that they felt the situation to be so complicated that they could 
not focus their attack. The present depression [Asian financial crisis] has 
made clear the incapacity of captains of industry and finance to lead the 
social host into anything but chaos, suffering and insecurity.


Mere attack without constructive counterpart is always futile in the long 
run. The recovery of the agencies of legislation, administrative and judicial 
decision to serve social ends, which the Preamble of the Constitution 
declares to be the object of government, translates itself almost 
automatically into terms of a flexible political program... While 
opportunistic in application, it will be definite and concentrated in 
purpose. It will not get lost is a dispersed inventory of scattered items of 
reform so long as it sticks to the unifying principle of the use of 
government to effect the subordination of economic forces to the maintenance 
of human justice and happiness. The unregulated play of these forces has 
brought us to our present condition...


[...]


... The people's recovery of the control of government from the usurpation by 
interests which, as I have said, reign but do not govern, in not an end in 
itself; it is a precondition for the adoption of measures and policies which 
will make economic power responsible... 


-------------------------- eGroups Sponsor -------------------------~-~>
eGroups eLerts
It's Easy. It's Fun. Best of All, it's Free!
http://click.egroups.com/1/9698/4/_/_/_/975392300/
---------------------------------------------------------------------_->

To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
discuss-dan-unsubscribe@egroups.com